Researchers find flag-wavers “tend to express more racist attitudes than others”:
UWA sociologist and anthropologist Professor Farida Fozdar and a team of assistants surveyed 513 people at last year’s Australia Day fireworks on Perth’s Swan River foreshore. ¶ One in five said they had attached flags to their cars to celebrate Australia Day. ¶ Professor Fozdar said 43 per cent of those with car flags said they believed the now-abandoned White Australia Policy had saved Australia from many problems experienced by other countries, while only 25 per cent without flags agreed. ¶ (Non-Europeans were barred from migrating to Australia until after World War II, when immigration restrictions began to ease.) ¶ A total of 56 per cent of people with car flags feared their culture and its most important values were in danger, compared with 34 per cent of non-flaggers. ¶ And 35 per cent of flaggers felt that people had to be born in Australia to be truly Australian, while 23 per cent believed that true Australians had to be Christian, compared with 22 per cent and 18 per cent respectively for non-flaggers.
Henry Reynolds on the history of the Australian flag—or rather, the British blue ensign:
It is true that the flag was chosen following a national competition in 1901. But the competition was a British, not an Australian idea. And it was to choose, not a national flag as such, but an ensign to be flown on ships. It was for this reason that the two ensigns could not be formally adopted until they had been approved by the admiralty. And it was clear at the time that the only possible design for such an ensign was one that carried the union flag in the quadrant and a local symbol on the fly, or “defacing the fly” in the language of flags. With its two ensigns Australia joined the fifty or so other British Colonies that had blue or red ensigns defaced with a local symbol. In other words, it was one of the least original flags in the world. But it was the only type of flag that Australia was permitted to have. The Britishness of the flag, apparent to everyone in 1901, was re-emphasised in 1954 with the passage of the flag act, which for the first time declared the blue ensign to be Australia’s national flag. But in doing so the preamble of the act declared that the Australian flag was the British blue ensign. And if it was the British blue ensign then it must still be so. No other interpretation seems possible. It is, therefore, a very odd symbol to be carried about and worn by true blue patriots who demand you love it or leave.