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December 15, 2024
Shadow Home Affairs Minister James Paterson has hit back at critics of Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s decision to remove the Aboriginal flag from press conferences.
Mr Dutton recently promised to ditch Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags if he wins the upcoming election and said the Australian flag was the sole national symbol.
Following heavy criticism from members of the Albanese government, Mr Paterson came out to defend the Liberal Party Leader on Sunday.
“I very strongly support the stand that Peter Dutton has taken this week on the national flag. We have only one national flag," Mr Paterson told Sky News.
"It is the appropriate flag for a Prime Minister to stand in front of when they are addressing the Australian people and on behalf of the Australian people."
The flag decision has received disapproval from the Albanese government and supporters of the Indigenous flag.
Indigenous Australians Minister Malarndirri McCarthy argued Mr Dutton was "unfit to be prime minister" due to the flag stance which only sought to "divide Australians".
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also claimed his political opponent was only “looking for division” and said it “costs nothing to show respect”.
But Mr Paterson, unimpressed by the criticism, said he was “shocked” by the reaction from his political opponents.
“We need things that we can rally around. And the Australian flag is overwhelmingly supported by the Australian people,” he said.
“You might have seen that SBS tried to do a fact check on Peter Dutton this week when he said there's no country in the world where the leaders stand in front of three flags.
“And they said, well, actually there's two countries in South America that occasionally sort of sometimes maybe have a second flag, which they occasionally use.
“I mean, seriously, in a time like this in the world that we are in, we need unifying national symbols,” Mr Paterson said.
The shadow home affairs minister claimed it was only the “extreme fringe” of politics that people were not proud of the Australian flag.
According to Roy Morgan Research, a large majority of Australians want to retain the current national flag.
Sixty-one per cent of Australians said they wanted to keep the flag. However 56 per cent of Labor and 72 per cent of Greens voters said they wanted a new design.
