The Government seems to have gotten really interested in the details of citizenship ceremonies lately. It definitely doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that a number of councils, including Launceston council earlier this week, have voted to move their Australia Day celebrations away from January 26th as a show of respect to Indigenous people.
Yeah nah, that was a lie, it’s absolutely about that.
You might have heard about the immediate crackdown that Scott Morrison announced, stripping the right to hold citizenship ceremonies away from councils who dared to acknowledge that January 26th has some pretty heavy historical baggage attached to it.
The part that didn’t make as many headlines was the proposed introduction of a new dress code, and honestly, it’s pretty vague even by regular dress code standards (what the hell is the difference between cocktail attire and semi formal? I will never know). Morrison went to the effort of pointing out that boardies and thongs in particular would no longer be allowed, and cultural clothes are a-ok, but other than that the code itself doesn’t ‘dictate standards’.
Hijabs are fine, Havaianas are not fine, and that’s about it.
My first thought was that telling people to wear whatever the hell they want as long as it isn’t boardies and thongs is an excellent way to make sure some smartass shows up wearing a pink morphsuit and running shoes. But then I remembered something: those rules have always been an unspoken thing anyway and literally nobody has ever shown up in a pink morphsuit and running shoes.
Citizenship ceremonies are incredibly special events for people who have migrated here. It’s the day they’re officially making Australia home, and these people don’t need to be told to treat it with the respect it deserves. They already do. Boardies and thongs don’t need to be ruled ‘no longer’ allowed, because nobody ever wore them to a citizenship ceremony to begin with.
Let’s be real, the only people who would find it funny to rock up to such a formal occasion wearing an Australian flag cape with a temporary southern cross tattoo stuck to their forehead are people who are already citizens.
Maybe Scott Morrison sees a lot of boardies and thongs worn in unfortunate places around the Shire, but I’m convinced that citizenship ceremonies are not one of those places. I went digging to see if I could find any example at all of someone incredibly underdressed to take their pledge to Australia, and found absolutely nothing. Zip. Nada. I found a lot of people agonising over whether or not jeans were too informal, but not one single, solitary cork hat was to be found.
I guess if you’re really desperate to wear thongs though, you could take a leaf out of Morrison’s very own fashion handbook and photoshop some nice white running shoes over the pictures afterwards. Straya.