January 25, 2024
It is a great honour to be here this evening to propose the toast to Australia.
As I say at every citizenship ceremony that I have the honour to address, I have the great fortune to be born an Australian.
It did not require any determined effort on my behalf to have the privilege of Australian citizenship.
But it says something very good about the country that we have built together that so many people from all around the world aspire to be Australian, and go to great lengths to make their home here.
We have built a modern, prosperous, tolerant, pluralistic and free democracy that remains a magnet for people fleeing tyranny and poverty around the world.
Despite an inauspicious start for the convicts who were transported here against their will to an unknown land, we formed a new nation that by the 1870s economists believe was the richest country in the world.
We then achieved nationhood without revolution or civil war, driven instead by a determined and peaceful political campaign from colonies of the British Empire that were forming their own unique sense of Australian identity.
The great liberal historian David Kemp called it the liberal project.
As David documents in the first book in his brilliant series on Australian history, it is in part an accident of history that we were settled by the British at a moment when liberal ideas were exploding.
The Australian settlement followed the American revolution, and occurred at a time when people like William Wilberforce were waging an ultimately successful campaign to abolish slavery in the empire.
While we are not a perfect nation and we do not have a faultless history, what we have today and the progress we have made is worthy of celebration.
It is a pleasure to be among those who I know wholeheartedly agree.
I recognise that we are doing so at a moment when it is increasingly seen as unfashionable to celebrate our nation on any day, and particularly on 26 January.
From attempted corporate cancellation, snubs from elite sporting codes, open contempt from our national broadcaster and rallies that denigrate our country and its history, you would be forgiven for thinking we won’t be celebrating Australia Day at all sometime soon.
But we should comfort ourselves that actually, we are not alone.
Polling conducted by the Institute of Public Affairs for almost a decade has shown strong majority support for celebrating Australia Day.
This year, 63 per cent agreed that marking the date the First Fleet landed at Sydney Cove in 1788 was worthwhile.
87 per cent said they were proud to be Australian and 69 per cent said our history was something to be proud of.
Another poll this month, by YouGov, found only 21 per cent of Australians supported changing the date.
Nevertheless, there are determined campaigns being run today to flip that public opinion.
We should not view them in isolation.
What is it that animates these campaigns?
For some, no doubt, it is a sincere concern for the historical dispossession and continuing disadvantage of Indigenous Australians.
It remains unclear, however, how changing the day on which we celebrate our nation would make any practical difference to the very real and present challenges facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
For others, it is clear that the attack on Australia Day, and other symbols of Australian identity, including our flag, anthem, founders and Constitution, are part of a much broader cultural phenomenon that is not isolated to Australia.
Across the western world we are seeing movements attempt to “decolonise” nations and “deconstruct” institutions.
Some are obviously imported.
Following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement erupted in America.
A month later that led to the toppling of a statue of a slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol, which in turn sparked a search in Australia for historically problematic statues, even though we never practised institutionalised slavery.
As academic Frank Furedi has warned, the anti-Israel protests that we have witnessed on our streets, which all too easily morph into threatening antisemitic rallies, are part of a wider cultural trend.
“Today, hostility towards Western civilisation has hardened and its legacy is contemptuously dismissed as a slaveowners charter. Decolonisation no longer refers
to freeing of former colonies, it means racialising and disparaging virtually every dimension of the historical legacy of Western civilisation. The politics of identity has gradually mutated into a moral crusade against the civilisational norms associated with the West. This is one reason Judaism is so thoroughly despised by the pro-Palestinian protester. Judaism and Christianity constitute the moral foundation of Western culture.”
As Australians, we should be troubled to see young people born, raised and educated in our country take to the streets to not just chant about “globalising the intifada” and “from the river to the sea”, which are coded calls for violence against Israel and the Jewish community, but outright and blatant antisemitism as we saw at the Sydney Opera House in the immediate aftermath of 7 October.
We should be concerned about this not just because antisemitism is morally abhorrent in its own right.
It is a warning sign of what is to come next.
As the Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland argues, Jews are “a canary in the coalmine: when a society turns on its Jews, it is usually a sign of wider ill health.”
Leaders of the Pro-Palestinian movement in Australia have attempted to associate their cause to Indigenous causes in Australia, promoting Invasion Day rallies, wearing Indigenous and Palestinian flag lapel pins, and arguing that Indigenous Australians and Palestinians suffer from the same “settler colonial violence.”
As the invitation from the Black Caucus and the Palestine Justice Movement Sydney to an Invasion Day Rally said:
“From Gadigal to Gaza: Colonisation, occupation and land theft is a crime. Our collective liberations are intrinsically linked…the Palestinian community joins First Nations in demanding the abolishing of what is called "Australia Day", and the continuing war by the Australian state against the First Nations peoples and lands.”
The Palestinian Authority’s diplomatic representative in Australia even published a paper in 2020 which argued that “Israel and Australia were both founded on the
destruction of the existing native population, replacing this population with a new, European one.”
It’s a contrived connection and one that is rejected by many Indigenous leaders.
But the attempt to link these two distinctive political issues is illustrative of the motivations at play for many of the leading activists.
This campaign to unmoor us from our traditions and institutions is dangerous for two reasons.
Firstly, if we abandon what has made our societies great, we could lose it.
The very fact that Australia’s relatively young democracy is one of the world’s oldest continuous democracies shows how fragile they are.
As the statesman-scholar Daniel Hannan has cautioned:
“Arbitrary power, hereditary status, the systematic looting of resources by the ruling caste: these things were once near universal and are still the norm for most human beings. The real question is not whether liberal democracy was always destined to succeed, but how it managed to get off the ground at all.”
And Australia would not be what it is today if it wasn’t for the British institutions we inherited with the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788.
Formal institutions like parliamentary democracy, the rule of law and property rights, as well as less tangible ones like freedom of speech and religious liberty, are the indispensable building blocks for the modern society we enjoy today.
We mark the 26th of January because that is the date that those institutions were transplanted to this continent.
If that event never happened, or if a different European power landed in 1788, Australia would look very different today.
As David Kemp explains, the idea that the Australian colony would one day form a free society was not accidental.
Writing about Captain Arthur Philiip’s plans for NSW after the arrival of the first fleet, Kemp notes:
“Philip saw clearly that inherent in the circumstances of the foundation of the convict colony was its capacity – indeed the virtual certainty, if the colony survived – to transform itself into a society enjoying British-style freedoms.”
The second reason why these campaigns are so dangerous is that they divide us.
A successful campaign to change the date would be the triumphant realisation of a particularly toxic brand of identity politics in Australia.
Identity politics suggests the most important characteristic we have as human beings is the group we belong to.
That group could be based on our race, or religion, or sexuality, or any other characteristic that allows us to be defined, especially as a minority.
And it implies that there are a whole set of beliefs that we must sign up to by virtue of our membership of that group.
It’s the philosophy that led some people during the Voice referendum to attack prominent No campaigners like my colleague Senator Jacinta Price and my friend Warren Mundine by suggesting they had betrayed their fellow Indigenous Australians because of their stance on constitutional change.
It was presumed that, as Indigenous Australians, they should be supportive of the Voice, and that it was an aberration or even disloyalty for them to disagree.
Instead, it should have been utterly unremarkable that as individual Australians they came to their own judgement about the merits of the Voice, just as every other Australian did, regardless of their membership of any group.
The liberal critique of identity politics is that it is inherently dehumanising because it diminishes a person’s individuality.
A liberal would argue it is in fact prejudiced to assume someone’s political beliefs based on their identity.
It is best typified by the libertarian author Ayn Rand, who maintained:
“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.”
A few years ago, I probably would have personally found the liberal critique of identity politics to be most persuasive.
But there is also a conservative critique of identity politics too.
And it is particularly compelling in the current strategic climate.
It asserts that there is nothing inherently wrong with being defined by identity, but that how we choose our identity groups is critical.
A broad and shared national identity, for example, is essential for any cohesive nation.
The problem arises when we define our identity into increasingly smaller and smaller tribes, and are set against each other based on characteristics that are immutable – like our ethnicity.
Over the long run, this tendency makes it impossible to sustain a unified body politic.
A shared sense of common national identity is already under pressure from natural economic phenomenon like globalisation.
The unequal gains from knowledge in digital economies has driven the division of our societies into classes of “Somewheres” – people of more modest means with a greater attachment to nationhood – and “Anywheres” a globally mobile and affluent class with more affinity with each other than their fellow citizens, as articulated by David Goodhart.
Corrosive identity politics on top of that is not a recipe for strong social cohesion and a sense of common purpose.
Francis Fukuyama is a thinker who today defies easy categorisation, but he expresses this philosophy most neatly when he contended in 2018:
“...an inclusive sense of national identity remains critical to maintaining a successful modern political order. National identity not only enhances physical security, but also inspires good governance; facilitates economic development; fosters trust among citizens; engenders support for strong social safety nets; and ultimately makes possible liberal democracy itself.”
These are desirable ends for any nation to aspire to at any time in history.
But they are absolutely essential in an era of heightened geopolitical contest, when democracies are under pressure all around the world, and the prospect of conflict in our own region is nowhere near as remote as we thought it was only a few years ago.
Because there may come a time in our lifetimes when Australians are again asked to make sacrifices to preserve what we have.
You don’t need to take my word for it.
Sir Angus Houston, who conducted the Defence Strategic Review for the current government, said Australia’s strategic circumstances are the worst he has seen in his lifetime.
Dr Kevin Rudd, now our Ambassador to Washington, said last year that we have only five years to prevent war between the People’s Republic of China and the United States.
I am optimistic that, if called upon in a time of crisis, we would come together defend our nation, our interests and our values.
But that task will be much easier if we can draw from a strong sense of shared national identity, instead of having to herd competing tribes with clashing identities.
Campaigns to chip away at shared celebrations of Australian identity, like Australia Day, have the effect of breaking down our sense of unity.
This is of course exactly the kind of identity politics that Australians rejected in the Voice referendum.
Australians voted No last year for their own reasons.
For some, it was about the legal risk.
For others, it was about the lack of detail.
But as the detailed post-referendum research conducted by Advance Australia shows, the most powerful motivator for No voters was the idea that the Voice would divide Australians.
They voted against divisive identity politics.
They voted for the idea of equality of citizenship and that we should all be treated the same in our Constitution, regardless of our background.
But the truth is that, as a nation, we still have work to do to make this a reality, and not just because of the desperate circumstances of many of our fellow Indigenous Australians, which every Australian wants to see improved.
Although I was always firmly in the No camp, there is one argument made by the Yes side which resonated with me, at least partially.
Some advocates for the Yes campaign, like my colleagues Julian Leeser and Senator Andrew Bragg, argued that because Indigenous Australians were the only Australians for whom special laws were made, special consultation with them was required.
The reason why they argued this was necessary is because of the existence of the race power in the Constitution.
If we as a nation are to make laws which target people on the basis of their race, they argued, the least we could do is consult them about those laws.
Of course, if we think it is wrong in the 21st century in a pluralistic liberal democracy to make laws about people’s race, then it seems to me the better course of action is
to stop doing so, not to double down by creating a race-based body in the Constitution to formally consult people affected by them.
It was not that long ago that there seemed to be consensus to address this problem.
At Federation the framers included this race power in the Constitution: section 51(xxvi).
Reading those debates that took place in the 1890s now is confronting.
Many people who are celebrated founders expressed views that would be an anathema to every Australian today.
To take just one example, our first Prime Minister, Edmund Barton, said that our new nation needed a race power so that it could “regulate the affairs of the people of coloured or inferior races.”
In its initial form the target of this provision was Asian migrants, who were subject to extensive discrimination, notably during the gold rush.
The responsibility to legislate for Indigenous Australians was initially left to the states.
That changed in 1967, when Australians agreed to amend the Constitution to permit the Commonwealth to make laws relating to Indigenous Australians.
The sentence 'other than the Aboriginal race in any state' was deleted from the Constitution, and the race power enabled the federal parliament to enact laws relating to Indigenous Australians for the first time.
While the intent of this referendum was not discriminatory, in some respects its effect was.
This was highlighted by the High Court in the Kartinyeri case in 1998, which related to the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Act.
The law was upheld despite a challenge arguing that the race power could not be used to the detriment of Indigenous Australians.
As Professor Anne Twomey pointed out:
“If one accepts that in 1901 the power to make laws with respect to the 'people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws' included the power to make laws that discriminated adversely against those people, then the textual amendment in 1967 did not, on its face, limit that power to one to make beneficial laws.”
It's clear, then, that the race power as it stands today can be used to discriminate against Indigenous Australians.
It would also provide a legal basis for the Parliament to pass laws today targeting Asian Australians or African Australians or any other Australian based on their race.
We might think laws like that aren’t very likely to pass the Parliament in our enlightened times.
But shouldn’t we make sure they can’t?
It's hardly surprising that many Australians have argued that we must fix this.
Chief among them have been many of the most prominent advocates for a Voice.
Professors Marcia Langton and Megan Davis both called for the removal of this “outdated racism” in 2012.
Noel Pearson argued cogently in 2014 “how can a liberal democratic constitution still allow race-based laws against its citizens?”.
Even our Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney said in July 2017 that Australians “would be shocked to think that we are not going to deal with the archaic race powers in the Constitution.”
And yet, even if the referendum had succeeded in October, these provisions would have remained.
No Australian would vote Yes in a referendum to include these powers if it were proposed today.
It is true that there are reasons to be cautious, as both Professor George Williams and Professor Twomey have warned.
There are today laws and programs which are beneficial to Indigenous Australians and may hinge on the race power, such as native title.
But surely we are capable of thinking of other ways of preserving these programs without keeping a provision in the Constitution which we would all agree is racist.
Although I am a constitutional conservative and believe our Constitution has served our democracy remarkably well, this is one change which I would enthusiastically support.
The referendum result suggests the majority of Australians would support removing any section of our Constitution which divides us by race.
Such a change could unify Indigenous people, those whose descend from British settlement, and newer generations of migrants who came to Australia because of our sense of fairness and freedom.
While most Australians could be forgiven for suffering constitutional fatigue right now, if we are ever to contemplate another constitutional change, we must deal with this elephant in the room.
One of the critiques of our country is that it is racist.
I don’t believe that is true today.
But there is no question that throughout our history, Australian governments have enacted racist policies, White Australia included.
We can’t erase the past.
But we can remove from our current institutions the vestiges of that flawed thinking.
In doing so we would be living up to the sentiment Australians overwhelmingly expressed with their No votes in October.
Every Australian is of equal value, is worthy of equal respect, and deserves equal treatment, especially in our Constitution.
This is one modest suggestion for how we can help foster a more inclusive and unifying Australian national identity.
But in a liberal democracy, our sense of nationhood can never and should never be imposed by politicians or the government in a top-down exercise.
We are not Kim Jong-Un’s North Korea or Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
It can only be built upon the organic, bottom up and in our case often latent and laid-back sense of patriotism.
It should be led by individuals, communities and civil society.
It can only then be supported and reinforced by government.
And government should certainly stop doing things which are actively harmful to our sense of shared identity.
There are lessons to be drawn from the formulation and success of the Australia Day Council.
Because that is exactly how Australia Day came to be celebrated, and the awarding of the Australian of the Year became institutionalised.
As former Council member the late Richard Tracey recounts, it was first friendly societies and then ultimately the Australia Day Council Victoria who pioneered the celebration of Australia Day on 26 January and the awarding of the Australian of the Year.
It was only later that state and federal governments gave recognition to and then legislated public holidays to mark Australia Day, and eventually took over the process for conferring Australian of the Year.
I said before that I was optimistic about Australians’ ability to rally together in the face of potentially existential adversity.
My optimism is not passive.
It is based on the belief that decent Australians, like you, will stand up and each do our part to build a better Australia, around a unifying set of principles, and guided by institutions which have stood the test of time.
We are blessed to have those institutions because they arrived on our shores on the First Fleet on 26 January, 1788.
I think that’s worthy of celebration, and a toast.
To Australia.
ENDS
