In a speech to the Samuel Griffith Society in 1996, announcing the Howard administration's intention to introduce the Flags Amendment Bill, Minister for Administrative Services, David Jull said:

"...no politician would seek a plebiscite unless it was clear the public was in favour of change, and had shown support for an alternative design."

Only when these two conditions are met will a National Flag Poll be held.

At present there are too many descendants of war veterans in the electorate and a significant majority of Australians favor no change.

As the Foundation of Australia took place without the consent of the inhabitants of the time being, the view has been advanced there is the need to re-negotiate the nation as a "reconciled republic". However it is the case that modern aboriginal people have generally approved of the changes that have occured since British settlement by marrying the heirs and successors of the colonial population and more recent arrivals and their progeny and integrating in large numbers.

The proportion of aboriginal adults married (de facto or de jure) to non-aboriginal spouses was 69% according to the 2001 census, up from 64% in 1996, 51% in 1991 and 46% in 1986. The census figures show there were more intermixed aboriginal couples in capital cities: 87% in 2001 compared to 60% in rural and regional Australia.

When Captain Phillip stepped ashore at Sydney Cove, most authorities place the aboriginal population of Australia at between 250,000-300,000. The last accurate census on the number of full blooded aborigines was in 1961; today the number may be no more than 30,000 out of a total "indigenous" population of 517,200.

In 1996 the census showed almost 72% of aborigines practiced some form of Christianity. Further data on aboriginal assimilation was recorded in the 2006 census, which showed 31% of aborigines lived in major cities and another 45% in or close to rural towns, a major increase compared with 46% living in urban areas in 1971. There was been a move away from communal type living with one in three aborigines owining their own homes. Aboriginal languages, of which there are several hundred (many extinct or nearly so), are spoken by 12% of the Aboriginal population (aged 5 years and over), of whom 78% are also proficient English speakers.

Based on current trends, it is more likely than not that the dysgenic traits carried by aboriginal people and nature will decide the matter and remove this argument for change in the fullness of time.

None of these truths are likely to have any impact on the plans of self appointed aboriginal leaders and their white sympathisers, or even be heard. The declaration of a republic could place Australia on a slippery slope that leads to retrograde steps such as the reception of customary law, re-introduction of separate elected representation, reserved seats in parliament, constitutional recognition and a Bill of Aboriginal Rights, a treaty and sovereign aboriginal states carved out of Australian territory. However, the fact that turnout for elections to the former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission was typically around 20% of eligible voters, and that there is no national non-funded aboriginal voice, points to there being no such thing as a collective aboriginal identity and suggests the artificial nature of the separatist agenda, and it would seem these fantasies are and will not be supported by most common aboriginal people themselves.

All that remains for radical aboriginal rights activists to do is to reconcile themselves with the fact their future lies not in statements of separateness but as an ethnic minority with equal citizenship subject to one law in a united Australian Federation.

Multiracial though Australians may be, British and Irish culture are well preserved in our society within ongoing political and social institutions, pillars of the shared national identity such as: the parliamentary system of government under the crown, the common law, and the education system. The national language of Australia is English. Many programs on Australian television are sourced from British broadcasters such as the BBC and ITV, such as the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, which has become a tradition each New Year.

Australia was never a colony in the same way as, say, India was, where there was a 3,000 year old culture there before the British came and stayed for 3 hundred years. When they left the Indians kept the parliamentary system and the law as the basis for a modern nation, rather than go back to being a bunch of competing princedoms. But otherwise the Indian culture continued. Australia on the other hand is in many, many ways a piece of the mother country set down some place else. When independence came we could hardly revert back to the aboriginal way of life and language because it was never ours to begin with.

The Union Jack reminds all Australians that because European civilisation came for better, worse or indifferent in less than 200 years there was a modern, western nation established here because of this fact.

Patriotic organisations involved in promoting Australian National Flag Day in schools report our young people are quite protective of the flag these days, with indications being that the baby boomers who came of age around the time of the Vietnam War are being replaced with a younger generation with an overall more conservative bent.

It is only when supporters of change display their preference by the 1000s will a groundswell of opinion sufficient for a government to take steps in parliament towards giving the Australian people their say exist.

New flag flying is almost nothing for reasons such as: sensational, galvanising alternatives do not exist, and what goes against one being found is that the symbols that resonate with Australians do not lend themselves to being used as devices on a flag; some of the garish designs that have been put forward, with 5 or more colours and intricacies like aboriginal dot paintings, are prohibitively expensive to manufacture; and that those who favour change are not the sort of people who would display a flag under any circumstances in any event.

On 24 March 1998, rules stipulating the process for reviewing the design of the national flag received Royal Assent; to replace the flag entirely, the existing flag and one or more choices must be put to the electorate – assuming the act is not amended by parliament through the normal processes. There is a weighty body of legal opinion to suggest sections 3(2) & (3) of the Flags Act 1953 (Cth) are unconstitutional and open to being rendered inoperable by a court.

Joining states such as France, Iraq and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia which have made their national flags part of the constitution would put beyond all doubt that the future of the flag that Australia has grown up under and the flag that has been associated with all of her many achievements on the international scene lies in the hands of the people it represents.

The price of any further votes on republicanism must be constitutional recognition of the national language, holiday and flag as part of the proposed amendment, or as a simultaneous question.

 

PROPOSED REFERENDUM QUESTION:

To approve the changes to the Constitution proposed in the Constitution Amendment (National Language, Holiday and Flag) Constitutional Amendment Bill, to declare English to be the national language, 26 January in each year to be Australia Day and a certain flag to be the Australian National Flag.


Constitution Amendment (National Language, Holiday and Flag) Constitutional Amendment Bill, 2009

An Act to amend the Constitution to declare English to be the national language, 26 January in each year to be Australia Day and a certain flag to be the Australian National Flag.


1. The short title of this Act is the National Language, Holiday and Flag Act, 2009

2. The Constitution is amended by the insertion of section 127, 127A and 127B as set out below:


Section 127 - Status of English Language

English is the national language of Australia.


Section 127A - National Holiday

26 January in each year shall be Australia Day, being the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788.


Section 127B - Australian National Flag

A blue flag with the Union Jack occupying the upper hoist, a large white Commonwealth Star in the centre of the lower hoist and 5 white stars representing the Southern Cross constellation in the fly half.

 

BACKGROUND BRIEFING

In Australia, English is the national language only in an informal sense, by numbers and by historical and contemporary association. The Australian Constitution does not explicitly define the status of the English language, although the Constitution is written in English, as is all Commonwealth legislation.

Pakistan and Finland are among the nations which have a national language clause in the law which describes how the government operates. A number of US states have passed English language amendments to their constitutions including article 3 section 6 of the California Constitution which provides: "English is the common language of the people of the United States of America and the State of California."

Australia Day is an official public holiday in every state and territory of Australia, and is marked by the Order of Australia and Australian of the Year awards, along with an address from the Prime Minister. Celebrated annually on January 26th, the day commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788, and the Foundation of Australia.

Although it was not known as Australia Day until over a century later, being previously known as Anniversary Day and Foundation Day, records of celebrations on January 26th date back to 1808, with Governor Lachlan Macquarie having held the first official celebration of the formation of New South Wales in 1818.

In 1988, the celebration of Australian Bicentenary was organised on a large scale, with many significant events taking place in all major cities. Over 2.5 million people attended the Australia Day celebrations in Sydney which included street parties, concerts, including performances on the steps and forecourt of the Sydney Opera House and at many other public venues, art and literary competitions, historic re-enactments, and the opening of the Powerhouse Museum at its new location. A re-enactment of the arrival of the First Fleet took place in Sydney Harbour, with ships that had sailed from Portsmouth a year earlier taking part.

Since 1988 participation in Australia Day has increased and in 1994 all States and Territories began to celebrate a unified public holiday on the actual day for the first time. In 2004, an estimated 7.5 million people attended Australia Day celebrations and functions across the country, and a Newspoll that asked if the date of Australia Day should be moved to one that is not associated with European settlement, found 79 per cent of respondents favoured no change, 15 per cent favoured change and 6 per cent were uncommitted.

The advent of a flag for the newly federated Australian nation was at the Royal Exhibition Buildings on 3 September 1901, when the names of the joint winners of the Australian government's "federal flag design competition" were announced by Hersey, Countess of Hopetoun (the wife of the Governor-General, the 7th Earl of Hopetoun); upon her entrance, a huge blue flag with a Southern Cross, a six pointed star and a Union Jack thereon was run up to the top of the flagstaff on the dome, streaming out into the heavy south-westerly breeze - it was, according to the Melbourne Age, "a brave and inspiring" sight.

A simplified version of the competition-winning design was officially approved as the Flag of Australia by King Edward VII in 1902.

The "Australian Blue Ensign" as it was then known replaced the Union Flag at the Olympic Games at St Louis in 1904.

In the same year, due to lobbying by Senator Richard Crouch, it had the same status as the Union Flag in the UK, when the House of Representatives proclaimed that the Blue Ensign "should be flown upon all forts, vessels, saluting places and public buildings of the Commonwealth upon all occasions when flags are used".

In 1908 the Blue Ensign replaced the Union Flag at all military establishments. From 1911 it was the saluting flag of the Australian army at all reviews and ceremonial parades.

The Blue Ensign formally replaced the Union Flag as the "Australian National Flag" when Elizabeth II gave royal assent to the Flags Act 1953 (Cth) on 14 April 1954. The Act confers statutory powers on the Governor-General to appoint 'flags and ensigns of Australia' and authorise warrants and make rules as to use of flags. Section 8 ensures that the 'right or privilege' of a person to fly the Union Jack is not affected by the Act.

South Australia chose to continue with the Union Flag as National flag until 1956, when schools were given the option of using either the Union or Australian flags.

Among the objections to the Flags Amendment Act 1998 is that it would require a costly plebiscite should there be a desire to bring the Commonwealth Star on the Australian National Flag into line with any future changes in membership of the Australian Federation.

The proposed National Holiday, Language and Flag Bill would see a description of the Australian National Flag incorporated into the Constitution Act; the Flags Act 1953 (Cth), sans sections 2(2) and (3), would remain on the statute books, to provide the construction sheet of the design spelled out in terms of its essential elements in the law that describes how the government operates. The device occupying the lower hoist is styled a "large white Commonwealth Star", meaning the shape of what is now a well known piece of Australian Heraldry in its own right could, therefore, be altered by the agreement of both houses of the federal parliament alone, depending on the political situation. The only previous change to the Commonwealth Star as it appears on the Australian National Flag was, in 1908, introduced by the stroke of a pen.

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