As a third Victorian council looks to dump Australia Day celebrations this week, Matt Okine has slammed those against the move, just weeks after triple j launched its own survey asking listeners for their take on moving the date from 26 January.
Speaking on The Music Podcast With Dave & Neil this month, the former breakfast host said the topic is of high importance to the youth broadcaster.
"The issue that I have with the whole situation is that there's a lot of people that don't know what's going on behind the scenes [at triple j]," Okine said.
"What I can say is that they do care and they are listening a lot. I've seen [content director] Ollie Wards really care about this topic and go and ask a lot of people all around the music community, the indigenous groups… the issue is that a lot of people don't see the problem with it, or why other people might have a problem with it."
Okine said he witnessed insensitivity on such topics during his time at triple j between 2014-2016 alongside co-host, Alex Dyson.
"There's still so many fuckwits out there that just don't have any idea about things.
"Alex and I would just mention, just say something about breast cancer or something like that. And then some dickhead would be on the text line and be like, 'Suppose you lads are gonna forget that prostate cancer kills more men than breast cancer kills women.'
"And it's like, shut up you fuckwit. It's got nothing to do with that. Everyone is gonna get their chance, we're just talking about breast cancer this one moment. This is not a big push to forget about men's problems or anything like that, lest we stop talking about them for one second."
The triple j survey closed earlier this month and results are expected to be announced in the coming months.
Meanwhile, Aussie rapper Briggs slammed Malcolm Turnbull as a "coward" after the Prime Minister said he was disappointed by Yarra council's call to cease recognising Australia Day on 26 January.
Okine’s new show, The Other Guy, is currently streaming on Stan – listen to the full podcast below.
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