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Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has accused Cricket Australia of “woke moralising” after it announced cricket would once again be played on Australia Day but the national anthem would probably not be played out of sensitivity towards Indigenous Australians.
Taylor’s push into the cultural conversation comes as his ailing party opens the door to gender quotas after years of internal opposition to forcing the selection of women candidates.
Cricket was not played on Australia Day in 2025 or this year. In 2021, Cricket Australia stopped using the term “Australia Day” at matches, prompting then-prime minister Scott Morrison to suggest Cricket Australia stick to cricket and stay out of politics.
But after years of polls showing diminished public appetite to change the date, the sport’s governing body has now decided to schedule the Big Bash League final on January 26, 2027.
However, Cricket Australia said the national anthem would be played if the host city, determined by which teams reach the final, requested it.
Taylor took to social media to criticise the decision, saying, “Cricket Australia’s decision not to play our national anthem is yet more tone-deaf woke moralising”.
“Yes, our past is not perfect. But our nation’s achievements far outweigh the wrongdoings, and our nation is worth celebrating,” he wrote.
“Instead of kowtowing to activists who want to make Australians feel guilty about our past and ashamed of our nation, Cricket Australia should proudly play our national anthem at the Big Bash final, reflecting the views of the overwhelming majority of Australians – and cricket fans – who love our country and feel profound gratitude for being Australian.”
The Coalition leader has been struggling in the polls as he competes for attention from cultural conservatives who have flocked to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. Taylor has also called out the frequency of Welcome to Country ceremonies and acknowledgements of country, vowed to change gender identity laws and outlined a hardline stance on migration that has been questioned by his internal critics.
Australia’s most prominent Indigenous cricketer, fast bowler Jason Gillespie, has advocated for changing Australia’s national day from the one marking the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788.
Big Bash League executive Alistair Dobson told News Corp that the January 26 match had been chosen due to its status as the national day and because it was the day after the conclusion of Australia’s first Test in a tour of India.
“We understand that day means different things to different people. We fully recognise that and we will work with the home club and an advisory group around First Nations issues,” he said.
“We have to ensure we build an appropriate recognition for everyone on the day.”
Indigenous former Labor senator Nova Peris, who has advocated for conservative causes in recent years, said this week that there was “no reason why the Australian flag, the Aboriginal flag and the Torres Strait Island flag could not fly together or why they could not have a minute’s silence to acknowledge the fallen and then go on and sing the national anthem.”
“The anthem’s words are beautiful ... Our nation is facing an identity crisis. We have to co-exist,” she told News Corp.
Appearing on ABC’s 7.30 on Tuesday for the first time since he said the rival party’s policies would lead to “an eternity of pain”, Taylor was asked four times if he would categorically reject the possibility of forming government with One Nation.
Initially insisting that the Coalition had “absolutely no plan for a deal with One Nation to form government”, Taylor was asked again: “Doesn’t leaving it unruled-out, leave it on the table?”
“I’m ruling it out,” Taylor replied. “There’s no plan.”
“The reason is simple: that they would, One Nation would, as a government, leave us with an eternity of pain, and they have a grab bag of policies where even a small subset of them would take this country into a fiscal crisis.”
The Liberal Party released a discussion paper on Wednesday morning outlining options for party reform to revive the ailing institution.
Led by senator James McGrath, it painted a grim picture of the state of the party and its volunteer and fundraising network, revealing that more than 55 per cent of its shrinking membership was over 60. Of the cohort between 16-30, about 70 per cent were men.
The paper, designed to open a debate about reform options, did not argue for or against gender quotas but raised the merits of such a policy. It presents options including open primaries or “community preselection” where non-party members could vote, bonus weighting provided to female preselection candidates, requiring a minimum number of women stand in preselection contests, interventions to manage the outcomes of preselections, or quotas.
“Centre-right political parties have also employed quotas. Germany’s CDU, for example, has a gender quota which requires that 30 per cent of all party positions (including elected offices, leadership roles, and appointments) be held by women by 2025,” the paper said, while also outlining the common view that quotas may undermine merit-based selections.
“Where they have been utilised – both in Australia and overseas – quotas have, over time, improved gender balance. After the 2022 federal election, 53 per cent of ALP federal MPs were women.”
Taylor has spoken against quotas in the past, meaning a less interventionist strategy to attracting women candidates is more likely. The party preselected many women in important seats last election, but the seats were won by Labor or teal independents.
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