The mainstream media painted last week’s March for Australia as a gathering of racists and extremists, but what I saw was something entirely different.

I saw Greeks, Italians, Africans, Indians, Jews, Christians, and gays.

I saw young people and old people. All patriotic Australians.

I saw parents with their children, worried they will never realise the Australian Dream as they did.

They came for different reasons.

Some to protest the government’s mass immigration policy. Others fearful the laid-back, larrikin Australia they grew up in is slipping away.

On the train that morning, I met an elderly couple.

The man wore a poppy pin and told me his father had fought Nazis in the second world war.

Yet they kept their flags hidden between their legs, afraid of being accosted as racists.

It broke my heart that the descendants of war heroes could feel ashamed to show pride in their country.

When I shared my account on X – so different from the media’s depiction – it went viral.

Support poured in, not just from Australians but from patriots in the United Kingdom, Austria, the Netherlands, Canada, France, Israel, and elsewhere.

But it’s not entirely surprising.

In Victorian schools, Year 7s are taught a unit called A History of Invasion and Colonisation, but nothing that celebrates the success of Australia’s founders.

Patriotism is now used as a weapon of division, wielded to silence legitimate concerns about our country’s direction.

Young people are raised to be ashamed of their country’s foundation, yet at the same time to respect the institutions it created.

At the march, I saw patriots spat on by masked cowards in keffiyehs. I saw them burn and vandalise Australian flags.

The mainstream media ignored much of this.

Instead, they painted the entire gathering as a hotbed of racism, focusing on a handful of troublemakers among thousands.

This distorted coverage reflects a broader cultural shift in how we view Australian identity.

By that same logic, they should be branding every pro-Palestine activist an antisemite or terrorist – but of course they don’t.

The media didn’t broadcast the chants of ‘F*ck off Nazis!’ that rang out loudly every time a black clad ratbag was spotted, because that would oppose their narrative.

At least one independent outlet captured the true essence of Australia: two young Africans singing the Australian anthem alongside an older Italian man.

Still, the political class wasted no time piling on.

State and federal leaders from both major parties condemned the march.

One left-wing mainstream outlet declared that even the word ‘Australia’ is a racist dog whistle.

In a ‘basket of deplorables’ moment, the Victorian Police Minister labelled protestors ‘grubs’.

‘They’re just grubs, absolute grubs, and we know what they’re there for: to promote hate in the community, to blame people for their gripes and their complaints and their whinges. They can march up and down all they like, their views are of no consequence to this government. We will do everything we can to wrap our arms around those who feel vulnerable and upset at this time and make sure that they get the support that they need.’

The Victorian Premier told us we are a ‘nation of foreigners’, in doing so denying the very idea of a shared Australian identity.

We are not just an amorphous economic zone that churns out university degrees or a remittance farm.

We are a country, a beacon of Western Civilisation, or at least we were.

In Parliament, Greens Senator Nick McKim took offence to Jacinta Nampijinpa Price draping herself in the Australian flag – even though one hangs in the chamber.

? ALERT: Greens Ban Australian Flag from Senate Chamber ?

WATCH UNTIL THE END

“So disappointing from the Greens, but sadly typical. Allowed to wear a keffiyeh in the chamber — but not our national flag. Once again, the Greens prove they don’t love this country the way most… pic.twitter.com/BWSDnmMMLt

— Jacinta Nampijinpa (@JNampijinpa) September 3, 2025

While mass migration is not the sole cause of our malaise, it’s amplifying every other policy failure.

Since the pandemic, Australia has run one of the world’s largest immigration programs.

We keep selling tickets to a football match even though the seats are all taken, it’s standing room only, and the stands are groaning under the weight of too many fans.

Australia’s standard of living growth is now the slowest in the OECD.

Productivity is stagnant and, on a GDP per capita basis, we are on the verge of recession.

Governments keep reaching for the easy fix: more immigration, even though it drags on productivity and undermines wages.

In my state of Victoria, youth unemployment and crime rates are the highest in the country.

Families are stretched to breaking point between power bills, groceries, mortgages and rent.

This dynamic is not unique to Australia; in fact, we are behind the curve.

Across the West, voters feel they have been ignored on immigration.

As columnist Bret Stephens, from the progressive New York Times writes:

‘What most of these voters are feeling isn’t racism. It’s indignation at having their normal and appropriate political concerns dismissed as racism.

‘As long as politicians and pundits of the traditional political establishment treat them as racists, the far right is going to continue to rise and flourish.’

That is the risk here too.

The marchers were not anti-migrant; they were protesting a system buckling under the strain of housing shortages and failing services.

Dismissing legitimate concerns as racism will only drive citizens further towards the extremes.

The challenge for politicians is balancing the seemingly opposing objectives: majority will with individual rights, defending sovereignty while maintaining openness, preserving our foundational principles while adapting to change.

But the answer isn’t to abandon patriotism – it’s to reclaim it.

Australians should stand tall, raise the flag, and wear their patriotism with pride, before there’s nothing left worth being proud of.