Monday 20 June 2022 06:43 AM Dominic Perrottet mocked putting the Aboriginal flag on the Sydney Harbour ... trends now
Dominic Perrottet is so keen to put the Aboriginal flag on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge that he vowed to 'run to Bunnings' for the $25 million flagpole.
But just four years earlier he mocked the idea as 'Labor's latest social justice warrior cause' when the NSW opposition proposed it.
The premier, when he was treasurer, rubbished the plan on his Facebook page on February 3, 2018, after then-opposition leader Luke Foley championed it.
'I have a great idea for Luke Foley: instead of putting the Aboriginal flag on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, how about just plonking a giant blank screen that can be quickly and easily updated to broadcast Labor's latest social justice warrior cause?' he wrote.
Dominic Perrottet is so keen to put the Aboriginal flag on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge that he vowed to 'run to Bunnings' for the $25 million flagpole
The premier, when he was treasurer, rubbished the plan on his Facebook page on February 3, 2018, after then-opposition leader Luke Foley championed it
On the same day, Mr Perrottet wrote an op-ed further condemning Mr Foley's call to put the flag on the bridge as 'the NSW Labor Party Virtue Signal'.
'Maybe it could even be programmed to automatically shift with the wind. Because that's all Foley's proposal is: a lavish exercise in trendy virtue signalling,' he wrote.
'Like changing the date of Australia Day, it's designed to stroke the egos of the inner-city elites that control Labor's agenda.'
Mr Perrottet accused Labor of 'empty symbolism and gesture politics, designed to divide rather than unite' and insisted the country 'needed to be united as a nation - one Australia under one flag'.
'We aren't interested in the social-justice-warrior games that foment division and make things worse,' he wrote.
Mr Perrottet more constructively argued that flying the flag on the bridge was a symbolic act that would do little to help indigenous people in practice.
'We prefer practical solutions that actually make people's lives better, now and into the future,' he wrote.
Mr Foley and indigenous activist Cheree Toka after the then-opposition leader called for the flag to fly on the bridge. Ms Toka was drafted in to help sell Mr Perrottet's plan four years later
Fast-forward four years and the now-premier is so keen to do exactly what he railed against in 2018 that he said the $25 million cost was 'a small price to pay' for unity.
'I'm even surprised it takes this long. I mean I made the announcement a while ago and the first brief that came back was that it takes two years to do,' he said.
'I'll go to Bunnings myself and climb up there and put the pole up.
'But apparently it does, apparently that's the costing, and I think that it's an important decision that we've made.
'I think it brings unity to our country and I think it's a small price to pay for that unification.'
