The republican flag changers are proposing a new Australian “sporting flag”. They say it is to distinguish us from other nations in sporting competitions.
This is just an excuse, and a weak one. There are a significant number of countries which have a tricolour as their flag. Many people are unable to distinguish these, and few can identify the flags.
The idea that a country would have a different flag for sporting events is bizarre. The flag changers realize that the existing flag has enormous popularity and they’d never win a vote to shred it. So they are trying to get something up, anything even what is little more than a garish beach towel as the thin edge of the wedge.
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The flag they are targeting has been with us from the year in which the Commonwealth of Australia was born. Is the flag under which Australians have served, fought and died
One of the most touching examples of the love Australians have for their flag was the way in which prisoners of war kept in appalling conditions at Changi put together Australian flags. Had they been found the penalty would have been death. And the first flag which flew over Singapore on her liberation was an Australian flag from Changi.
The hatred that the Republican flag changers have for our flag is incomprehensible and dishonours the memory of so many Australians.
This is a report by Monique Shafter on the ABC current affairs programme, 7.30, broadcast nationally on 24 January, 2013.