Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has defended Day traditions and revealed he will be participating in events on January 26.
His support for the holiday comes just hours after Sunrise host Natalie Barr criticised him for ‘tiptoeing around’ the controversy.
Up until now, it was hard to gauge the PM’s opinion on Day celebrations – after Woolworths revealed it would no longer sell merchandise and Cricket confirmed it would no longer acknowledge the day.
But Mr Albanese was unequivocal during an interview with Sky News on Monday morning.
‘I think it’s an important day,’ he said. ‘I certainly will be participating in all the events.’
‘ Day is a day when we reflect on who we are as a nation, where we give thought to how we can continue to make [this country] even greater in the future.’
Barr asked agriculture minister Murray Watt if PM Anthony Albanese should be showing more leadership on the Day row
The PM said January 26 ‘commemorates the founding of the colony in New South Wales, but also in recent times, of course multicultural as well.
‘Citizenship ceremonies are always at the at the forefront on Day and they’ll take place around people pledging their allegiance to and to our values and our democratic traditions. That is really important.’
He also criticised recent complaints from the Opposition about his decision to hold a sudden caucus meeting in Canberra this week to discuss the cost of living crisis.
He rebuffed suggestions it was costing the taxpayer up to $500,000 for the impromptu meeting – arguing that many ministers were already scheduled to be in Canberra this week for the n of the Year celebration and other Day events.
‘Ministers are here already this week, we were here last week,’ he said. ‘Peter Dutton is always looking to divide.’
The PM instead called on ns to ‘stop looking for areas in which we can be outraged’ and focus on ways we can ‘come together’.
Hours earlier in a bruising encounter with Agriculture Minister Murray Watt on Monday morning, the Seven Network host blasted the PM’s hands-off stance to the January 26 row.
It follows Woolworths refusing to sell Day merchandise and big corporations, including tech giant Atlassian, ditching the day as a public holiday for staff.
Meanwhile, the n Open is snubbing the national day for the second year running and Cricket abandoned the term for the West Indies Test at the Gabba in Brisbane this week.
‘Do you think most ns are getting sick of this tiptoeing around Day, and there should be some leadership from the top so that we don’t have to all sort of be embarrassed about what we’re doing on that day?’ Barr quizzed Mr Watt.
Sunrise host Nat Barr has slammed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for not taking leadership over the Day row and demanded an end to ‘tiptoeing around’ it
The senior Labor minister – who has been the PM’s point person on the issue in the past week – defended Mr Albanese, arguing that he wasn’t calling for a boycott on Woolworths like Opposition Leader Peter Dutton did earlier this month.
He added: ‘I don’t see the prime minister being the one who’s getting out there leading some sort of debate about Day.’
But Barr snapped back: ‘Should there be?’
Mr Watt replied that ns were capable of making up their own mind without being told what to think by the government.
‘Well, no, I think it’s a democracy, people are entitled to their different views,’ he said.
‘What I don’t think is right is what we saw from Peter Dutton a week or so ago, talking about using Day and the position of a supermarket to boycott it, risking all of the jobs that exist in that supermarket.
‘We’re much more focused on things like the war on inflation, rather than culture wars and whether supermarkets sell the right kind of thongs.
‘I think that that’s what most ns want their government focused on as well.’
NSW Premier Chris Minns on Monday morning made an extraordinary intervention – branding Cricket ‘s decision not to acknowledge Day as ‘strange’ and said he would be celebrating the national day.
‘The idea that you would take a national day away from any country, particularly , is a strange one,’ the Labor Premier told 2GB’s Ben Fordham.
‘We should [be], right now, trying to pull each other together, and this is the day that we’ve set aside to celebrate what it means to live in the greatest country on Earth.
‘I definitely will be doing that.’
Meanwhile, Mr Watt said Cricket and big business were entitled to make their own decisions on whether they celebrated .
Barr said Cricket was walking ‘a fine line’ by axing the references to Day for this week’s test.
But Mr Watt insisted: ‘Cricket is an independent organisation and they’re entitled to make their decisions about what they want to do.
In a bruising encounter with agriculture minister Murray Watt on Monday morning, Barr blasted the PM’s hands-off stance on the long-running controversy
‘There’ll be some organisations that will be loudly celebrating Day, there’ll be some that aren’t.
‘As a government, we’ve made clear that we have no plans whatsoever to change the date from Day.
‘I’ll be celebrating Day myself on Thursday at a citizenship ceremony and probably a Barbie after that.
‘I know the Prime Minister is planning to celebrate Day, but we respect the fact that different people have got different views about this.
‘Cricket are big enough and ugly enough to make their own decision.’
READ MORE: Why Cricket is snubbing the nation’s day
It will only be marked in passing by the ground announcer and Cricket is set to acknowledge that it represents different things to different people. The decision to schedule the test over the Day weekend was itself controversial, with women’s all-rounder Ash Gardner previously describing it as a day of ‘hurt and mourning’.
Aunty Joy Murphy Wandin gives a welcome to country during day one of the Second Test Match between and Pakistan at Melbourne Cricket Ground on Boxing Day