‘Love this’: Firefighters praised for Australia Day act

A group of firefighters have been praised for an act dubbed “so Australian” as the nation let its hair down over the long weekend.

A group of firefighters have been praised for helping out with a slip-and-slide as the nation let its hair down over the Australia Day long weekend.

The NSW Fire and Rescue crew were seen hosing down the surface for a group of revellers in Manly on Sunday, with the board short-wearing men eagerly hurling themselves down the slide in viral video shared on Instagram, set to the tune of Men at Work’s ‘Down Under’.

“Love this!” one viewer wrote.

“So good,” another said.

“So Australian,” a third commented.

NSW Fire and Rescue has been contacted for comment.

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Thousands of Australians flocked to the nation’s beaches on Sunday to celebrate the national holiday.

Sydney turned on a glorious summer day on Sunday with temperatures in the high 20s.

Everyone was in high spirits as they splashed in the water and fired up the barbecues.

Elsewhere, thousands of ‘Invasion Day’ and ‘Survival Day’ protesters took the streets in capital cities in solidarity with Indigenous Australians, even as surveys show Aussies are increasingly opposed to longstanding calls to change the date.

An online survey of more than 21,000 people, conducted by News Corp, showed at least 87 per cent think the national day should remain as it is, and at least three in four Australians declared any government that changes the date would lose their support.

That came after a poll in Nine Newspapers showed support for January 26 has leapt from 47 per cent to 61 per cent over the past two years.

Australia Day on the beach at Aldinga. Picture: Brett Hartwig

Sky News contributor Joe Hildebrand argued “woke is dead” as the stigma of celebrating Australia Day diminishes.

“I think the election of Donald Trump did it as well,” he said on-air.

“It sort of started with the Voice referendum, finished with Trump’s vote, and woke is dead. I think there are a lot of people who felt cowed and anxious that there was a certain bandwidth of acceptable opinion, which was a template brought down from on high.

“And suddenly, when this was rejected wholesale by the vast majority, 60 per cent of Australians in the Voice referendum … people just thought, ‘Oh right, everybody actually does think like that.’ All this browbeating, especially on social media that said, ‘If you hold any of these views then you’re a racist or a bigot,’ in fact that’s actually just the vast majority of the population, these are just mainstream opinions.

“I think it’s a massive own goal from the censorious left, a massive own goal from people who tried to limit and restrict free speech and label anything they didn’t like hate speech. They deserve everything they get.”

A clear majority of Australians now support January 26. Picture: Adam Head

Nearly 15,000 new Australians became citizens at about 280 ceremonies nationally, according to Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese welcomed the country’s newest citizens at the Australia Day citizenship ceremony and flag-raising ceremony at Commonwealth Place on the banks of Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra on Sunday morning, joined by the Governor-General Sam Mostyn AC.

“It’s an honour to share this moment with you and your loved ones,” Mr Albanese said.

“Today, in our big cities and country towns, at beaches and backyard barbecues, and in over 280 ceremonies like this one, we celebrate everything that brings Australia together and everything that sets our nation apart from the world.”

Opposition leader Peter Dutton — who did not attend the Canberra ceremony — posted a video online saying the “defining achievement” of the country has been the “weaving together of the Indigenous, British and migrant threads of our story” while urging the celebrations to be held “under one flag”.

Melbourne’s ‘Invasion Day’ rally. Picture: Phil Yeo/Getty Images

“To be an Australian is to have won the lottery of life, and we have every reason to be patriotic and proud today,” he said on X.

“Let’s celebrate the achievement of Australia under one flag.”

At Sydney’s protest, crowds marched with banners, signs and flags and chanted “always was, always will be Aboriginal land”.

Speakers discussed Indigenous deaths in custody, missing and murdered Indigenous women, land rights and treaty.

Rally organiser Paul Silva told the ABC the current government system wasn’t working for First Nations people and non-Indigenous people.

“First Nations people are up on the top of the list to be tagged, targeted,” Mr Silva said.

“But the reality of it is, is that we need to come together, unite, and hold this system accountable and stand together and come as one.”

Mr Silva also put a call out to “abolish the government … the system, return the land back to Aboriginal people” during an address at the rally.

He said Indigenous Australians were “still exposed to systemic issues” under the government, but said Indigenous Australians were not “f***ing going nowhere”.

“They could f**king chuck an atomic bomb over here and we’d still f**king rise up,” Mr Silva said, according to The Australian.

— with NCA NewsWire