Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

2024 will see a 2,000% increase in the number of councils boycotting Australia Day citizenship ceremonies. Albo is partly to blame, but ugly racial politics more so.

Every January 26, hundreds of councils across the nation host Australia Day citizenship ceremonies for the tens of thousands of migrants who choose to call Australia home each year.

But as 2024 kicks off, it has been revealed that dozens of councils have decided to play divisive political games by cancelling these ceremonies, stripping new citizens of the chance to celebrate the conferral of their long-awaited Aussie identity on the national holiday.

The Saturday Herald Sun has reported that at least 81 councils nationwide plan to scrap the time-honoured tradition this year, up from just four in 2023 — an almost 2,000% increase.

The list of councils boycotting the popular ceremony include 22 from Victoria, 19 in NSW, 11 in Western Australia and 10 from Queensland. South Australia and Tasmania each have seven councils rebelling and the Northern Territory two.

Sins That Can Never Be Forgiven

It goes without saying that the motive of these recalcitrant councils is nakedly political — aimed at problematising a holiday that was almost universally celebrated before the rising tide of wokeness reached Australia’s shores.

In the words of self-styled “progressive” Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore, whose council was one of the four to boycott the tradition last year, January 26 is “Invasion Day”.

“The City of Sydney strongly supports changing the date of Australia’s national day to one that can be fully embraced and celebrated by all Australians,” she recently told The Sunday Telegraph.

“Advocating for a change of date won’t resolve the devastating and far-reaching impacts of colonisation but it does provide a platform for an ongoing and honest conversation.”

A conversation that will never end, in other words, about historical sins that can never be forgiven.

The Coalition’s Promise to Reinstate the Mandate

Blame for the latest assault on Australia Day has by-and-large been apportioned to the Albanese government.

The Prime Minister originally vowed “no changes” to the national public holiday, but more recently, his government scrapped a Morrison-era rule requiring councils to hold Australia Day citizenship ceremonies.

“Why wouldn’t you allow the most precious ceremony for Australians who want to become citizens of this country to be able to do it on our national day?” Shadow Immigration Minister Dan Tehan told Sky News.

“It is the Albanese Labor government undermining our national day. We warned that this would happen, and it’s exactly what is happening.”

Mr Tehan also promised that the Coalition will reimpose the mandate on councils if it wins the next election.

Accusations against the Labor government are warranted, at least in part. But Albo’s backflip does not explain the sudden on-rush of councils trying to scramble to the top of the woke heap.

After all, only four councils — three in Melbourne and the City of Sydney — chose to boycott the celebration when the option was first made available to them.

The Grubby Goal of Race Politics

A reason with more explanatory power is the growing popularity of race politics and the related ‘decolonisation’ movement.

These radical ideas — touted by Clover Moore and her ilk — have been imported wholesale from the United States of America, where Western Marxists have used them with great effect to divide American society along racial lines by fomenting grievance among minority groups.

Race politics promises to heal and unite, when in fact its true purpose is to stoke division and discontentment, calling the “oppressed” to depose their alleged “oppressors”.

The final goal of the neo-Marxist project is the overthrow of the Western liberal order and its Christian-inspired values — a revolution that can only take place if enough belligerents are summoned to the cause.

With every major institution now cheering for the revolutionary cause, anyone who draws attention to these plain facts will swiftly be accused of rabble-rousing or hawking conspiracy theories.

Put simply, those causing division are immune from criticism, while the rest of us are in trouble for noticing.

Australia Day is Unity Day

The good news is that most Australians repudiate such a cynical way of viewing their compatriots — a conclusion we can safely draw from the historic defeat of the divisive Voice referendum.

Late last year, more than 60 per cent of Australians sent the message to Canberra that reducing people to their physical attributes and rewarding or punishing them accordingly is no way to govern a nation.

It was a heartening affirmation of the Christian teaching that we should regard our fellow human travellers as people made in God’s image as one-of-a-kind individuals, rather than mere avatars of a political cause.

Now, we must make the same case for our national holiday. Australia Day should not be treated as a political hot potato, nor should the many modern myths about its history be believed.

While terrible injustices were committed against Aboriginal people by British colonisers, the transformation of Australia first into a British colony and then into a Federation ultimately brought unparalleled good for Indigenous Australians.

As Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price so eloquently replied when asked if colonisation still impacts Indigenous people, “A positive impact? Absolutely. I mean, now we’ve got running water, we’ve got readily available food.”

January 26 is significant not merely because it was the day in 1788 that Australia was proclaimed a British colony — but because it was the day in 1949 that the Nationality and Citizenship Act came into effect, conferring Australian citizenship on all of us, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike.

What the race hustlers and decolonisers will never admit to is that, inspired by Christianity, Western institutions have been uniquely successful at protecting in both law and practice the dignity and equality of Indigenous people.

It is a message we must keep repeating until every council lays down its arms and acknowledges that Australia Day is not Invasion Day — it’s Unity Day, and something we can all celebrate.

___

Image via the City of Burnside.