Adam Bandt insults Australians by ditching flag

Ahead of a press conference with Greens Leader Adam Bandt earlier this week, a Greens staffer moved the Australian flag out of the TV camera shot.

When asked why, Mr Bandt said Australia had ‘work to do on racism’, and that the Australian flag was ‘hurtful’ to many Indigenous Australians.

It was a classic display of white privilege and white guilt by an individual who derides Australia as racist while living high on the hog courtesy of taxes paid by hardworking Australians.

Green herbs come in many types, but Dill is the best descriptor for this one.

Hannah McGlade, a lawyer and lifelong advocate for the human rights of Aboriginal women and children, told The Australian she had known Mr Bandt since law school and that he had never shown any interest in Indigenous issues.

Well of course not. Do you know how hard it is to access an ethically sourced soy latte outside the university campus?

Mr Bandt’s supposed plan to unite the country is divide, divide, divide … and then divide again.

He told The Australian:

‘For many people, this flag represents dispossession and the lingering pains of colonisation. Through treaty with First Nations’ people and by moving to a republic, we can have a flag that represents all of us.’

I’m not sure I can conceive of a flag that represents all of us and Mr Bandt, but I digress.

Mr Bandt plans on convincing the majority of Australians to vote for his pet reconciliation projects by insulting them, insulting their history, and insulting their family members who died fighting under the Australian flag.

The flag was good enough for people to die for – at Anzac Cove, Kokoda, in Malaysia, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and in many other places, but it’s not good enough for Mr Bandt to stand beside.

It’s important to note that while the Australian parliamentarian is offended by the Australian flag, he has no issue with the status and salary and perks provided him by the Australian people.

Perhaps he felt he needed to double down on the zealotry in some symbolic but pointless form to ensure his recent olive branch to Labor on climate policy wasn’t misconstrued by his constituency as a shift towards reason. 

Typically, the Greens announce ridiculous policies that are completely uncosted and/or totally unaffordable, safe in the knowledge that they will never win enough votes to have to implement them. 

So it’s not at all surprising that Mr Bandt’s moving of the flag was the only newsworthy thing to come out of his media conference. 

While we are talking about the Greens, let me give you a little tip that has worked well for me over the years. I work on the principle that the Greens are wrong on every issue conceivable. It saves time.

Anyway, even more worrying than Mr Bandt’s refusal to stand in front of an Australian flag is the growing constituency in Australia who, judging by the recent federal election results, seem to agree with his self-loathing.

Young people are not being taught an accurate view of our nation’s history – that the good far outweighs the bad.

And so, sadly, I fear you can count on more of this nonsense in the future.

You can follow James on Twitter. You can order his new book Notes from Woketopia here.

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