Someone didn’t get the memo that Woke is out and patriotism is in. The election of flag-embracing Donald Trump as the next American President has expedited the demise of tiresome anti-patriotic behaviour. Australia is one of the beneficiaries of this trend, thanks to the infiltration of social media spreading the antidote to the Woke virus.
The latest proof of this trend came today with what the Daily Mail called a ‘grovelling apology’ from Australian Venue Co which owns 200 pubs and clubs.
Earlier they came out all hot and heavy, announcing their intention to skip Australia Day for the usual black-armband reasons.
This triggered a surge of public outrage and plans to boycott their establishments.
Lists of which venues to avoid were quickly circulated on social media and it became clear that the public mood for this sort of virtue signalling had fallen out of fashion.
‘We can see that our comments on the weekend have caused both concern and confusion. We sincerely regret that – our purpose is to reinforce community in our venues, not divide it…’ Read a statement from the company.
In what way does coming out against the nation’s day of celebration ‘reinforce community’? Anti-Australia Day protests are led by a minority of activists whose arguments are deeply rooted in divisive race politics. This is not a secret. There have been trending boycotts of other companies in previous years, such as supermarkets who failed to sell Australia Day merchandise.
‘It is not for us to tell anyone whether or how to celebrate Australia Day. We acknowledge that and we apologise for our comments. It certainly wasn’t our intention to offend anyone.’
The message was posted on their social media accounts.
Strangely, the company’s Instagram has a post up proudly celebrating Canada Day. You have to scroll all the way back to 2017 if you want to find a solitary post about Australia Day.
It is odd that such a large organisation would be oblivious to the offence it might cause to its customers when it has an extensive Woke-themed checklist on its site.
It has a reconciliation statement with a newly-formed First Nations Committee, a safe spaces message, a Pride initiative including ‘Gender & Sexuality Inclusion Training hosted by our friends at Minus18’, a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion statement to ‘regularly evaluate our social impact’, and a message that Australian Venue Co ‘welcomes all peoples’ followed by a rainbow flag, a trans flag, and an Aboriginal flag. No Australian flag, mind you. Perhaps they can add that as a way of apology?
There is an expectation following this extensive list that the organisation is politically savvy enough to understand what has unfolded.
‘Australia Day is a day that causes sadness for some members of our community, so we have decided not to specifically celebrate a day that causes hurt for some of our patrons and our team.’
Saying that the celebration of the nation causes sadness is a politically loaded statement – one that Australians are getting sick of hearing from corporations.
Senator Matt Canavan was on form when he said they should, ‘…get off their moral high horse. They’re a pub, for god’s sake.’
