Musical Dispatch from the Front – Flagpoles – February 2026
Frank Baarda
Michael Harries responded to a recent Dispatch as follows:
“Regarding the requirement to sing the anthem in English...
Wendy I'm sure and maybe yourself remember John Howard's insistence that all schools 'display prominently' what he called our National values. Fuck off John they're Liberal party values. We have our own thanks. The large poster was embossed with the picture of Simpson and his Donkey. In the same order all schools were to fly the Australian flag. No flag pole? They'd buy one for us.
So we obliged - with poster at least. Hung it in the staff toilet.”
I’d completely forgotten about this offering from John Howard, that dog-whistler extraordinaire. I seemed to recall mentioning both flagpoles and Simpson’s Donkey in at least one Dispatch so I set about searching my emails. I wasn’t having much luck so I digressed and searched the internet instead. In an article in The Age there was this:
"Every school in Australia will be required to fly the national flag from next year to qualify for their share of the Howard Government's new $31 billion federal schools package.
The changes, foreshadowed yesterday by Prime Minister John Howard and Education Minister Brendan Nelson, were attacked by the Labor Party and parent and teacher groups, but won praise from monarchists.
Mr Howard rejected suggestions that the flag requirement was old-fashioned. ‘I don't think there's anything old-fashioned about the display of patriotic symbols,’ he said.
He said he would also like to hear the national anthem sung in schools, but it would not be a funding condition.”
This was in 2004. The Dispatches didn’t start until 2007, engendered by the Intervention.
I regret to inform the NT Government that just like teenagers who wrongly think they’ve invented sex; they weren’t the first to think of mandatory anthem singing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEgpfB1Fu68&t=5s
♫ ♫ ♫ Australian Indigenous National Anthem [Australia vs Argentina '20]
Chau,
Frank