Happy Australia Day!

by Mark Steyn
Seasons of Steyn
January 26, 2018

https://www.steynonline.com/8410/happy-australia-day

Programming note: Tonight, Thursday, I'll be joining Tucker Carlson coast to coast across America live at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific - with a rerun at 12 midnight Eastern. If you are in the vicinity of the receiving apparatus, I hope you'll dial us up.

~It may be Thursday in New Hampshire, but it's Friday Down Under, which means it's already Australia Day. Like every other part of the western inheritance, Australia Day is apparently "controversial", so it has been observed in St Kilda by the vandalization of the statue of Captain Cook (right), which was daubed in paint and the words "NO PRIDE". Native grievances - or, more precisely, white liberal perception of native grievances - managed to ruin, totally, Canada's sesquicentennial. I hope the Lucky Country is luckier than the Senior Dominion in that respect.

Meanwhile, I thought Aussies and non-Aussies alike might enjoy this speech from my last appearance with the IPA Down Under - at their big beano in the heart of Melbourne, five miles or so from that defaced Captain Cook statue. There are a few Oz-centric jokes at the beginning that may be baffling for Americans and Uzbeks and whatnot, but don't worry about it - just let it put you in the festive mood:

Also for this Australia Day, here I am last year talking to the country's second longest-serving Prime Minister (after Sir Robert Menzies) on US-Aussie relations at the dawn of the Trump era:

We'll have a little more Australian content for the holiday weekend. Meanwhile, the many members of The Mark Steyn Club Down Under are welcome to take issue with me and Mr Howard in the comments section. For more on The Mark Steyn Club, please click here - and anybody looking for the perfect Australia Day gift is reminded to check out our special Steyn Club Gift Membership.

I'll see you on the telly for "Tucker Carlson Tonight".

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26 Reader Comments

Ken • Jan 26, 2018 at 22:49

Not overstating it - this IPA 2016 video could be the grand prize winner among Steyn's live appearances.

Fran Lavery

Ken • Jan 26, 2018 at 23:36

Right on the money there, Ken.

Ken

Fran Lavery • Jan 27, 2018 at 00:01

At least "to date", and thanks.

Richard Weber • Jan 26, 2018 at 09:29

Can anyone tell me if there is a good one volume history of Australia that they are aware of? Without the usual PC, please.

Richard Harrison

Richard Weber • Jan 27, 2018 at 00:03

There is no good one-volume history, but several good books can be highly recommended.

Firstly, anything on Australia by Geoffrey Blainey is well worth a look. "The Tyranny of Distance" (on Australia's discovery and settlement) and "Triumph of the Nomads" (on the Aborigines) are fundamental.

Secondly, on the economic history, "Why Australia Prospered" by Ian W McLean is excellent and not too long.

Thirdly, avoid anything by Manning Clark or Stuart Macintyre (including "The Oxford History of Australia", a volume of which Macintyre wrote). Clark wrote an apologia for the USSR and was credibly accused of being a Soviet agent of influence; Macintyre was a member of the Communist Party of Australia for a time. Both are, of course, widely taught in Australia's schools and universities.

Richard Weber

Richard Harrison • Jan 27, 2018 at 07:46

Many thanks!

Herman Dost • Jan 26, 2018 at 08:32

I tried to watch Mark on last night's Tucker Carlson show but could not find it. What's the problem? I have a similar problem when I want to watch the recent "controversial" BBC program of Cathy Newman's interview of Jordan Peterson.

Julie Dil • Jan 26, 2018 at 08:11

REALLY enjoyed listening to your IPA address! I'm always awed by your mastery of language (all of them

Steven Payne • Jan 26, 2018 at 02:31

I got a Skype call from my Aussie buddy the other night. He showed me his new place -- beautiful house, lovely grounds with horses in a field, a goat that for some reason has it's own trailer, ocean visible in the distance -- all seen on a warm, Summer afternoon. Of course, for me it was a cold Winter night.
Jealous? Nah....

P. Gao • Jan 26, 2018 at 00:14

Coincidence? M. Mark's topics this week: importing foreigners in failed experiment using these words: Australia, camels, loneliness, outback legends, terrorism... just strategically add in 'traumatized campers' ?

Sol Cranfill • Jan 25, 2018 at 21:10

The encouraging and inspiring final four minutes of Mark's IPA speech are a missing link of the American experiment of governing ourselves.

John Howard agreed, in his concluding words: "One of the most important things that countries like Australia and the United States must do is never to lose an intense self-belief in the value of our own traditions and the value of our culture."

David Kelley-Wood • Jan 25, 2018 at 20:41

As big a deal as Australia Day obviously is, it's unfortunate that due to the dictates of the calendar, the clearly much more important dual celebrations on the 29th couldn't have been the focus, i.e., what would have been the 65th birthday of Deng Lijun and the 157th birthday of the great State of Kansas, but oh well, better luck next year!

Kate Smyth • Jan 25, 2018 at 20:31

Thanks, Mark. The fact that the landing of the First Fleet and raising of the Union Flag occurred on this day in 1788- nearly a decade after Cook's death- seems to have escaped The Greens, who are pushing this divisive agenda.

Fortunately, we have some great Australians like Jacinta Price, who points out that she is as much a product of "British settlement" as she is Indigenous (both genetically and culturally), and that, for all its failings, the arrival of Western Civilisation on Australian shores 230 years ago was undeniably for the collective good, and to be celebrated.

In "The Australian", Trent Dalton said of the just and decent visionary, Admiral Arthur Phillip: "Phillip had come to Australia with a vision for a great nation, a place of peace and prosperity open to all the vast continent's inhabitants, old and new, he hoped might build a life within its shimmering borders. He believed something wondrous could emerge from the prison colony he was burdened with building by order of King George III — the most ambitious social experiment ever to be conducted and, against all odds, succeed. Arthur Phillip believed he could turn a monumental historical negative — 780 criminals exiled from home constructing "a commonwealth of thieves" — into something close to the grand and evolving positive that is Australia in the year 2018."

Will enjoy re-watching the videos!

Sol Cranfill

Kate Smyth • Jan 25, 2018 at 22:54

Something I was surprised by, in Mark's interview, was John Howard's staunch defense of an immigration policy he portrayed as open to practically anyone meeting the general criteria. News coverage today measured Australia Day festivities by amounts of armed guards and bollarded streets, at odds with Admiral Phillips' vision of a place of peace.

Kate Smyth

Sol Cranfill • Jan 26, 2018 at 08:40

Yes, in this interview he did stress the importance of "orderly" (legal) immigration, though appeared to suggest that such an arrangement was open to any and all comers- which is at odds with his "many-races-one-culture" emphasis on assimilation based on shared enlightenment values.

The shift in public opinion in the last year appears to relate to an aggressive rejection of a continued Big Australia policy (which has always had bipartisan support, with 200K new migrants arriving each year), and a rude awakening to the extent of covert Chinese Government influence in Australia (including through universities, businesses, local councils, and ownership of infrastructure and other assets etc, not to mention a very corrupt and treasonous senator). It would be interesting to hear John Howard's current views on maintaining a strong (and dependent) trading relationship with a major authoritarian power, given that China has been steadily working away at its expansionist longterm interests in the region- in plain sight!

Dennis • Jan 25, 2018 at 19:42

"I'll be joining Tucker Carlson coast to coast across America live at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific"

Yahoo!

I don't have anything intelligent to say (as usual) about Australia but I have a related anecdote.

A cable TV fellow visited and after I said Hi etc I asked him what part of England he was from as I pegged him as a Londoner. He smiled widely and thanked me for recognizing that he was an Englishman as most of his customers think he's Australian. He is a proud ex Londoner.

Due to some UK relatives and working with several colleagues from the UK, I can usually tell generally where UK people are from. I enjoy trying to identify the various dialects, but Mark's mellifluous accent would be a total mystery if I hadn't heard his comments about his ancestry. ie his "English, Danish, Canadian ethnicity" is the smallest parade group on any Main Street every year.

Fran Lavery

Dennis • Jan 25, 2018 at 23:47

I thought I heard: Irish, Danish and Canadian, but maybe not that order.
Yahoo, and yippee ay oh, kai yay, Frank Zappa used to sing about becoming a dental floss tycoon. That's
what I sing when I see Mark will be on with Tucker, but leaving off the dental floss tycoon part.

Michelle Dulak

Fran Lavery • Jan 26, 2018 at 17:28

I could swear that he said he was Canadian-Belgian. Though there might have been some Irish and Danes in there.

Fran Lavery

Michelle Dulak • Jan 26, 2018 at 18:35

Probably not high up there in importance, like birthdays. I was just checking my memory but I guess I'm slipping.

Dennis

Fran Lavery • Jan 26, 2018 at 22:23

You and Michelle have me wondering which it was but even if Mark had come from a "s....country" it wouldn't matter. I checked the video on this site and it only ran Tucker's intro..

Anyway it's not "high up there in importance" as you wrote and I am here because of his clever insight, masterful writing, mellifluous accent and humor. I suspect that is why you are here as well.

Fran Lavery

Dennis • Jan 26, 2018 at 23:50

"Mellifluous"! I love how it forms on the lips! It's hard for me to think of another more wonderful word in the English language.

Michelle Dulak • Jan 25, 2018 at 17:56

OK, we have Black Lives Matter and the Bureau of Land Management; we have the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But since when does Oz get to co-opt IPA? To me, those letters mean just one thing.

Tracy Mescha

Michelle Dulak • Jan 25, 2018 at 20:18

Now, THIS is a question for the next Q&A! Is Mr. Steyn an IPA guy or does he opt for a nice witbier? Or somewhere in the middle with a heady Belgian or perhaps a Saison? We need answers :)

Tom Korte

Michelle Dulak • Jan 25, 2018 at 20:56

India Pale Ale?

Robert Bridges

Tom Korte • Jan 26, 2018 at 15:32

Hopefully not just any old IPA but one which can capture the taste of the original export brew to "InJa"... the correct water and the correct temp and time to "age" the brew in the ship's hold to perfection.

Had a fun time traveling from Sydney to Cairns by train and sampling all the local beers along the way back in 1980. Great people. Appreciated their hospitality.

Al Man from CA • Jan 25, 2018 at 17:09

My Grandfather was an Aussie, my Grandmother was an Englishwoman (both born in the 1890's). I am positive they both would be mind-boggled if they were beamed down here for a day and read what the heck is happening to their countries. #Culturalsuicide.