I’d rather our national day not have any association with war or colonisation (we’ve got more than enough of those already). My preference is to toss out the Queen’s Birthday (regardless of whether or not we become a republic) and make that Australia Day. If we ever become a republic, the date could then be timed for that day.

However, the national day and the republic are just part of the problem. National-symbolically speaking, Australia is the worst-dressed nation on earth – and needs a complete makeover.

The flag is ugly and obsequious. We live all our lives surrounded by vibrant light blue skies and green-blue oceans, creamy beige farmland, red-brown deserts and yellow sunlight. So why do we we have a flag comprising icky, depressing British-navy blue and bilious British postbox red?

The national colours are garish (courtesy of Kerry Packer, not the Australian people) – and clash with the ugly, obsequious flag. They resemble a colicky baby’s nappy, not the pride of a nation.

And that ghastly anthem … It’s so cringeworthy, I actually dread Australians winning gold medals. Perhaps that's the real reason so many athletes cry on the podium.

There must be a lot of Banjo's about, I am also Banjo Paterson, perhaps we are all related, I go under the name of ojnab, which is Banjo backwards.

Leigh on your last post, don't faint, but I do agree with you.

The aggressively ignorant Leigh asserted that "There is no way that aborigines could ever called ‘civilised’". I responded by providing a reference to a classic anthropological ethnography from way back in 1937 where someone did precisely that. One of Warner's points in choosing that title (and retaining it theough various revisions and reprints until 1969, shortly before his death) is that Yolngu societies were astonishingly complex in terms of kinship relations, law, cosmology and iconography - and therefore should not be simply dismissed as "stone age" or "primitive" proto-human "savages", the loss of whose territory, culture and indeed lives was, if not exactly desirable then inevitable.

The kind of 'Social Darwinism' against which Warner argues is still very much around today, and is evident in assimilationist ideologies that underlie the kinds of sentiments contained in comments by the many closet racists like Leigh who persist in denigrating Aboriginal people in forums such as this.

Leigh says he enjoys reading - I imagine that Warner's classic ethnography would be available on inter-library loan from any municipal library. It would certainly be on the shelves in any reputable university library - although Leigh seems to have something of an antipathy towards education and scholarship. If he could bring himself to get hold of that book, he would undoubtedly find it heavy going (I certainly did when I first read it), but if he persisted he would at the very least gain some idea of the sheer complexity of Aboriginal kinship and Law - that might cause him to rethink some of his ignorant prejudices towards Aborigines. That would, however, require an open mind.

<< ignorance
n.
The condition of being uneducated, unaware, or uninformed.

lack of knowledge or education >>

Ojnab and Banjo Paterson,
My apoligies to others for going off topic, but will try to be brief.

Yes it does appear to be 3 of us. I chose the pen name about 3 years ago because of my admiration for Paterson and my love of his balleds. My small contribution to keeping his memory alive. I also like the musical instrument (don't play) and enjoy Bluegrass music. My location is Southern Tablelands NSW.

I am interested as to why you chose the pen name and your location (roughly) I also appears that I hold differing views on this subject than you two, but you never know we may agree on somethings in time.

Might say, Col Rouge, I had Marksman placed in my paybook after my first military rifle shoot way back in 1950.

And if you want to know where my Honour came from, it was receiving 93/100 in 1981, after a long study in Sri Lanka on what was known as the Tea Economy when the Brits brought Tamil troops from South India to clear the cherished Ceylonese hillsides murdering thousands of Jaynists (Buddhists) in the process.

You should know by now, my friend, that many country boys have a reputation just not only in sport, but of also marrying full-blood natives, the progeny still revealed as having physical capabilities much superior to whities.

Finally, Col Rouge, seems the way you talk, you haven't been around very much, or is it just that you were not born with the brain to analyse coherently.

From BB, Buntine, WA.

I don't think we can blame Kerry Packer for the green and gold. They were in use as our national sporting colours long before he was born. Certainly, there were other combinations - red, white and blue; blue and gold - but green and gold was there.