As you probably know, on Australia Day 2026 circa 2,500 people took part in an entirely peaceful “Invasion Day” rally/protest in Perth’s Forrest Place.
Adjacent to Forrest Place, and overlooking it, is Forrest Chase’s elevated walkway – from which an IED (improvised explosive device) was hurled.
Had it worked as intended, the probable consequence would have been multiple injuries…perhaps, fatalities too.
By virtue of the bomb-throwing occurring in Perth, rather than in Sydney or Melbourne – and the bomb’s failure to detonate – Australia’s Sydney-centric, so-called “national” media were regrettably but predictably slow to grasp the seriousness of this profoundly disturbing incident.
Meanwhile, that afternoon, my beloved and I were blissfully ignorant of what had happened, as we enjoyed a long walk along the Rocky Bay cliff line, above the Swan River.
The waters immediately below the North Fremantle cliffs (where river and ocean are separate, but very close to each other) were thronged with Australia Day revellers, and many millions of dollars worth of boats.
Goodwill abounded.
As the image atop this post shows, Australia Day celebrations on the Swan were in overwhelmingly large part all about sociability, bonhomie, enjoying a benign summer’s day and securing a floating vantage point for the evening’s fireworks.
Loud or aggressive/confrontational displays of nationalistic or jingoistic fervour were blessedly absent.
Most boats flew the official national flag.
Some favoured the Boxing Kangaroo, or the Australian Aboriginal flag.
There was zero evidence of hostility or ill-will between those who flew different flags.
The image below is in no way photographically remarkable, but if you look at it closely, you will discover that one boat was flying very large foreign flags.
The “gate-crashers” flew a pair of oversized United States flags, and an even more oversized, politically-partisan US election campaign flag which extolled the USA’s current President.
One can reasonably assume that most patriotic US citizens – whether MAGA-hatted Trumpists or their opponents – would consider it highly inappropriate if citizens of other nations were to insert their national flags into an American Independence Day event on US soil – let alone to fly election campaign flags from foreign lands.
I strongly suspect that if the “boot” were on the other foot – as imagined in the immediately-preceding paragraph – a decidedly ugly confrontation would have ensued.
Happily, in 2026 Australia is not (yet?) as toxically-disunited as the USA; the Trumpsters’ rude, crass and inappropriate behaviour caused not a ripple on the Swan.
At least as far as we could see, everyone else present simply ignored them!
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