The Bloke

Sounds like they've banned it to me.

phoenixinoz

The flag has been banned from this venue.

This is offensive to the good people out there who are proud to be Australian and wish to fly the Australian flag. Why assume the majority of flag wavers are going to be anti social when in fact it's usually the minority who cause all the problem?

Once again emotion means nonsense decision making.

Instead of managing the few, lets penalise the majority.

PC madness

Luke I Amyofath

A countries flag is a national symbol of their country. If some immigrants in Australia get offended by seeing Ozzie flags being paraded perhaps they should bugger off to a country where their choice of flag is flown.

As a migrant I believe that you dont belong here if you are unwilling to have some pride in the countries flag.

esperanza

I don't think it's to do with immigrants being offended, rather that flag-waving has come to be associated with racist, violent lowlifes - to the extent that other people are now being asked to avoid carrying flags.

Pollyana

I'm tempted to agree with that one!!!

Luke I Amyofath

Its fine to have a culturaly diverse country but if you are a migrant living in Australia and enjoying life here shouldnt you have some pride in seeing the nations flag flying ?

If Australian's are told to not carry their own flag in their own country where are they supposed to wave it ? Only outside of Australia ?

jon and alex

Bit of an odd one really, isn't it?
I mean, how can the waving of a flag be aggressive in itself? Surely for such an act to become intimidatory it must be accompanied by some other actions/behaviour which is aggressive.
It seems to me that the organisers are going after the wrong end of the problem. Surely it makes more sense to target those likely to cause trouble and to come down hard on those that go on to cause trouble rather than banning an inanimate object??!!

Big Galah

But...

The problem, as I see it, is that the Australian flag still has a Union Jack in the corner.

This allows the racist element use it out of context - in that some of those with British or Irish ancestry believe themselves to be real Aussies, and those of different backgrounds somehow lesser or non-authentic. (Lets not get too complicated - way back when, the whole of Ireland was British).

This is similar to the BNP using the Union Jack in their slogans/literature, and so on.

When South Africa chaged its flag, it removed the Union Jack, the Orange Free State and the Transavaal mini-flags, as they were associated with its white European past. To become a forward-looking "rainbow nation", it adopted a flag that was more representative of the people who lived there right then. Which makes sense, though I'm still not sure about the aesthetics of the design, but anyhow...

I can't see these ridiculous situations going away until this country gets its act together, becomes a republic, appoints a president and gets a new flag.

Big.

BenandPam

It is simply a marketing excercise, and it has worked very well. The Big Day Out have had fantastic publicity out of this.

Geordie George

That was my first thought on seeing the news this morning, too!

Now there'll be lots of flag waving and lots of talk about how Aussies aren't going to be dicatated to (whether by the PC mob or anyone else). Pawns in a bigger game.

gedge

prawns on a bigger barbie?

Geordie George

With garlic butter? <Drool>

gedge

we've forgotten what the issue was already

Geordie George

Today's news is tomorrow's chip-papers.

I must be hungry ...

Vash the Stampede

Scrap flag condition or cancel BDO, says Govt.