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Joanna Hackett , friend of Quadrant and contributor, writes to update readers who have purchased bumper stickers since the October publication of her satirical piece “Saving Australia, One Bumper Sticker at a Time”:
The emails from our supporters have made one fact very clear. Many Australians feel they have no voice, few politicians speak for them, and nobody listens to them. We are angry, fed up, and saddened at what our once-great and beloved country has become. Some who fought for this country now wonder why they bothered. I suggest that our politicians and businesspeople ignore this disgruntled group at their peril, for their pent-up rage simmers. Displaying a meaningful bumper sticker gives many the only opportunity they have of expressing their feelings.
I have received various suggestions as to how I could extend the sticker range. Some are very funny, some clever and some (both funny and clever) are unfortunately inappropriate for public display. Western Australia is the most common address of those buying stickers, and the most popular sticker is “Don’t Welcome Me to My Own Country”. The phony welcome-to-country ceremony infuriates almost all of us. Several people mentioned their determination to respond verbally—and very loudly—when subjected to these performances. Many were unaware that those conducting the ceremonies are paid substantial sums to do so. The recent budget (in which over $216 million was promised to push the Yes vote, and not a brass razoo for the No vote) caused a rush of sticker orders from angry and disbelieving Australians.
The business Brisbane Custom Signs made some excellent stickers for us initially. They then decided they had a “policy against printing anything that could be considered racism, hate speech or any other forms of discrimination”. Despite polite discussion with them, they refused to budge. We felt very discriminated agains, gave them the boo t and took our not-insignificant orders elsewhere. This new mob are efficient professionals and run a real business.
There is now a push to rein in debate for the No side on the grounds that it will result in offence or even harm to Aborigines. We heard similar nonsense during the same-sex-marriage “debate”, when we were told that negative discussion would traumatise LGBT+ people and possibly result in suicides. Recently, there has been talk of Aboriginal souls being “broken” if the Voice referendum fails, a fantasy roundly ridiculed by Senator Jacinta Price.
Our Prime Minister has said it was just “simple courtesy, it is common decency” to vote Yes. Nice people will vote Yes and they will be on the right side of history. Albo also says we are all diminished when First Nations (sic) people are denied their right to a happy and fulfilling life. So get with the program, be a good little Aussie and vote Yes for Aboriginal happiness and fulfilment. Spare me this sanctimonious poppycock!
Dr Nina Lansbury is using her position as Senior Lecturer in Planetary Health, School of Public Health, at the University of Queensland, to advise of the “significant public health benefits to the country” of a Yes vote. Vote Yes for First Nations (sic) to have good health and well-being. Vote No 
and you will be condemning Aborigines to racism and other prejudices, lack of respect and denial of human rights. She is saying: If you vote No, Aboriginal health is at risk; if you vote Yes, the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal people will improve.
Notwithstanding the highly dubious nature of her statements, Dr Lansbury is threatening the Australian voter, just as we were threatened during the same-sex-marriage “debate”. “Vote as I say, or else …” She is even giving away T-shirts to her supporters, with detailed instructions as to where and how often they should wear them just in case they are unable to decide this on their own. The beneficiaries of her largesse are requested to wear their T-shirts at least twice a month in the lead-up to the referendum, in public places, walking the dog, when mixing in big crowds, at the supermarket, picking up the kids from school and so on. Perhaps the commonsense-o-meter within the hallowed grounds of our universities is running at an all-time low.
Personally, I find Dr Lansbury’s remarks outrageous and misleading. She is in a position of some authority. Using UQ for a partisan political campaign is surely improper, and an abuse of this authority. We might well ask, with justified trepidation, how many other educators are busily indoctrinating and bribing their students and colleagues.
If someone began producing “Vote No” T-shirts, I’m sure there would be a good market, particularly if the purchasers were free to wear them whenever and wherever they chose.
Becoming quite unexpectedly a purveyor of political bumper stickers has made me aware of a worrying result. There is a concern, held by many, that if they advertise their beliefs by displaying a sticker, their property may be targeted, their car may be keyed, or they may be in some physical danger. We all have to make our own choices about this. How big is the risk to our house, or car? How big is the risk to our country if we do nothing? You may rationalise your desire for anonymity by telling yourself that one little sticker won’t make a difference anyway. I remind readers that 1600 stickers have been distributed already. Together we can make a difference.
Australians were known for their gutsy bravery in the past. Let us not now be cowed into submission by the possibility of trouble before the referendum has even been announced. My two cars, my letterbox, my front door and the power pole in front of my home have stickers. There has been no backlash. If any readers need further encouragement to join this debate, study the nauseatingly unctuous words of our Prime Minister in his address to the 2022 Garma Festival.
We No voters are facing a well-financed, well-supported and determined army that has invested years of its time and thousands of (our) taxpayer dollars into winning this referendum. Do not treat them lightly, for they mean business. Gird your loins and prepare for battle, or at the very least buy and display a bumper sticker!
We will continue to distribute bumper stickers at cost to publicise the No side of the debate as long as there is a need. Please continue to support us.
This is a lightly edited version of Joanna’s update, which appears in full in the Jan-Feb 2023 edition of Quadrant, now on sale. Her stickers, sold at cost for $2 each, can be ordered via jbhackett@bigpond.com
>”There is a concern, held by many, that if they advertise their beliefs by displaying a sticker, their property may be targeted, their car may be keyed, or they may be in some physical danger. ” [quote from Joanna H’s article]
This is the very heart of the “woke” movement. The concern is based on some hard evidence. For example, Brian Fisher (B A Economics) published a peer-reviewed cost estimate for “decarbonising” the economy in the months before the 2019 Federal election. The estimated costs were/are horrendous of course. For his temerity, he was “doxxed” – on FaceBook allegedly by Holmes a Court, I understand (at least Holmes a Court has since apologised for this, but …) Goons turned up at Brian F’s house at times such as 3 am and persisted in terrifying the family. Oh, and the MSM dropped this story in less than 5 seconds.
Irrespective of the rhetoric of the brave, the risk is very real.
I have a very large sticker on my car. One people. One flag. One Destiny. My Country. It is a risk worth taking – let the woks touch my sticker and they will see if it was a risk worth taking.
In 1967 we removed race from the constitution. Now the partial descent people want to put race back in and rule over us. This is war. This is an attack on our sovereignty.
There are 22,000 full blood aboriginals in Australia. The rest are basically by race white people. (Identifying) Aboriginal women are very vocal but there is not one that would live in Aboriginal culture as a bestowed or enslaved person (in sexual servitude) to an old man. Truth telling … ask Langton and Megan Davis to get into their culture and give up their privileged position in the glorious western civilisation.
@ RobyH
QUOTE:
“There are 22,000 full blood aboriginals in Australia.”
Where do you get this figure?
My informant says 7-8,000 full blood aborigines.(excluding tsi)
Dr Google just now says about there are about 4600 full bloods. The startling thing to me is that in my whole life and with more than the average interaction with aboriginals in the bush as a kid and later on in work, I never ever ever had one acknowledge their white ancestry, that small or large dash of ancestry that gives many of them better than average sporting prowess.
Yes, it’s a go-to-the-barricades issue. So disappointing Dutton’s Liberals can’t see that.
Plato said “ Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.” Dutton is the former and Albo the latter. Dutton will speak when it will cut through and have maximum effect.
“Albo also says we are all diminished when First Nations (sic) people are denied their right to a happy and fulfilling life. So get with the program, be a good little Aussie and vote Yes for Aboriginal happiness and fulfilment. Spare me this sanctimonious poppycock!”
Another political leader once said: “Do not hide your light under a bushel.” {Matthew 5, 14-15.) That is good advice to all. Otherwise we who get chartacterised as ‘woke,’ and wear that label with pride, have to cop whatever Authority hands out, and to cop it sweet.
So I heartily endorse Joanna Hackett’s campaign. No bluffs; no bovine manure.
The ‘antiwokes’ want somnambulence: a nation of obedient sleepwalkers doing as they are told. Well stuff that. I have been thinking for myself pretty-well since I learned to talk. Which is one reason my comments here, if published at all, are always shunted off into the limbo of ‘awaiting approval:’ ie the passing of some never-published political correctness test.
To publish them would be a confession of total editorial hypocrisy at this avowedly ‘liberal’ site, so it just ain’t done. {But the said obedience to the antiwokes requires total abandonment of mainstream science, particularly re climatology, and the joining of the ever-diminishing in-house tribe of knucklewalking and obedient coal shills.)
And yes, Michael. It’s a go-to-the-barricades issue.
I have had an anti-fracking ‘No Coal-Seam Gas!’ sticker on the back of my SUV for the few years now that I have been a member of Lock the Gate . I intend to add one of Joanna’s. I was born here. This is my country, and has been all my life. Always was, always will be. So please don’t ‘welcome’ me to it.
Vote YES and you will be on the Left Side of History but you will not do Right by your Country.
Oh, I didn’t think these were for my car…I had other thoughts for their deployment.
Here’s how to use them: when you spot a car with “ABC” or Aboriginal activist stickers on it, wait till it’s parked, then discreetly walk up to the side that the returning driver won’t see. Bingo! On goes the sticker. Eventually they realise that they’ve been swanning about with “Don’t welcome me to my own country” on their car, for their friends (if they have any) to see. Heads explode. They also work well in the buildings (especially lifts) of corporations which are bullying their staff into supporting the destructive yes vote.
Excellent. They could also be placed next to (or over, if feeling up to it) any pro Voice advertising in public spaces and universities.
You might find there are cameras in many lifts.
Another way of displaying one of these excellent stickers is by putting it inside an A4 clipboard, the sort with a cover. On appropriate occasions you turn the clipboard inside out to display the sticker.
I flew Qantas from my regional city hometown and had to endure a Welcome To Country. We landed in Perth and another Welcome To Country.
FFS I felt like saying out loud both times. I know where I %$%#ing am and it’s my country too!!!
Put ‘em on your work emails as a header or a footer: it will be a welcome antidote to the “always was alway will be” dribble that I get in email footers from nt.gov.au senders.
Just back from the pub wearing my bespoke “Never was, Never will be.” t-shirt” Not a comment either way, but then they know me.
I’ve passed on three “Don’t welcome me to my own Country” to like minded souls,,,, its the little things you do….
Have they borrowed identity classification from the Nazi’s style, where you’re a Jew if one grandparent was a Jew.
If one great-great-grandparent was an Aboriginal then gimmee gimmee.
I blame the Catholic church for all this stuff. They promoted native title for people of mixed aboriginal descent that even the full bloods don’t recognize. It’s native title not mixed-race title. That the Catholic church promoted gay marriage is understandable, given the mix of their membership. The two above issues have decimated the Catholic church, the Voice will complete the job. The only way the Catholic church can redeem itself is for the priests and bishops to start living and preaching the gospel. Reduce the gay influence to a minimum and promote the truth. Separate rights for people of mixed aboriginal descent are not the truth.
I have been working on a Welcome to Civilization – to be declared at gatherings wherever possible.
We acknowledge the founders and keepers of our civilization who have given us the means of providing food, shelter and justice for all. We pay respect to the farmers, philosophers, scientists, inventors, past and present, who have given us freedom from starvation, oppression, drudgery, and disease. We celebrate the musicians, writers and artists, past and present, who raise our spirits and inspire our imagination.
Whenever you get the chance, after listening to the Aboriginal ‘welcome to country’, say loudly something like this:
“I acknowledge the British who settled this land in 1788, changing it from its primitive and barbaric condition to become one of the most civilised and advanced nations on Earth.”
Do note there are 14 stickers now. The 7 shown above and:
. Aborigines have the same VOICE as all Australians
. ABORIGINES demand RACIAL SEPARATION
. The ABORIGINAL VOICE – PURE POWER PLAY
. ‘GAP’ will close only when ABORIGINES make it so
. Skirmishes, Payback, and Police actions – NOT WARS
. Traditional Aboriginal culture included infanticide, abuse of women, and cannibalism
. Aboriginal land rights and claims (with map)