Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to note that this Friday, 3 September 2021, is Australian National Flag Day. On this day, we celebrate Australia's foremost national symbol and the most recognisable expression of Australian identity and pride. This year is a particularly special occasion as it marks the 120th anniversary of the Australian national flag and the 25th National Flag Day. When Sir Edmund Barton, Australia's first Prime Minister, revealed the national flag that was to represent Australia and its people on 3 September 1901, it was a significant event. The 5.5-metre-by-11-metre example that was flown over the dome of Melbourne's Royal Exhibition Building was a large and proud statement of a newly federated nation. While Australian National Flag Day doesn't have a long history, only being proclaimed by the Governor-General on 28 August 1996, it is a day worth celebrating because of what our national flag represents and because those who designed it have a story worth sharing.

At the time of Federation, when the six Australian colonies joined to form the Commonwealth, the Union Jack had been our official flag for a century. However, with the growing sense of Australian identity and of a new nation entering a new century, the sentiment was well behind a new national symbol. In April 1901 an international competition to design Australia's flag was announced. It's recorded that nearly 30,000 entries were received, with five near-identical designs awarded equal first place. The five winners were: Annie Dorrington from Perth; Ivor Evans, a 14-year-old from Melbourne; Leslie Hawkins from Sydney; Bert Nuttall from Melbourne; and William Stevens from Auckland. Together, they shared the 200 pounds of prize money, which by today's standards would be like winning almost $30,000.

As a Western Australian senator it would be remiss of me to avoid sharing a little more about Annie Dorrington. The flag's designers are so rarely talked about, and their history remains largely unknown. Annie Dorrington was an artist born at Litchfield Ashe in Southampton, England, in 1866. She was the second of nine children of Richard Whistler, a farmer, and his wife, Sarah Mills. Shortly after her father died Annie migrated to Victoria with her mother and siblings in 1890. She married Charles Dorrington in St Alban's Church of England in Armadale, Melbourne, on 18 April 1892. They relocated to Western Australia in 1895 and lived in Fremantle, moving to Perth a few years later. Annie had a particular interest in painting native wildflowers, and by 1901 had a sizeable body of work that she offered to sell to Bernard Woodward, the director of the Western Australian Museum and Art Gallery. Annie's watercolours were exhibited in the Western Australian pavilion at the Paris and Glasgow international exhibitions in 1900 and 1902, the St Louis International Exposition in Missouri in 1904, and the Franco-British Exhibition in London in 1908. Annie was the only woman and the only Western Australian amongst the flag design prize winners.

Sadly, the later part of Annie's life is a more tragic story. Suffering from depression, she was admitted to Claremont Mental Hospital a number of years before her death in 1926. After her death Annie was buried in an unmarked grave at Karrakatta Cemetery. Fortunately, her grave was eventually discovered by the Australian National Flag Association of Western Australia, which honoured her contribution to our national story by erecting a monument in 1999. I congratulate the Australian National Flag Association for its dedication to restoring this important part of our national history and Western Australia's history.

Why do we celebrate National Flag Day? Events that celebrate the Australian national flag should be celebrated, for it's a symbol of our nation's values and achievements, and it belongs to every Australian. It is a symbol as relevant today as it was 120 years ago. However, every year some members across this chamber, aided by activist groups like AusFlag, call for a change to our national flag. They allege it's a colonial flag, a divisive symbol. They claim our country needs to cut its ties with its historical influences. 'Grow up and move forward with the times,' they suggest. But even former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, a former head of AusFlag, has conceded that the 'change the flag' cause was going nowhere, noting in 2018 that younger Australians don't regard the Union Jack on our flag as a symbol alien to our history, our achievements or our values but as one very emblematic of them. Nevertheless, I'm sure we can expect the usual suspects to come forward, loud and noisy, to politicise this important celebration later this week.

In contrast, I encourage senators to reflect on Prime Minister Tony Abbott's address at the first official National Flag Day event held here in parliament in 2014. Paying tribute to a former governor of New South Wales, Sir David Martin, who was one of the early movers behind National Flag Day, the former prime minister, Mr Abbott, quoted him, saying:

'I can understand the wishes of many Australians to have more light-hearted symbols to wave on certain occasions, and I share their feelings. I'm a happy admirer of kangaroos, koalas, wattle, waratahs, broad-brimmed hats and cans of beer. By all means, let's make happy, slick, wonderful emblems for use on particular occasions. But in the midst of such light-hearted cheering, I'm comforted to know that the Australian flag remains at the masthead, proclaiming our maturity, continuity and stability as a nation. In the short history of Australia, our people have been involved in many activities and events of great turmoil, anguish, strife, pressure, anxiety, unhappiness, hopelessness, but also, and most particularly, success, joy and jubilation. And on almost all of these occasions, this flag has been a rallying point. It's become associated with Australians and our great deeds, strong victories and some gallant defeats. It's become identified with our proud history and our fine traditions.'

It's a proud history indeed and one that deserves to be celebrated.

For this reason, I look forward to celebrating on Friday the 120th anniversary of our Australian national flag and all that it has come to represent. While we can't mark the occasion with an official ceremony in Canberra or in this building this year, I encourage every Australian to wear an Australian flag pin, to display the flag with pride, and to remember those great virtues that it has come to represent, hoping always it will be an enduring symbol that every Australian can rally behind and unite with.