MY SAY: Wrong day, wrong flag and a long way still to go

NOW that the jingoistic and often ignorant patriotism of our last-gasp post-Christmas celebration is out of the way, can Australia finally grasp reality?

Happy Australia Day. Wrong date, wrong flag, no ideas. Picture: Max Fleet BUN010315AUS1

NOW that the jingoistic and often ignorant patriotism of our last-gasp post-Christmas celebration is out of the way, can Australia finally grasp reality?

Congratulations to everyone who worked so hard to make the day a success with various celebrations of culture, citizenship and achievement held right across the region.

And particularly hallelujah to the political party that showed the courage to call the travesty for what it is.

The Mature Australia Party, one formed to prosecute the interests of older Australians, already has a strong presence on the Sunshine Coast. It accurately points out that Australia Day should be January 1, the date our nationhood was proclaimed.

Aborigines call January 26 Invasion Day, and that is exactly what it represents. It is the day an inhabited country with culture and traditions dating back 60,000 years was annexed in the name of King George III.

IS IT TIME TO CHANGE THE DATE OF AUSTRALIA DAY?

WHAT ABOUT OUR FLAG?

Let us know below

Col Walker, Mature Age Party's former national president and once a political director of the National Party, is by any definition a conservative.

He asks: "Are too many of us still suffering from a national cultural cringe which has dogged us for generations? And must we remain to be seen indefinitely as British Australians rather than simply Australian Australians?"

And he wonders if we need "to be constantly reminded in our flag and the national day we celebrate of our brutal British beginnings of almost 250 years ago, or the fact that we started our climb as an independent democracy after the 1780s and beyond when we were a penal colony for reject convicts from Britain".

Australian soldiers didn't fight and die under a blue flag with a Southern Cross and a Union Jack in the corner.

It was not until 1953 that it was recognised officially as our national flag and even then we had to wait another year for Queen Elizabeth to sanction a decision of a supposedly sovereign nation.
 

The flag that draped so many cars and bodies yesterday was the result of a competition in 1901 whose rules virtually guaranteed the Union Jack would be part of its composition.

It was approved, not by the fledgling Australian Government but by King Edward VII. Right up into the 1960s it was flown alongside and often inferior to the Union Jack.

In the scheme of things flags and days of national celebration may appear minor matters. Yet a mature debate and swift action of the nature New Zealand showed in changing its flag may signal a shift away from the dogma and nonsense that pollute the national political discourse.

WHAT YOU'RE SAYING ON FACEBOOK

Melinda Melinda
3 March is the anniversary of the Australia Acts coming into being in 1986 - which eliminated the remaining possibilities for the UK to legislate with effect in Australia, for the UK to be involved in Australian government, and for an appeal from any Australian court to a British court.

We need a new date on which to celebrate our great nation, that is inclusive and positive and progressive. 3 March would be a great contender for the honour. Until we become a Republic at least.

Garry North
Jan 10 ... the abolition of deportation and slavery of "convicts" Why we still have the union jack on our flag after what the British did to us as convicts and at Gallopoli astounds me. and of course what they did to the Aborigines was much worse...

Taylor Donoghue
The date we already have?
Don't change it.

Troy Bolden
The anniversary of Federation would be most appropriate, but since that was a new year's day, it doesn't serve the purpose. If you have any day involved with white settlement there's going to whingers. It could have been Cook's landing, but that won't work either. Best thing is to give the indigenous their own public holiday on any day of their choosing.

Sarah Kay-Huÿbregts
If it means all Australians can come together, I say changing the date is an easy enough solution smile emoticon as long as we have Aussie day I'm happy 

Terry Crouther
If we do change the day it should be on the day we vote if we stay in the monarchy or become a republic.
 

I for one would have felt far more confident in our latest Prime Minister if, on his recent trip to the United States, he had met with Elon Musk as well as President Obama.

And if he had talked about innovation and clean energy as well as ISIS and wars on terror.

We've just had two weeks of focus on 240 job losses at Fairfax MP Clive Palmer's Townsville nickel refinery but have heard nothing from our national leaders about the fate of the 22,000 laid off in the mining sector.

Nor has a leader, federal or state, enunciated a clear transition from a mining boom that has established new levels of production capacity in a sector where demand is evaporating.

And the solution for the death of Australia's car industry remains only the possibility that another useless fleet of submarines may be built here.

Meanwhile, corporations avoid any tax obligation for income earned while the solution to the revenue problem it creates is to tax the spending capacity of those with the least in their pockets.

Happy Australia Day. Wrong date, wrong flag, no ideas.

Originally published as MY SAY: Wrong day, wrong flag and a long way still to go