Apparently the Mate for Head of State campaign launch was announced on the ABC’s Radio National at about 7.45AM on Wednesday, 11 January, 2005.
I suppose that Radio National, in the interests of balance, will in future also announce ACM campaigns.
The ABC interviewed two people. One, Ann Henderson, comes from the host organization for the launch, the Sydney Institute. But she also just happens to be the deputy chairman of the diminishing republican movement.
It seems the launch is going to be an intimate affair. Not only will Ms Henderson be there with her alter ego, but her husband, Herald columnist Gerard Henderson, is to be one of the speakers.
The other person the ABC interviewed was the former chairman of the republican movement , and its campaign director for the failed 1999 referendum, Mr.Greg Barns, who remains today a major spokesman and campaigner for republicanism
Mr Barns is implacably opposed to constitutional monarchy here, anywhere and everywhere, including Denmark. He cannot understand why, and is outraged that Australians are at all interested in Princess Mary.
We revealed on 22 December, Mr Barns, recently proclaimed Australia to be no more than “a pigsty, … a backwater, a racist and inward-looking country.”
Now you might wonder what sort of a mate for a head of state Mr Barns expects to find in the pigsty he says Australia is.
In the Cane Toad Republic I mentioned that the first and probably only martyr to the republican cause in Australia seems to have been… a pig!
Anyway the launch is to be at The Museum of Sydney, and there is a story about the museum which I found hard to believe.
This museum is on the very foundations of Governor Phillip’s 1788 Government House. This is the site of Australia’s first administrative, legal, political and social centre. This is where the authority of Australia’s oldest and most enduring institution, the Crown was based.
So this is,in anyone’s terms,the oldest and probably the most important heritage site in the nation.
It is administered by the Historic Houses Trust of NSW, an instrumentality of the NSW government.
After its appointment as manager in late 1988, the Trust secretly changed the direction and name of the museum from the First Government House Museum to the vaguer Museum of Sydney.
Are you beginning to detect the slightest whiff of creeping republicanism in this? You are so right. Just read on.
In 2004, after concluding that the Trust was not at all interested, the Friends of the First Government House Site nominated the site for the National Heritage List. The site’s permanent placement on the Heritage List was announced by the Federal Minister, Senator Ian Campbell, on 25 August 2005.
So, soon after being placed on the Heritage List, the site is to be used for a republican launch whose purpose is to abolish the very institution which was first based there!
Now we all now know that the Commissars at the People’s Republic of Bondi/Waverley have forbidden the flying of the Australian Flag over that icon, the Bondi Pavilion.
But if I were to tell you that the Historic House Trust has consistently refused to allow our Australian Flag to fly over the site, I suspect that you would probably find that difficult to believe.
But that, sadly, is the case.
Not only do they not allow it to fly there on ordinary days, they won’t even allow it on, of all days, Australia Day!
Now don’t think this is out of any excessive reverence for the site – it has been used for a rock concert and a book sale. I have nothing against either rock concerts or book sales, but surely, surely, our Flag could be flown, proudly, over this heritage site, and especially when we remember the foundation of the nation.
And don’t think for one moment that other flags haven’t been seen there.While the Trust won’t allow our Flag to fly there, the museum, in partnership with Ausflag, actually launched in 1998 an exhibition there , on the site of the First Government House, for… a new flag!
In collusion with this outrage, the whole front page of the Sydney Morning Herald (or should it be the Sydney Republican Herald?) was brimming with a set of the mainly ghastly offerings for a new flag. Fortunately, at least on the Herald, the most appalling flag included in that other republican movement supported exhibition was not there. (This was of course the one which had those words emblazoned on it” F*** OFF BACK TO FAGLAND”)
And by the way, you may be interested to know when the Historic Houses Trust thought it would be appropriate to have this exhibition.
When do you think?
What would be the most inappropriate time of the year? What would be the greatest provocation to rank and file Australians?
Knowing what the elites are trying to do to our country, and their arrogance and disregard for the opinions of the rank and file Australian, it probably won’t surprise you to know it was on…… yes, the Australia Day weekend!
Now the Friends of the First Government House Site, who are not mentioned on the Museum’s website, are campaigning to have the Museum fly the flag on Australia Day.
If the museum can be used for republican launches and flag change exhibitions, why can’t they fly the Australian flag?
Let’s hope the Friends are successful in this.The Trust’s attitude is even worse than that of Waverley Council
Until next time,
David Flint