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Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan’s Pride March appearance sparks debate over political priorities, as critics contrast enthusiastic support for LGBTQ events with the quiet disappearance of Melbourne’s Australia Day parade.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan marched through the streets of Melbourne on Sunday, waving a rainbow flag and calling out “Happy Pride” to anyone who would listen.

Which was quite the feat.

Waving a flag, projecting cheer and avoiding Melbourne potholes requires the kind of hand-eye coordination usually reserved for fighter pilots.

Here’s what I find curious.

While the Premier happily marched with a gay flag on Sunday, there was no State-supported street parade with Australian flags Monday a week ago.

What Represents “the Best of Victoria”?

In Victoria, you see, a gay street march is not merely permitted, it’s celebrated. It’s elevated. It is described, without irony, as representing the very best of the state.

That’s not me editorialising. Those are the Premier’s own words. Speaking as she paraded with a rainbow flag, she said:

Today is amazing. And let’s remember, this is what Victoria is. This is what represents the best of this amazing state. Happy pride.

THIS is what Victoria is?

Victoria isn’t its history. Or its democratic institutions.

Victoria isn’t its civic inheritance passed down by people who built things, defended things, and believed that nations were worth sustaining.

Nope. Victoria, apparently, is a march. A worldview. A set of approved flags. A moral orthodoxy enforced by applause and enforced silence.

Meanwhile…

… Melbourne’s annual Australia Day street parade — the one involving the national flag, the national story, and the national holiday — was cancelled during Covid and never reinstated.

Why? Well, as a spokesman for the Premier explained at the time:

“We recognise that January 26 means different things to different people.”

Right.

So Melbournians can’t have an official Australia Day parade because there’s disagreement over the date, but the Premier will march at a gay parade because, apparently, there’s no disagreement over the LGBTQ worldview at all.

Competing Visions of Public Values

This is the late-stage Western model in miniature: where anything connected to the nation is “complex”, “contested”, and best handled by cancellation… while anything connected to identity politics is “incredible”, and “important”, and deserving of an annual ritual…

And just in case there was any doubt about where the Premier’s priorities lie, she helpfully spells it out herself.

It’s so incredible to be walking as part of a Pride March and it’s so damn important that we do this every year and say very clearly that every day we’ll stand and fight for our queer community in Victoria.

“So damn important” that we do this every year. A gay parade.

The State’s annual Australia Day march? Too divisive. Too fraught. Too risky.

But a Pride March? Non-negotiable. Annual. Sacred.

I guess you fight for what you love.

And you quietly retire what you no longer believe in.

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Republished with thanks to The James Macpherson Report. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.