The defining event of 2023 was the defeat of Labor’s Voice to Parliament. While this was a source of great satisfaction to the 61 per cent of the population that voted ‘no’ that resounding majority almost certainly didn’t include anyone at the national broadcaster.

Still in high dudgeon at being forced to submit to the indignity of abiding by the democratically expressed will of the people, the ABC and the City of Sydney council seemed to have decided to turn New Year’s Eve into a dirge for the dead Voice.

The evening started on a sombre note with a smoking ceremony on a boat appropriately named Tribal Warrior and of course there was a ‘Welcome to Country’. (It might be a new year but it’s the same old ABC.)

The council renamed the 9 pm children’s fireworks ‘Calling Country’. To get into the spirit, the ABC featured a First Nations hip hop ‘supergroup’ called 3% because Aboriginals represent 3 per cent of the population. Three per cent also seemed to represent the level of positive feedback the group received after singing a song about  the Voice that castigated Australians for voting ‘no’, called them ‘sick’, and said the country was going ‘backward’. It also included family-friendly lyrics such as ‘You can suck my Moby D**k’ which, at the last minute was changed to ‘You can sink this Moby ship’.

No wonder the audience was confused. ‘What on earth was that’ asked one puzzled viewer who concluded that the ABC had ‘managed to make their coverage even worse this year’.

‘Who at ABC Australia thought it was a good idea to put an awful rap group on before the early kids fireworks and then spend a large chunk of the fireworks just showing projections on the Bridge,’ wondered another viewer. The projections featured ‘referendum-type messages’ wrote an angry parent. The lyrics included, ‘They stole the land in the name of their kings’ and ‘They locked us up and they threw away the key’.

‘The illegal fireworks in my suburb are more entertaining’ wrote an exasperated viewer.

The performance by the electro-pop band Confidence Man also fell short of audience expectations. According to Triple J, Confidence Man set up a club in their backyard called ‘The F*ck Bunker’ and recorded a ‘J Lo slut jam’ called ‘Toy Boy’. The key lyrics were, ‘Rub you down in butter and I serve you on a plate / They say there are seven wonders but my toy boy makes it eight.’ The ABC thought this an appropriate choice for an audience that included a large number of under-12-year-olds. The viewers were not impressed.

‘What is this sh*te…’ asked one. ‘Why are these dopes even bothering, if they are straight out lip-synching horribly,’ said a second. ‘Is this a Rock Eisteddfod secondary school national comp?’ chimed in a third.’Is that Sacha Baron Cohen punking us’ wondered a fourth.‘It’s like a year six talent quest performance,’ said a fifth. The definitive judgment was: ‘This techno, synth, prancing, fake, lip syncing, narcissistic, vacuous crap is f*k*n dreadful!!! Throw them in the harbour!’

And so the evening plodded on.

Singer Angie McMahon told the families that ‘Palestinians should be free’ but viewers were more interested in being free of Angie.

‘Get Angie McMahon, the wannabe activist, OFF!!! ’, wrote one. ‘What a disgrace!! Political activism everywhere,’ commented another. ‘Whatever happened to a fun night out for all without a painful political statements,’ lamented a third.

‘It’s nothing but government propaganda and full of the woke agenda. No thanks. The greatest waste of taxpayer money. #Defund ABC,’ demanded a fourth.

The sneaking suspicion that the ABC was deliberately ruining the evening occurred to more than one person. ‘Is ABC trying to put us to sleep?!? I’ve heard better music at a funeral’ wrote a despairing viewer. ‘At the rate we are going, I think everyone is going to fall asleep and miss the fireworks this year,’ said another. ‘Worst NYE broadcast ever, turned that crap off. ABC what a joke and whoever organised the whole NYE fireworks it’s the worst I’ve ever witnessed. Turned it off immediately once I realised it was just another woke st*tshow,’ fumed a third. ‘Seriously, what is going on,’ asked MicStaman. ‘I found a button on my remote that makes this concert bearable. It’s called the mute button.’

If this wasn’t enough to put a dampener on your evening, the fun-loving clerics in western Sydney slammed New Year’s Eve as a ‘celebration of foreskin’. Yes, you read that right. Abu Ousayd gave a sermon at Bankstown’s Al Madina Dawah Centre on Friday, in which he claimed that New Year’s Day was a ‘day of circumcision’.

‘I’m sorry to say this but you are celebrating a piece of foreskin’ he explained fastidiously. ‘How low can the Muslim community stoop that we are celebrating a piece of flesh that is cut and thrown away,’ he asked. ‘Flocking to watch the fireworks, staying up until midnight in the city. The infidels on New Year’s Eve turn and kiss each other at midnight… keep away from them!’ he warned.

Footage also emerged of another Sydney cleric, sheikh Ahmed Zoud, who delivered a 35-minute anti-Semitic tirade at Lakemba’s As-Sunnah mosque on December 22, on ‘the truth of the Jews’. ‘The most important characteristic of the Jews,’ he said ‘is that they are thirsty for bloodshed… Another characteristic of Jews is betrayal and treachery, an inherent trait… The Jews (will always) remain the Jews, the days nor years change them’.

With sermons like these being delivered on a regular basis in Australian mosques, no one should be surprised that two Australian brothers who were killed by Israeli air strikes in southern Lebanon turned out to be Hezbollah jihadists. The ABC, of course, was the last station to twig that the brothers were not  tourists but terrorists.

We should also not be surprised intelligence agencies fear that more Australians will follow in the brothers’ footsteps and that they fear there are plans for violent attacks in Australia inspired by the war in Gaza.

So, while the government pursues its agenda of censoring its political opponents and anyone else that challenges its narrative, and the woke cancel anyone of whom they disapprove, no one cares or dares to silence the anti-Semitic, anti-Western vitriol that is spouted with impunity in Australian mosques by terrorist sympathisers.