Australia is getting meaner – Michael West

It wasn’t a happy Australia Day Michael Pascoe. Two surveys show him that we are becoming more ruthless, less self-confident, less hospitable, less Australian.

There was a lot of depressing news over the long weekend; So much so that you may have missed the opinion poll that shows Australians are getting worse.

SMAge reported ($) The Resolve poll found 68 per cent of Australians support January 26 as the date for Australia Day; this was up from 56 percent shortly after the Voice referendum two years ago and just 47 percent three years ago.

This trend since Albanese’s disastrous Voice fiasco has reversed a steady decline in support for January 26 as older monarchists die and the proportion of young people rises.

Perhaps the kindest comment would be that, with so much bad stuff going on and optimism waning, some people are fed up with the annual culture war and want it to end, a bunch of “oh shit, another lost cause, leave it on January 26, move on, such a shame for black men.”

Today is the date

Perhaps the survey was skewed by the fact that this year January 26th falls on the last Monday in January, our mid-summer bank holiday.

It was, of course, skewed by the question: “If we are going to have a national day, what is your preference for the date of Australia Day?”

I wonder if the outcome would be slightly different if people were asked: “If we always had the public summer holiday on the last Monday in January, would it be okay to call another date Australia Day?”

With these thoughts in mind, and if it were just an SMAge poll, I wouldn’t bother spending the time writing this, but a tendency to care less about offending a significant group of Australians and remain ignorant about history has come at the top of several polls showing rising support for One Nation.

Hanson’s Trump-style rise

Polls claim that around 20 per cent of Australians would give what might more accurately be called One Hanson their first choice. It’s truly depressing that one in five of us wants to give power to such a shady and Trumpian union.

A Hanson emerged, first attacking indigenous Australians, then Asians and now Muslims. He doesn’t even bother to keep quiet about his antisemitic and Islamophobic whistle.

Like Trump, One Hanson is the party of fossil fuel climate deniers.

Like Trump, One Hanson tries to blame immigrants for all the problems, and he pokes and winks at brown immigrants in this regard.

This even veers into the realm of mad Robert F. Kennedy’s medical science skepticism.

And remember, One Hanson is so mired in gun psychosis that he tried to get money from America’s National Rifle Association.

I can’t imagine how any self-respecting person would want to embrace the MAGA craze when the Trump Administration is now murdering its own citizens on camera and lying about it, but that’s what Gina Rinehart’s little friend Pauline does, right down to partying with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

The underlying sentiment of One Hanson is one of mean-spiritedness, narrow-mindedness and a lack of confidence in Australia’s ability to accept, learn and grow.

A platform backed by the Murdoch empire

and shock jocks, fellow travelers who offer simple answers to complex problems. I like to think that Australians’ healthy skepticism has largely protected us from power-hungry snake oil peddlers, but that malevolence seems to be taking root even as the US demonstrates the evil that comes from it.

The dysfunctional Liberal and National Parties and the timid Labor Party do not help by failing to offer attractive alternatives. An era of minimal bad political choices opens up space for populist treachery.

Millennials’ reaction?

Moreover, SMAge told me that even young people aged 18 to 34 are worse off on January 26, with 55 per cent of them wanting to continue calling that date Australia Day.

I’ve written about history nonsense a few times over the years, most recently here two years ago. Click here (https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/2021/01/22/fourth-monday-of-january-michael-pascoe ) because I think the arguments remain solid, with one exception, thanks to a little more focus on its history.

What actually happened on January 26, 1788, was that the British prison camp commander, Governor Phillip, raised the Union Jack and claimed this land on behalf of Britain. How stupid do we have to be to want “Australia Day” to commemorate the seizure of our land by another country?

We definitely need a holiday to put aside the summer holidays, which is the last Monday in January. Call it Midsummer Day or High Summer Holiday.

The birth of a nation is the obvious choice

What is called Australia Day should logically celebrate Australia’s birthday (January 1, 1901). We had no nation until then.

Of course, it’s a public holiday anyway. That’s okay, we’ve got Midsummer’s Day to make up for it.

Of course, this was common with a hangover. It’s a very Australian experience.

And all that money we’ll be blowing in the first minutes of January 1 will be less a date spinning around on the calendar and more a bolder, less brutal Australian celebration of our national birthday candles.

Before I plagiarize myself again, the celebration of our nation should be a matter of unity. There’s no way the date could be Invasion Day/Survival Day for most of us and a third of us wouldn’t support it.

We are better than this. Or we used to be.

Are the “Four Pillars” of Australia Day well-established?

Michael Pascoe is an independent journalist and commentator with five decades of experience in print, television and online journalism here and abroad. His book, Summertime of Our Dreams, was published by Ultimo Press.