Culture v. cringe

In today's Advertiser Natasha Stott-Despoja is right to draw our attention to the curiosity of Michael Parkinson being the first non-Australian to give the Australia Day address, I think she is wrong to attribute this to the return of cultural cringe.
I would suggest that we are now at a point in our history where having freed ourselves from our colonial past we do not have to be frightened that every British commentator can drag us back there. That indeed would be cultural cringe. Parkinson, as a world-citizen, would be more aware than most of the complex issues of our history and can offer perceptive commentary on our place in the modern world. It is not a sign of regression but a sign of our increasing maturity that we can receive this..