The evidence of disadvantage in Indigenous communities throughout the world is overwhelming. There ought to be funding for programs designed and co-designed to address such disadvantages in modern liberal democracies. At the same time, when the Aboriginal flag and the Palestinian flag are flown together while the Australian flag is burnt at an ‘Invasion Day’ rally, taxpayers deserve reassurance that they are not funding partisan activism.

Taxpayers should also be reassured that public funding is not being used to support those who call to:

‘Abolish the date and abolish the state.’

And say:

‘To the nation that celebrates invasion, that builds comfort on graves and calls it pride, f—k you, f—k you Australia.’

Given the Labor government voted against Phillip Thompson’s amendment to the Hate Laws last week to make burning the flag illegal, it’s one thing to allow it and quite another to have to pay for it.

We’ve seen the same attitude in academia where taxpayers have inadvertently funded activist research.

Before the current Labor government, the relevant Minister for Education had the power, as the elected representative of the people, to veto research funding. That process has since been supplanted by a board of unelected bureaucrats who determine who gets a slice of some $1 billion in annual non-medical research funding. These are not insignificant sums of money, with some reaching over $800,000. The partisan nature of so many publicly-funded ‘cultural’ activities in Australia is widespread.

It’s appropriate that public funding should be used for the benefit of all or for those in need. It should not be used to fund activists. Especially those activists who march through the streets saying ‘f—k you, f—k Australia’ on Australia Day.

I can’t think of anything more divisive than this. It’s one thing to debate the date of Australia Day, quite another to vandalise our monuments with ‘Abolish Australia’ and conflate the plight of Indigenous Australians with pro-Palestinian activism. Particularly in light of the recent Bondi massacre.

Yet some activists claimed that:

‘We’re trying to bring truth to a country that we can all be proud of together.’

What is built with this public funding matters. In one instance, funding was sourced from one of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Jubilee programs only to create a project that declared these ‘lands that were never ceded’. Many would claim this is a deeply cynical and hypocritical. Certainly not reconciliatory.

It’s high time an audit of funding was conducted for activist groups associated with anti-Australian obscenities, burning the national flag, and partisan decolonising claims.

The biggest insult is the implied untruth that Indigenous Australians all think the same. From the online commentary on Australia Day, clearly this is not the case.

Many Australians have no problem with freedom of speech. However, taxpayers shouldn’t have to fund left-wing activists and their conflated ideas of justice and facetious claims of genocide that hide behind Indigenous disadvantage to advance their political agendas.

Dr Michael de Percy @FlaneurPolitiq is the Spectator Australia’s Canberra Press Gallery Correspondent. If you would like to support his writing, or read more of Michael, please visit his website.