Angus Taylor’s proposal to jail flag burners is “not about” clawing back voters from One Nation, the Opposition Leader has said while again ruling out joining forces with the populist minor party.
Burning the national flag is not a crime under current federal, state or territory laws and attempts over recent decades to change that have failed.
In 2006, then-Liberal prime minister John Howard said “however offensive to the majority of the Australian community”, the act was “an expression of political opinion”.
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“I don’t think we achieve anything by making it a criminal offence, we only turn yahoo behaviour into martyrdom and I don’t think that achieves anything and it would not engender greater respect for the Australian flag,” he said at the time.
But 20 years later, Mr Taylor, the current Liberal Party leader, has taken a different view, saying on Sunday that desecrating the flag should carry a maximum penalty of 12 months behind bars.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor wants to criminalise burning the national flag. NewsWire / Nikki Short Credit: News Corp Australia
“We need to stand up for Australia – that’s what’s prompted it,” Mr Taylor told News24, calling flag burning and war monument graffiti “completely unacceptable”.
He said Australia was “not beyond criticism” but that it remained “the greatest country on earth” and “up to one year imprisonment … is I think an appropriate penalty for someone who is undermining our history, our heritage”.
One Nation has long called for desecrating national symbols to be criminalised, with leader Pauline Hanson last year calling on the Senate “to take immediate action to make it an offence to wilfully burn or desecrate the Australian National Flag”.
Mr Taylor insisted his proposal was about the good of the country rather than Senator Hanson and her party’s standing in the polls.
“What I make of the situation right now is we’ve got to re-establish trust with the Australian people,” he said, adding that “there are a lot of Australians who want us to go back to those core Liberal and National Party values that they believe in”.
Asked point blank if he saw a scenario in which the Coalition would team-up with One Nation, Mr Taylor responded: “No.”
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has long-called for flag burning to be criminalised. NewsWire / Martin Ollman Credit: News Corp Australia
Mr Taylor’s home affairs spokesman Jonathon Duniam backed his boss’s flag proposal, lamenting there was not the same bipartisan love for the flag in Australia as there was in the US.
“We’re not like that in Australia and I don’t see enough pride,” he told the ABC, noting that he had recently returned from a trip to the US.
“And I think that actually protecting emblems that signify what is great about our country is not a bad thing.”
Senator Duniam is set to leave politics before year’s end to spend more time with his young family.
In some final advice to colleagues, he urged them against “waving the white flag” and saying “we should work with others to try and get across the finish line”.
Opposition home affairs spokesman Jonathon Duniam has urged colleagues against ‘waving the white flag’. NewsWire / Martin Ollman Credit: News Corp Australia
“The job of every Liberal MP and every National MP is to go out and ask for a number one vote for the party we are a part of because we have the best plans,” he said.
“And so my parting advice is the same advice I’ve been giving for some time to my colleagues: let’s fight for what we believe in and people will come with us on that journey and vote for us.”
