Our Australian National Flag
In 2002, and for several years thereafter, I drove from my home on the Central Coast every day when Parliament was sitting to attend Parliament. The journey to Sydney’s CBD each day takes two and a half hours and then the trip back late at night takes under two hours.
To come to Parliament in time for committee meetings and the weekly prayer meeting I organize, requires rising at 5:30am. Parliament sits at night each day, sometimes until very late – 11pm is quite frequent, but we have sat until 2 am and even to 3:30 am with a break. Even at such very late hours, I used to drive home in the early hours of the morning, to sleep for an hour or so, then to shower and shave and leave again for another day at Parliament.
Obviously this is a stupid way of living especially with the danger of falling asleep on the F3 during the drive home. I avoided this by ringing my wife and talking with her as I drove. However the next day, it takes no imagination to realise that tired people voting on contentious legislation are a danger to the people.
So reluctantly I agreed to sleep in Sydney when Parliament is sitting. I was fortunate in being able to hire a bedroom on a regular basis in Macquarie Street just opposite the Parliament House at a level equal to the 12th floor roof of the Parliamentary office block. My view is due east past the Macquarie Lighthouse on South Head to the rising sun.
That white lighthouse shines in the first rays of dawn. It was built on the site of a flagstaff erected there at South Head in 1791 just after the First Fleet arrived to settle New South Wales. A wood and coal-fired beacon set in an iron basket on a tripod was established in 1793 and was the only guiding light for the next 25 years.
The first lighthouse structure in Australia, it was started in 1816 and completed in 1818 at the command of Governor Macquarie. The work was undertaken by Francis Greenway, the famous convict architect responsible for many significant and beautiful buildings in early Sydney. The new light was a revolving apparatus, powered by a clockwork mechanism, and consisting of a number of oil burning lamps set in parabolic reflectors. It flashed once every minute and was visible for 22 miles.
I have no need to draw the blinds at night as the next person on a level with me who could look into my bedroom would be on a mountaintop somewhere in New Zealand or the pilot of a Qantas jet coming in from Los Angeles.
So the first rays of the sun each morning flood my room with a call to arise. But each night, whatever the hour, from lying in my bed, the only thing I can see are the two giant flag poles on the roof of Parliament House flying the Australian flag, floodlit by the powerful lights which make the white stars of the flag shine brilliantly.
I checked the details from the Parliament House Building Supervisor and found the flagpoles are 6 metres in height on top of the 12th story and the lamps are each “400 watt, single ended, 10,000 degrees Kelvin, E 40 Metal Halide type”. I don’t know what all of that means but it sounds right! The result is brilliant light into the night sky, which makes the white on the flags shine so brilliantly I can almost read a newspaper in bed at midnight!
Recently, through a half opened eye, I gazed upon the flag and thought about it in the light of those people who want to discard it for the boxing kangaroo, the Eureka stars or some other design.
Following Federation as a new nation (the Commonwealth of Australia) on 1st January 1901 the Commonwealth Government announced a Federal Flag design competition on 29th April 1901. The Review of Reviews for Australasia, a Melbourne journal, had initiated an Australian flag competition in 1900, a unique event at the time. It was agreed that the entries received by this journal would be accepted in the Government’s competition.
The contest attracted 32,823 entries from men, women and children. An expert panel of judges assessed the entries using guidelines which included history, heraldry, distinctiveness, utility and cost of manufacture. On 3rd September 1901, a public ceremony was held at the Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne, where Lady Hopetoun, wife of the Governor-General, opened a display of the entries in the competition.
The Prime Minister of Australia, Sir Edmund Barton, announced that five entrants, who had submitted similar designs, were to share the honour of being declared the designers of Australia’s own flag. They were: Ivor Evans, a fourteen-year-old schoolboy from Melbourne; Leslie John Hawkins, a teenager apprenticed to a Sydney optician; Egbert John Nuttall, a Melbourne architect; Annie Dorrington, an artist from Perth; and William Stevens, a ship’s officer from Auckland, New Zealand.
The Commonwealth Government and the Review of Reviews for Australasia provided ₤75 each and the Havelock Tobacco Company added ₤50 to this making a total of ₤200 prize money, a considerable amount at the time. The five winners received ₤40 each.
The Australian National Flag features the five stars of the constellation of the Southern Cross and the Commonwealth Star, and the combined crosses of St George, St Andrew and St Patrick. The union of crosses represents Australia’s European early settlers. The Commonwealth Star with its seven points represents the unity of the six Australian states and the seventh point stands for all Australian Territories.
Under the Flags Act of 1953, passed unanimously by parliament, it was confirmed that our “Stars and Crosses” design be the chief national symbol by law, custom and tradition and that it be honoured with the title “The Australian National Flag”. The new status of the national flag was emphasized when the Act of Parliament received royal assent from Queen Elizabeth II, on Her Majesty’s visit to Australia in 1954. The Australian rules of flag etiquette are designed to ensure that the national flag is displayed with the dignity befitting its status.
The Australian National Flag identifies a free and democratic people in a nation united in purpose. Our national flag belongs equally to all Australians whatever their origins. Each of the symbols on the flag has a special meaning.
The stars of the Southern Cross represent our geographic position in the Southern Hemisphere; the Commonwealth star stands for our federation of States and Territories; the Crosses represent the principles on which our nation is based, namely, parliamentary democracy, rule of law and freedom of speech.
In 1996 the Governor-General, Sir William Deane, proclaimed 3rd September as Australian National Flag Day, to commemorate the day in 1901 on which our national flag of “Stars and Crosses” was first flown. It is the right and privilege of every Australian to fly the Australian National Flag. I raise one in my front garden each day on a five-metre flagpole, and leave it flying at night as I have it illuminated by a solar powered light.
The cross represented in each flag is named after the patron saint of each country: St. George, patron saint of England, St. Andrew, patron saint of Scotland and St. Patrick, patron saint of Ireland.
The idea is of the union of the three flags forming one unified, transnational Flag representative of the United Kingdom. The Welsh flag with the dragon was omitted, as a union with Wales had been previously declared. But what was meant to be a symbol of unity actually became a symbol of international controversy. The English resented the fact that the white background of their cross had disappeared and that the new flag had the blue Scottish background. On the other hand the Scottish resented the fact that the English red cross was superimposed on the Scottish white cross!! The old adage says you cannot please everyone but this first version of the Union Flag seemed to please no one!!
The flag continued to be used in its original form until 1 January 1801. At that time, with the union of Ireland and Great Britain, it became necessary to represent Ireland in the Union Flag and so the cross of St. Patrick was included, thus creating the flag as we now have it. When the southern part of Ireland gained its independence in 1921 and became the Irish Free State no alteration was made to the Union Jack. St George was a brave Turkish Christian who lived in Palestine and fought for Richard III who adopted his colours, the white meaning purity of faith and the blood red cross of sacrifice. The Cross of St Andrew was in the shape of the cross on which an outstretched Andrew was crucified for his faith in Christ. The Cross of St Patrick was the emblem of one of the greatest Christian missionaries who ever came to England, Scotland and Ireland, although it is mostly his Irish ministry that is most remembered.
The Bible records Jesus as saying, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last” (Revelation 1:8). These are the first and last letters in the Greek alphabet. In Hebrew the first letter of the alphabet was Aleph (x cross) and last letter was Tau (+ cross). When placed upon the other the crossed crosses form the Union Jack. The three crosses also signify the three covenants of Abraham, Moses and Christ that God made with His people. The flag includes the Crosses that indicate the ideals of Christianity and the blessings inherited from the forefathers passed down from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is appropriate we also fly the Aboriginal flag indicating the custodianship of the land under our indigenous people.
Although the term ‘Jack” is commonly used to describe a flag flown at the bow-end of a ship on the “jack mast”, it was more significant during the reign of King James 1. The Latin for James is “Jacobus” and in Hebrew “Jacob”. When shortened it became “Jac”. With the progressive merging of the people of the British Isles under one Throne the formation of the Union Jack was completed in 1801 when the flags of Scotland, England and Ireland combined. This coincided with the growth of the British Empire.
These were the peoples who were the first Europeans to settle this country. About 160 other nations are represented in later immigrants who arrived. But the people from the United Kingdom were the first and most significant, certainly until the end of World War II. The three colours of blue, red and white were used in the Tabernacle for the curtains, according to God’s specifications. The white linen represented the white robes of righteousness given by the Lord to his people. Red signified the blood covenant, which was later, fulfilled in Jesus. Blue was the national colour of (Ancient) Israel, and of God’s right to rule over men. In Numbers 15:38-41, Israel was instructed to wear a prayer shawl with the corners gathered into a tassel marked with a blue cord as a remembrance to keep God’s Commandments.
When people seriously suggest other flag motifs such as the boxing kangaroo, they demonstrate their own ignorance, a secular atheism and a defiance of our Christian roots. Look at the national flag flying each night in the spotlights against a dark sky; it is one of our most noble sights.
Rev the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes AC MLC
