The City of Yarra Presents: Fun with Flags
Government Doodle on a flagpole (except for the national flag)
On 5 December 2023, conservative media such as Herald Sun, Daily Mail, and Sky News Australia reported the new policy of the Yarra City Council to fly eighteen flags on its civil flagpoles throughout the year. Only some of these flags have anything to do with Melbourne, Victoria, or Australia.
Furthermore, the Australian national flag will be removed on three dates: 26 January (Australia Day), 15 April (the release date of the Royal Commission report into Aboriginal Deaths in 1991), and 26 May (the National Sorry Day). Another sign of self-hate by the local government.
The City of Yarra is a local government area inside the city of Melbourne. It’s the second most densely populated local government area in Melbourne, populated by 91,500 people inside 19.5 square kilometres.
The city prides itself on diversity and claims that the flags are an expression of its diversity. Frankly, all metropolitan areas in the world are diverse now, and while Yarra could boast that almost 40% of its population are born overseas, they mostly come from England, New Zealand, Vietnam, China, and Greece.
You get the picture. The English and Kiwi backpackers and artists, older Vietnamese former refugees, Chinese of various ages coming over the last 30 years, and Greeks of various ages, with the last wave coming in the 2010s. The city has pubs, ethnic restaurants, and various independent shops and retail branches.
The city holds the best of Melbourne’s shopping streets – Bridge Road, Swan Street, Brunswick Street, and Smith Street, Time Out’s coolest street in the world in 2021. Time Out Town if you like. Young, progressive, inclusive, bourgeoise.
The council has nine members, none of them coming from the conservative Liberals or the liberal Labor. Three councillors are Greens, the party of choice for Australians under 30 in the 21st century. Four are independents, and two are independent socialists unaffiliated with Socialist Action or Victorian Socialists. Indeed, by November 2020 Yarra had become Australia’s first Green-dominated council.
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That is what gentrification does. The university graduates fulfill their dreams of living near the pubs and the grubs, appreciating the minorities who remain and their trades. They live safe enough to the point of boredom while seeing themselves as unique compared to the whiteness of the southeastern suburbia and the commodified CBD (i.e., it’s too Asian).
The councillors themselves are diverse. You have an Irish migrant (Jolly), an African Muslim Deputy Mayor (Anab Mohamud), a Greek man replacing an Italian woman (Glynatsis replacing de Vietri), and a Vietnamese Mayor (Nguyen, the most popular surname in Melbourne’s phonebook after Smith), not to mention fluidity in political affiliation – Amanda Stone resigned from Greens in February 2023 but kept her post as an independent.
The Liberals never had a chance in Yarra. From 1996 to 2002 it was a two-horse race between Labors and the emerging Greens, and after 2004 the socialists and the independents seeped away Labor’s chances.
Of course, the councillors also gave back to the voters: Good business for the restaurants and shops, recycling facilities, perhaps leniency and assistance in paperwork, and a decent neighbourhood (thanks to gentrification, again).
The numerous flags, therefore, annoy outsiders more than locals. Sure, there are objections coming from the like of Yarra Residents Collective, but councillors and their friends, um, allies, could easily dismiss them as far-right Tories.
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With the Aboriginal and the Torres Straits Islander flags flying undisturbed, here are the other 18 flags ready to be flown on the town halls:
1. Aromantic, for people who cannot feel romance. Not sure why this is important (and uneconomical with five different colours). Flown in the last week of February.
2. Asexual, for people who aren’t interested in sex. I’ve talked to some asexual-identifying people, and I think they fear sex due to pornography, family or social histories, and personal anxieties, from hygiene to the consequences of sex. Flown in the last week of October.
3. Bisexual, the classic. These fellows have it hard: They were distrusted by gays and lesbians in the last century, some bisexuals who have heterosexual partners are accused of lying, and now they are blamed for nurturing the sexual binary. Flown only on 23 September.
4. Brisbane Lions Football Club. Okay, this is confusing at first. The Australian Football Club began in Fitzroy before being absorbed by Brisbane Bears in 1996, but this is a Brisbane institution, isn’t it? Flown in Fitzroy if the Lions got through the Grand Finals.
5. Collingwood Football Club. A local institution. Same condition as above if Collingwood made it through the Grand Finals.
6. Eureka. Flown by rebelling gold miners in December 1854, it is an icon of Victoria. This Prussian blue flag is adopted by both unions and neo-Nazis, who have despised Chinese migrants throughout the history of Australia. Now that’s inclusion. Flown on 3 December.
7. Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. The most curious one, you might know it as Spanish Sahara (like the song) or Western Sahara. The Senate of Australia adopted a motion urging the government to recognise the republic in 2004, but overall, this is a 20th-century communist game. Many African Union countries have suspended or withdrawn their recognition, while Mexico, Iran, and Vietnam recognise the regime. Flown on 27 February, superseding the Aromantic flag.
8. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. The iconic peace sign. I was in a Japanese peace group in 2005, and I believe their current generation is seriously into this. Of course, the offending nuclear power here is just the USA, not China, Russia, or North Korea. Flown on 6 August, no complaint there from the Japanese Consulate.
9. Intersex. People born with multiple sex characteristics including chromosome patterns, gonads, and genitals. They got the whole Midsumma, from mid-January to mid-February.
10. Intersex Inclusive Pride. No, Intersex people don’t get two flags. This is the Lot, the Godfather of Pride Flag. The Rainbow plus black and brown and trans and finally the yellow Intersex circle. Supposedly Hamas will be included too in the short future. Flown on 17 May.
11. Lesbian Pride. My favourite gays, even when they don’t reciprocate. Flown on 26 April.
12. Morning Star. Not a New Age or Satanist flag, but the Free Papua Organization flag. Flown on 1 December. Not sure if the Indonesian Consulate would bother to protest.
13. Non Binary Pride. Yellow, white, lavender, and black. Flown on 14 July.
14. Pansexual Pride. Wider sexual interests than bisexuals, meaning they are interested in people identifying themselves as non-binary or even non-human. Alien contact ready. Flown on 24 July.
15. Richmond Football Club. Another local institution. Same condition as the two other football clubs.
16. Transgender. Flown on 20 November.
17. United Nations. Once a symbol of American imperialism, now a symbol of anti...Zionism. Flown on 24 October, superseding the Asexual flag.
18. Vietnamese Yellow. This is the funniest because it’s anti-Yarra. This Republic of Vietnam flag represents Vietnamese refugees to the West and is also recognised by several other city councils in Australia. Vietnamese in Vietnam are offended by the flag just like Vietnamese emigres in the West may be offended by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam’s communist flag. This Heritage and Freedom flag truly represents the Vietnamese community of the City of Yarra, but it’s anti-communist, really. Flown on 19 June.
So that’s the truth about the City of Yarra’s dozens of flags. Most of them will be flown for a day, some football clubs’ flags may never have their moment, and the most important flag in Australia will be removed three days a year. Local government in the Time Out Town, where three things matter: Pride, footy, and the Vietnamese.