Under changes to the Electoral Act, all registered parties may register a logo which will appear on the ballot paper beside its candidates and in addition to the party name.
Yesterday, Australia First Party filed with the Australian Electoral Commission its draft logo (as below). It features the Eureka (Southern Cross) Flag and the words ‘Australia First’.
A recollected version of the Eureka Flag flown at Lambing Flat in 1861 by colonial Australians to protest Chinese labour
Our application will be widely advertised shortly in the national press and ‘objections’ are then invited.
The party considered it appropriate that its emblem, the Eureka Flag, was the best logo representation we could have.
In struggle, the party has employed the Eureka Flag as a sign of its commitment to Australian Identity, Independence and Freedom.
In recent times, and as part of the ongoing culture-wars, certain leftists have tried hard to sully the history and meaning of the Eureka Flag. Last year, a so-called union leader in South Australia, wrote:
“… there is nothing to associate the Eureka flag with anti-Chinese racism or with opposition to immigration. Clearly, the Eureka flag belongs to the unions, republicans, anti-racists and refugee advocates.”
“The best argument against its misuse by racists is a widespread public embrace of the flag as the first expression in Australia of a multicultural aspiration …”.
This misstated the history and is a gross distortion of historical truth.
From the great uprising at Lambing Flat (1861) when a version of the Eureka Flag was raised as a protest against Chinese labour, through to the Seamen Storming of Parliament (1878) in NSW in protest against cheap Chinese labour on the ships, and in the Barcaldine Revolt (1891), when the Flag served as a symbol of identity and workers’ struggle against the alliance of capitalists and cheap foreign labour – the meaning of our Flag is clear.
In recent times, the Eureka Flag has been proudly flown at all sorts of patriotic demonstrations. It has also been the flag of nationalist organisations for some thirty nine years.
It is rather inevitable that our choice of official logo will invite the usual ranting of the usual suspects. That is part of the struggle. As always, we uphold Australianism to the end!