A reason to change the date of Australia Day

IF you’re throwing a party, you want as many of your mates there as possible. And that’s why we need a new date to celebrate Australia Day, writes Claire Sutherland.

WE should change the date of Australia Day.

It’s not the most important issue facing Australia, and not all indigenous Australians want it changed.

Jacinta Price is a no, with pretty decent and honourable arguments. So is Anthony Dillon. Warren Mundine is a yes with equally reasonable views.

“I want Australia Day moved — not because I don’t want to celebrate but because I do,” he wrote.

For mine, it’s stopping a decent number of us from really celebrating what’s great about our country, and that’s what Australia Day should be all about.

There’s definitely something to be said for tradition, but we’ve only celebrated Australia Day as an official national public holiday on January 26 since 1994.

I hand-on-heart own a pair of socks older than that.

Aboriginal Australians held a Day of Mourning and Protest as far back at 1938 to point out their difficulty in rejoicing on that particular date.

So why are people clinging so determinedly to January 26 like it’s the last beer in the slab?

Isabel Lander and Zena Ross celebrate Australia Day Celebrations at Wagstaffe in NSW last year. (Pic: Mark Scott)

Do they genuinely feel that the day Arthur Philip landed with his ships of convicts at Sydney Cove is the only proper option? I wonder how many Aussies could actually tell you that’s what the date marks.

I suspect the main argument against change for many is “because we don’t want to be told what to do by a bunch of... (inner-city latte-sippers/indigenous activists/social justice warriors — take your pick)”.

I grew up in the Pilbara, but I admit to falling pretty neatly into that first category these days.

And I absolutely concede that this is not an issue consuming the dinner table talk in most Australian households, where power bills and school fees are more likely to be front of mind.

But “I don’t want to be told what to do” just isn’t really much of an argument.

The way I see it is if you want to a throw a party, you try and choose a date that suits as many as your mates as possible.

And January 26 just doesn’t suit a pretty big slice of Australia for whom it feels wrong to clink glasses over a day that marked the start of bloodshed and great trauma for so many people.

Darwin locals Dustin Fletcher, Cameron Nadj and Andrew Cozens let off fireworks at Little Mindil.

Sure, today’s Australians aren’t responsible for what happened 230 years ago, and of course if it wasn’t the Brits who decided to use us as an overthrow prison, someone else would have come along and done something similar, but that doesn’t mean January 26, 1788 wasn’t the beginning of a truly awful period of Australian history for many of the participants.

And not just indigenous people. Our white convict ancestors weren’t exactly drinking champagne from a shoe either.

So let’s just pick another date. Which one? Who cares?

Block out Christmas Day, Good Friday and Easter Monday and throw a dart at a dart board. We get a holiday for the Queen’s birthday that bears no resemblance to the day she actually came into the world.

Or choose an event most Australians are genuinely proud of — Cathy Freeman winning Olympic gold, the day indigenous Australians got the vote — hell, a wallaby jumped across the Sydney Harbour Bridge this week, that date will do.

It will cost nothing, it won’t stop kids learning about the First Fleet at school, it won’t bring a stop to debate about our history and, no, it won’t fix problems faced by indigenous people.

But it will mean a lot more people will RSVP to our national party and participate with genuine enthusiasm.

Claire Sutherland is acting RendezView editor.

Originally published as A reason to change the date of Australia Day