From ABC August 16, 2006
A federal MP is hoping a new petition will help convince his colleagues to change laws to make burning the Australian flag a punishable offence.
Bruce Scott tabled the petition of more than 3,000 signatures in Parliament yesterday.
Mr Scott says the petition was started after a socialist youth group sold flag burning kits at universities earlier this year.
He says the debate is timely as the country this week commemorates Victory in the Pacific (VP Day) and the Battle of Long Tan.
"We've got to make sure that our flag, the Australian national flag, our greatest national symbol, is protected from people who would see it desecrated or destroyed in anyway," he said.
Quite emotional stuff, and reluctance of our Government in introducing punishable offence for flag burning is that all of the sudden Australia will have scores of ‘pseudo-political’ offenders, and severely restricted expression of democratic freedom to do anything.