Susie O’Brien: Australia Day, you’re a little beauty, so we need to change the date
Nah yeah, what’s not to love about a country that celebrates its national holiday getting mildly drunk and playing street cricket? But it’s time to change the tainted date, writes Susie O’Brien.
Susie O'Brien
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With any luck, you’ll be spending Austraia Day getting mildly day drunk at a barbie with some mates.
Australia Day is all about pulling the wheelie bin on to the road as stumps for street cricket. There’s no running between wickets if it’s more than 30 degrees, one-hand-one-bounce is a given and if you spill your beer, you’re out.
There’s ice melting in eskies, steaks sizzling on the four-burner Jumbuck and kids running through the sprinkler.
“Rack off, you drongo,” someone will say at some point. “You’re too maggot.”
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Things will clean up when Nanna pops around bringing the same Tupperware wagon wheel, packed with cubed cheese, kabana, prunes wrapped in bacon and jelly babies, she’s had since the 1960s.
Australia Day is about living in a country where someone says, “Lawnmower ran over your head?” when one of their mates gets a bad haircut.
It’s the home of dad jokes delivered deadpan: “I forgot how to throw my boomerang. Then it came back to me.”
And it’s the only place in the world where McDonald’s changed some of its signs to read “Macca’s”.
Yes, this great country has crowds that boo cheating tennis players when they take seven-minute toilet breaks at strategic times.
We don’t like politicians who bang on about family values, then treat their own families like crap.
And we are a land where “yeah, nah” means no and “nah, yeah” means yes.
On this day we celebrate sausage sizzles, chook raffles and making a “gold coin donation”, which is now a major contributor to our national economy.
We’re not homophobic, but if there’s a party without fairy bread, kids cry and leave.
We’re not racist, but our favourite cheese is Coon.
And we’re not sexist, although most taxi drivers over the age of 60 call female passengers “love” when they help us get our cases out of the boot. We know they are just trying to be kind, not offensive.
Australia is a land where the insects are so huge the police turned up when one guy tried to kill a spider. He was yelling, “Why don’t you friggin die?” and the neighbours called triple-0, not knowing the target was a huntsman.
It’s place where strange things happen. In Tenterfield, there’s a rock that predicts the weather. In Kununurra, cane toads recently hitched a ride on a python to escape flood waters. And, in Melbourne, a man went to court to fight for his right to have a penis drawing as his signature. He won and is now a lawyer who has hopefully found more worthwhile causes to champion. Australians don’t really like finishing anything, particularly our words. Today people will be heading off to the servo for ciggies, the bottle-o for coldies and Woolies for some sangas.
We chuck a U-ey, eat some chewie and if a guy’s got red hair, he’s called “Bluey”. We can have a bingle at the Bungle Bungles, a mossie in our cossie and when things don’t work they “go on the fritz”.
We also like to pay tribute to our native animals, including the Caramello Koala, the Freddo Frog and the Paddle Pop Lion. We’re also known for our endangered species, which now includes women in the Liberal Party.
We also love road signs that state the bleeding obvious. These include “Caution: water on road during rain” and “Pub closed until it opens”. We pay more attention to signs showing fire ratings which can range from “sh-- hot” to “get the bloody hell out of here”.
All of this is why Australia Day should be moved from January 26; it’s now too tainted and the date debate is dragging us all down. We want to be free to celebrate what’s unique and wonderful about our great country not focus on racial divides. In the meantime, pop on your trackies and thongs, throw a snag on the barbie and have a snot block (vanilla slice) for dessert. Go on, you deserve it.
Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist
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