After ALL that fuss over the $25 million price tag to install a third flag pole on the Sydney Harbour Bridge for the Aboriginal flag, the NSW Government has figured out a genius way to cut costs and still do the right thing.
Instead of putting a new premium pole up there, apparently encrusted with fkn diamonds, it announced it would simply take the dumb state flag down and replace it with the Aboriginal flag. So two flags: the Aboriginal flag and the Australian flag.
Huzzah! Such highbrow intellect from government masterminds!
Honestly this is so fucking obvious and I can’t believe it took them six months to figure it out.
Hats off to them though because they actually listened to the public and have decided the $25 million would be redirected into Close The Gap initiatives. Fkn good.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet announced the flag would fly on the bridge permanently back in February following a five-year campaign led by Kamilaroi woman Cheree Toka.
But when the cost of the operation was revealed — $25 million dollars???? — Perrottet was embroiled in controversy from all sides.
The Bad People of Australia had a fresh opportunity to say we shouldn’t have the Aboriginal flag up there, but at the same time First Nations people rightly called the government out for wasting money on hollow gestures.
Instead of $25 million going to flying the Aboriginal flag on harbour bridge. Why not instead invest that $25 million in Indigenous communities?
— Ash (@AshDahlstrom) June 20, 2022
Perrottet said at the time $25 million was “small price to pay” for unity.
But maybe that money could be better spent? And maybe the NSW Government doesn’t deserve the praise for a symbolic move when it’s responsible for making the lives of First Nations people in the state harder? Maybe sort out public housing before you pat yourselves on the back.
Anyway it’s all moot because they used their noggins and figured this one out.
Perrottet told the Sydney Morning Herald using the existing pole was a “practical and pragmatic solution which makes sense”. He’s not wrong.
The flag was also already up there for NAIDOC Week and it’ll stay so hey, they don’t even have to lift a finger the job’s already done.
The Victorian government also announced last week the Aboriginal flag would stay on Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge permanently after it was raised for NAIDOC Week.
Glad to see our tax dollars funding common sense.
