History
Change the Flag!
IN AN unprecedented show of strength and purpose, more than a dozen Australians of the Year dating back to the 1960s have declared their support for a new national flag. The present design causes confusion overseas and embarrassment at home, said Patrick McGorry, the 2010 award winner.
”It’s time Australia grew up. Right now, it’s a bit like a slowly maturing, Generation Y adolescent, a 27-year-old who just won’t leave home,” he said yesterday, calling on the nation to move into ”independent adulthood”.
Professor McGorry, a mental health expert, who believes a new flag is now achievable on the way to the greater prize of a republic, is one of 15 to have signed a statement calling for change. Others include the Clean Up campaigner Ian Kiernan, swimmers Dawn Fraser and Shane Gould, and scientists Ian Frazer, Gustav Nossal and Tim Flannery.
Ausflag, which drafted the statement, believes it can secure support from other award recipients. It is understood only a few of those approached withheld support. ”This is a major breakthrough, backed by some of the nation’s most respected people,” said Harold Scruby, who founded Ausflag in 1981.
Timed to coincide with the usual Australia Day debate on national identity, the statement says the present flag ”highlights and promotes the flag of another nation”, Britain.
”We must boldly take the next step and define ourselves confidently and distinctly before the world. Our new flag must be unambiguously and inclusively Australian, representing all of us equally.”
The proposal, which comes after several unsuccessful moves to replace the flag, calls on Parliament to produce a design which, ”like our national anthem, can be put to a plebiscite of the Australian people”.
Supporters concede that, like devising an acceptable model for a republic, designing a new flag will not be easy.
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Help others, Australian of the Year urges, HERE
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