Changing what day we celebrate Australia Day doesn’t change history though - what you are doing is divorcing the connection between a celebration of our nation from the day the Poms arrived.
We could have Australia Day on any day we choose, it doesn’t need to be linked to a specific historical event - why does it have to be on one that is historically linked with an event that has brought so much pain to a cohort of Australians?
We should not celebrate Australia Day on a day that symbolises the founding of the Colony of New South Wales, and the founding of that Colony alone.
January 26 was the day the Australia as we know it was founded. That is the day. You can’t just change it because of the circumstances of the day. Changing the day we celebrate will not change what happened. It’ll only transfer the current and existing pain to another day. That’s all it’ll do.
This argument is just white people thinking they know best.
You never see indigenous Australians being this vocal about it. In my experience and discussions with friends who are indigenous they really don’t care and agree it’s white people sticking there nose in where it isn’t needed.
Traditionally that was the reluctance of places like Victoria and elsewhere to adopt Jan 26 as a national holiday (as said before Australia day was not traditionally celebrated on this date until 1994)
Victoria has its own history and Jan 26 was primarily seen as a NSW historical event
Even the idea of ‘Australia’ having a single national identity (or seeing ourselves as different from being British) is relatively new
No it’s not, federation day was 1 January 1901
I can’t believe it’s not even New Years Day yet, and we’re already talking about Australia Day!
I better place my order for hot cross buns at this rate!
Until we just get rid of the damn thing, we’ll always be talking about it. The only way to settle this is just to change it or remove it.
Personally the idea that it’s divisive to many people, regardless of personal views, is enough reason to change it to something that’s more inclusive.
Once the date is changed I highly doubt that there would be enough support for ever changing it back.
Agree, I would support a date change too, needs to be more inclusive.
Blame News Corp. They wanted to restart the culture war earlier to give more time for Sky News hosts to froth at th mouth.
The fact it only comes up this time of year proves it’s just an opportunity for people to have a whinge.
It’s not spoken about the other 11 months of the year. Can’t be too important then to those offended if it’s simply just forgotten about after Jan27.
So move the date to one that isn’t divisive and it stops the whingeing. Easy.
More and more people are reluctant to celebrate Australia Day on 26 Januaey. It’s no longer the big celebration it once was.
That’s just simply not true.
It’s a small minority.
Look on the news this Jan 26. The country is out and celebrating/ gathering.
It is true because I remember going into the centre of Sydney 15/20 years ago and there were huge events at Hyde Park, Macquarie Street was shut down, Darling Harbour, The Rocks and Sydney Harbour.
There were thousands of people going into the city and they were celebrations everywhere. That really doesn’t happen any more on that scale.even begore Covidm say 5 years ago, things had really been scaled down in comparison.
I alluded to this yesterday but didn’t expect it to pop up as soon as today.
At this point, I think a lot of people are just tired of this ugly debate rearing it’s head every year on cue more than anything else.
My idea: lets have a two-date solution.
Move the day called “Australia Day” to another day, there’s plenty of decent candidates but I’m partial to March 3rd as the day of the Australia Act 1986 being enacted.
On January 26th have a day called “Commemoration Day”. The meaning of this day being left deliberately ambiguous but with a general theme of reflecting on the past and commemorating the lives of our ancestors and those that have come before us.
If you’re indigenous, the day can be used to commemorate the lives of those who suffered and survived colonialism, and the victims of the frontier massacres and the stolen generations.
If your ancestors came from overseas, you can commemorate the lives of your ancestors and their journey to Australia, be it as a convict, a free settler or a more recent arrival. If you’re a first generation Australian, the day can be used to commemorate your own journey to this country.
If you want to commemorate the arrival of the First Fleet as a watershed day in Australian history (for good and bad), then you can do that as well. At Botany Bay there’s even a spot called Commemoration Flat.
Commemorate is a good word in that it is solemn and dignified but neutral in nature and doesn’t try to lay blame for what’s happened in the past (which is where ‘Invasion Day’ and ‘Survival Day’ are problematic in that it they are emotive and politically loaded words and not inclusive of non-Indigenous Australians).
I’m sure business groups wouldn’t be too happy at the idea of another public holiday but it’s all part of the cost of doing business as far as I’m concerned. The community and the government gave a lot throughout the pandemic to ensure the survival of businesses and it’s time to repay the favour in my view.
The extra day is also an important sweetener in my view as any change is naturally met with hesitancy, especially something as politically charged as this. If you can offer up a benefit for everyday people as part of the case for change, you can make the process quite a bit smoother and get ‘buy in’.
Yep, Australia Day is not what it was 10-15 years ago.
No one celebrates it anymore.
Just move the day to include the celebration for all Australians.
If you want to celebrate captain cook arriving on the 26h… then go ahead and do it your own backyard. But no other state gives a rats arse. 
You see. He didn’t do that. Captain Cook and his crew arrived at Botany Bay on 29 April 1770.
Australia Day commemorates the First Fleet arriving. On 18 January 1788, Governor Arthur Phillip rejected Botany Bay. Instead he chose Port Jackson, to the north, as the site for the new colony and they arrived there on 26 January 1788.
It’s sad Australians don’t know the history of this country. 
Australia Day allows us to celebrate all the good things about our Country (and for all the doom and gloom, there is a lot to celebrate) - it’s incongruous to have a day that is designed to be a celebration as the same day that is painful for many.
Changing the date doesn’t change history, that’s not the intention. It’s about finding a more inclusive date. January 26th is an important date in our history, our history is full of important dates, some good and some bad. Not having it as a public holiday doesn’t diminish the historical significance of the event that it marks.
As its already been highlighted in this thread, the selection of January 26 has some questionable value as a date that reflects our nation, good if you want to celebrate the Colony of NSW though.
As an unabashed New South Welshman, I throughly concur.
Captain Cook was already dead years before 26 January 1788.
I think we could agree on the date being 23 July, the celebrate the birth of the year of our King, Bert Newton.