January 26, 2017
Ex-MP – and former Kingaroy farmer – Ian Macfarlane has surprised his old Coalition colleagues with a suggestion that Australia Day be moved from January 26.
Mr Macfarlane told ABC reporter Julia Holman he was “no bleeding heart” – and he had only come to his new ideas recently – but he thought the date should be changed so that everyone, including Indigenous Australians, could celebrate together.
“We need to concentrate on the really important issues of Indigenous health and welfare. We need to make sure that we approach that as one united voice,” Mr Macfarlane said.
“It’s issues coming up on the periphery that are causing differences in opinion and dividing Australia. It is not the sort of thing you want when you’re trying to address an issue.
“That and the offence that Australia Day causes to the original inhabitants of this land because it is the day the dispossession of their land began, is more than enough reason to move it to a date where all Australians can celebrate as Australians and be proud of what they’re doing.”
Mr Macfarlane said he had started to think about his forebears and the way he would feel in England if he had to celebrate “United Kingdom Day” on the anniversary of the Battle of Culloden, the infamous battle between English troops and Highland clans in 1746.
“My mother’s forebears were cut in half by English grapeshot and then hunted down and murdered along with their wives and children,” Mr Macfarlane said.
He also questioned how he would feel if the anniversary of the Viking invasion of Arrochar, in Scotland – where his father’s family is from – was celebrated.
“I thought this (January 26) really isn’t something we can continue with,” he said.
Mr Macfarlane said the issue wasn’t one that would go away, which was the reason he had come out publicly.
He suggested an alternative date could be March 1, the anniversary of the day in 1901 when the new Commonwealth of Australia began functioning as one nation under one government.
“Let the debate begin,” Mr Macfarlane concluded.
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Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce was scathing about any suggestions to change the day.
Speaking to Chris Smith on radio station 2GB, Mr Joyce said suggestions to change Australia Day were “political correctness gone mad”.
He said if people didn’t like it, they should go to work, “do something else” or find another day “and celebrate it by yourself”.
“Don’t start your weeping and gnashing of teeth around me about the terrible evils we have done … providing a nation with democracy, where there’s free education, basically free health, we’re well defended, where we basically look after the poor to the best of our ability, that has created a culture where we don’t see some of the craziness we see in other parts of the world,” he said.
He said he was sick of people who “every time there was something on wanted you to feel guilty about it”.
Mr Joyce said they were “miserable gutted people”.
“I wish they would crawl under a rock and hide for a little bit,” he said.
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