Happy Australia Day everybody!
But of course, the usual suspects use it as an opportunity to tell us peasants what we need:
‘Tony Hughes is Ray Martin’s nightmare: a republican firmly in favour of dumping the Queen, but not the symbol of her power that sits at the top left of the Australian flag.
Martin, the millionaire television journalist and presenter whose face is among the most recognisable in the country, reopened the debate over changing the flag on Australia Day, waving an almost identical set of reasons as those now being flown by New Zealanders who believe it is time to get rid of the Union Jack.
But Martin and other advocates of change in Australia have a huge job ahead of them.
Twenty years of opinion polling and the backlash every time a new flag is proposed show a deeply entrenched resistance to replacing the 109-year-old national standard.
Mr Hughes, a 40-year-old tree-lopper from southern New South Wales is typical of many of Martin’s opponents.
“I don’t have an issue with getting rid of the Queen because I think she doesn’t do much for us anyway,” he said. “We’re not Poms. We’ve got our own identity.”
“However, the flag is a different story. It’s what my grandfather fought under and if it’s good enough for him to fight for our country under, it’s good enough for me to be proud of.” source
