Charlie Pickering:<\/p>\n
So here to argue, what if we didn\u2019t remove the Union Jack from the flag? I\u2019m joined by Morgan Begg, director of research at the IPA. Good evening, Morgan.<\/p>\n
Morgan Begg:<\/p>\n
Hey, great to be with you, Charlie.<\/p>\n
Charlie Pickering:<\/p>\n
Thank you for joining us. So why shouldn\u2019t we remove the Union Jack?<\/p>\n
Morgan Begg:<\/p>\n
Well, flags are symbols. A national flag is an important national symbol, and the components of these flags are themselves symbols. So on the Australian flag, you\u2019ve got the Federation star, which represents the states, the coming together of disparate people under a common vision of Australia\u2019s future. And the Southern Cross tells us that the Australia is not just an idea, but it\u2019s an actual place that has its own history and belongs to people who are born here and choose to call it home.<\/p>\n
And then you\u2019ve got the Union Jack. And this is a symbol, but it\u2019s a very positive symbol of what we have inherited. This is the rule of law developed through centuries of development of English common law and Westminster parliamentary democracy, among other things. These are the institutions that we share and connect us all. And what the flag tells us is that there is more that unites us as Australians than divides us.<\/p>\n
And I think when you start getting into the debate about changing the flag or removing elements of the flag, I think we have to be very cautious about what we\u2019re getting rid of in the process.<\/p>\n
Charlie Pickering:<\/p>\n
You say that the Commonwealth Star represents a coming together of district people in unity. And you also say the Union Jack tells a positive story. You do obviously appreciate that for a lot of Australians, that\u2019s not a positive story that it\u2019s telling. That is a symbol of division. And as far as our history goes, a long history that dates back tens of thousands of years with First Peoples, that is a symbol that says that this is not a country for them.<\/p>\n
Morgan Begg:<\/p>\n
I think that\u2019s the wrong message. I don\u2019t believe that at all.<\/p>\n
Charlie Pickering:<\/p>\n
Have you thought of asking First Australians?<\/p>\n
Morgan Begg:<\/p>\n
Well, I mean, at the IPA, we have commissioned research. We have published research on attitudes towards the Australian flag. And 75% of Australians believe we should retain the flag and only 10% disagree. 71% say the flag unites us and only 13% disagree. So when we\u2019re talking about the question about what to do with the flag, how to approach the flag, there is a very clear attitude in the community about whether or not we should change it.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s about how much weight do we actually give to a very small minority of people who have these views, which are not really founded in the evidence, which is, well, we know what these symbols represent. And yeah, you can make that and turn it into a negative story, but that\u2019s a choice. And we don\u2019t have to do that and we shouldn\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n
Charlie Pickering:<\/p>\n
At the risk of speaking on behalf of anyone, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a twisting of history to say that that was a flag that was present here for some dark times for a lot of people who are part of our history. But moving on from that, I look at a Canadian flag and that is a cool flag. They\u2019re part of the Commonwealth. They\u2019ve got their history. They know who they are. Isn\u2019t it an opportunity to have something that\u2019s distinctly us and not a part of something else? Isn\u2019t that part of the experience of nationhood too, saying that we stand by ourselves? We are independent. We are our own country.<\/p>\n
Morgan Begg:<\/p>\n
I just think the Australian flag, this is a story that we should be so proud of. After the flag emerged from the community, after Federation, the new Commonwealth government launched the world\u2019s first ever national flag design contest. And at the time it attracted almost 33,000 entrants. At that time, it was about 1% of the population. That is an extraordinary tale to tell of how this is the people\u2019s flag. It came from the people and it\u2019s been adopted by the people. And only after that, over the common usage over time, did it become formalised as the national flag? But those are the truly noble and admirable origins, and we should celebrate that.<\/p>\n
Charlie Pickering:<\/p>\n
Well, maybe we should have a competition, start afresh, see what gets entered. And according to your logic, that could be our flag as representing the people. Morgan Begg-<\/p>\n
Morgan Begg:<\/p>\n
We have had those contests and as it happens, they\u2019ve never really caught on.<\/p>\n
Charlie Pickering:<\/p>\n
Well, we\u2019ll see. Morgan Begg, director of research at the IPA. Thank you so much for your time this afternoon.<\/p>\n
This transcript of Morgan Begg on Drive with Charlie Pickering ABC Melbourne from 29 July 2026 has been edited for clarity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charlie Pickering: So here to argue, what if we didn\u2019t remove the Union Jack from the flag? I\u2019m…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[23,990,10121,50854,260,2553,8207,20688],"class_list":["post-61545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-melbourne","tag-australia","tag-australian","tag-australian-flag","tag-democracy","tag-melbourne","tag-national","tag-poll","tag-polling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}