Flagging Australia

Police have arrested two women and a man over the alleged stealing of a flag from Newtown RSL club on the eve of Australia Day.

In an excited media release, police say the three, each aged 27, were from Darlington and Waverley.  They claim one of the three scaled a steel fence around the RSL, then a wall, climbed onto a bin, then a porch and used chicken shears to get the flag.

The flag has been returned to the RSL while the three have been bailed to appear at Newtown Court on February 16.

Although little can be said about the three alleged flag-heisters as legal proceedings are ongoing, previous attempts to attack the sacred icons of nationalism have led to extreme responses.

While the PM Kevin Rudd told the media that Australia Day was not a day for politics, his nephew, Van Rudd, thought otherwise.  He and fellow activist Sam King dressed up in Ku Klux Klan white hoods – a reference to an Indian cartoon which suggested that Australian police appeared like Klansman while saying that there was no evidence of racist attacks on Indian students.  Van Rudd and Sam King held signs saying “No racist attacks on Indians” and “Let the refugees in” at another Australian icon, the Australian Tennis Open.  Both have been fined and are considering an appeal.

There is a history of controversy about the flag. In 2006, an art work consisting of a partially burnt Australian flag was displayed outside the Trocadero Art Space in Melbourne.  Entitled Proudly unAustralian, the work, by Azlan McLennan, was confiscated by a local police officer who did a bit of climbing over private property to seize the work.

This was done, according to police, following a number of complaints from the public, and so they could “consider” whether any crime had been committed.

Of course, partially burning an Australian flag is not against the law, despite earlier attempts in 2006 to make it an offence.  Federal MP Bronwyn Bishop introduced a private member’s Bill at the time to make it an offence punishable by an $11,000 fine to engage in “burning, mutilating or otherwise destroying“ the flag.  The Bill failed.

The rush of blood to the head of conservatives led at the time to the Australian newspaper referring to flag-burning as treasonous, while the late shock-jock Stan Zemanek made personal attacks on several flag-burning activists.

Flag-burning hysteria reached its peak when the Resistance organisation made an Australian flag-burning kit for distribution at university campuses. Consisting of a match and a small flag (the type found on cakes or on cocktails) the kit was attacked by MP Bruce Scott, who said the burning of a flag – even the cocktail variety – was tantamount to treason.

Speaking to the Hub from her Chippendale office, Brianna Pike, the main activist behind the cocktail Flag burning campaign, was unrepentant.

“It was just after the Cronulla riots and after a decade of the Howard government,” Pike said.

“Those of us in Resistance were feeling really frustrated about the way that the Australian flag has been used since its conception to justify racism. We got to thinking about a way that we could make our voices heard on the issues of the anti-terror laws, wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, the treatment of asylum seekers and of the rights of Indigenous people. It felt really strange – it still feels really strange – that in a land that has such a rich Aboriginal history and such a multicultural identity, ‘white pride’ would be so prevalent. We wanted to take a stand, so we produced the kits. We didn’t expect the huge media furore that it would create.  The Nationals MP Bruce Scott said that we should be sent to re-education camps…

“However, I feel really proud to have been part of that action, I think while we were condemned by a section of society, we did get a huge amount of support and there was a massive public debate about what the Australian flag represents at a time when the mainstream media was mainly spouting the ideas of Howard.”

Whatever the outcome of the trial of the three alleged flag-stealers in Newtown, the controversy over the Australian flag will continue.

– By Dale Mills