Optimism, determination at heart of national day

While brutal firestorms still are testing communities’ endurance and resilience, Australia Day is a chance to reflect on a summer our nation will never forget. It is also a time to salute the sacrifice and courage of volunteer firefighters, including some who gave their lives and lost their homes, to keep others safe. Without them the death toll would be far higher than 33, tragic though that is, especially for loved ones who are bereft and grieving. As always since 1971, our readers have nominated an impressive array of philanthropists, sports stars, medical researchers, artists and community leaders to be our newspaper’s Australian of the Year. The choice, however, was clear cut. The volunteer firefighters of Australia, the pride of a grateful nation, are collectively our 2019 Australian of the Year. These men and women, editor-in-chief Christopher Dore said, “represent the spirit of modern Australia, capture our history of bravery, sacrifice and service, and remind us of our unique connection to land held so dear by indigenous Australians”. Firefighters, he said, represent “an optimism that has come to epitomise the Australian character, an air of dogged determination and admirable aspiration that has made us who we are and will continue to define us as a nation in the decades ahead”.

Aspiration, determination and optimism shine through the stories of generations of those who have come to our shores in search of new homes. As Trent Dalton writes in The Australian Magazine in part two of his series about a suburban street in Wavell Heights on Brisbane’s north side: “Burmese sons can’t dream as big as the sons of Sunny Ave.” That is a fact of life and geography, said Hantun Hantun, who doubled his first name because he needed a surname in Australia.

Others came as Holocaust survivors. On Tuesday, Fiona Harari writes, they will be marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. It was there that Melbourne woman Annetta Able, 95, and her twin Stephanie Heller, who died last year, spent several years of living hell before relishing decades of freedom in Australia. In 2016 the sisters were recognised as the world’s oldest surviving twins of Josef Mengele’s cruel medical experiments.

Those who will become Australian citizens on Sunday — our national day is the right occasion for such ceremonies — exude a strong appreciation of the opportunities Australia affords and sheer happiness about being part of our nation. Mary and Alfred Micallef, who live in Melbourne, arrived from Malta 50 years ago. They realised, as we reported on Wednesday, that they wanted more from life than their birth country could offer. Becoming Australians was “always on our minds to do”, as Mrs Micallef said. They worked in factories, retired and watched five grandchildren grow up, and now Sunday is the day. Long ago they realised: “This is our country now.”

Australia Day lends itself to thinking about our national identity from the vantage point of a mature, comprehensive understanding of history. In Inquirer Geoffrey Blainey marks the 250th anniversary of James Cook’s Endeavour voyage during which he charted our continent’s east coast. It was, as Professor Blainey writes, one of the most hazardous explorations in the history of the sea and a testament to 18th-century Europe’s fascination with science and great power prestige. His article brings the Australian leg of the voyage to life with snippets on the Endeavour crew’s sightings of bushfires, almost certainly lit by Aborigines, in a process now known as hazard reduction. Professor Blainey also recounts the story of the hardy nanny goat — perhaps the most travelled animal in the world at the time — that was included to provide milk. At Botany Bay, she was let ashore to graze. One in four of the crew died during the long voyage but she survived, and later was cared for in England by Captain Cook’s wife, Elizabeth. Cook will be both honoured and condemned in Australia, Professor Blainey notes: “There will be opposing arguments and both, in moderation, are legitimate. Cook was a giant of the sea. To deprive him, his scientists and his crew of high praise would be mean-spirited and would mock history … On the other hand, Aboriginal peoples will rightly insist that they, or people close to them in kinship, were the first discoverers of Australia. Their ancestors … had sailed and walked along the Indonesian archipelago, a chain of stepping stones that were easily used when the world’s sea levels were lower.” In a series of voyages, perhaps spread across several thousand years, they bridged the gap from Southeast Asia to Australia, Professor Blainey acknowledges: “In the land they discovered and settled they have a proud role.”

Australia’s first peoples, the British settlers who came tens of thousands of years later in 1788 (18 years after Captain Cook), bringing our parliamentary system, and later waves of migrants represent what Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson describes as the three strands of modern Australia. Each strand is intrinsic to our identity. Decade after decade, the strands have blended, mainly harmoniously but sometimes with tensions, into a strong, diverse, unified nation that draws together in hard times. That has been writ large in recent months as towns and bushland burned, rescues were made and skies, rivers and even Sydney Harbour turned brown. Through it all, our volunteer firefighters, our collective 2019 Australian of the Year, led the way with their prodigious skill and huge hearts. That is worth celebrating.

Our national day is typically one spent with family, neighbours and friends before the new school and working year begins. It is also good for “a spot of backyard cricket”, which in the Dalton family was played with a bat “bought for a redback” and a cork ball wrapped in green and gold electrical tape. Happy Australia Day.