What is Australia Day? Is it a day of sharing food and drinks between friends in a backyard, or is it a day that marks when Great Britain’s First Fleet landed in the country and stole the land from the original inhabitants?
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While celebrations kick off in towns around the country, highlighting the achievements of local residents, providing inspiring speeches and offering an opportunity for varying renditions of the National Anthem, an increasingly common pastime for Australia Day is to sit in a park, drink and listen to Triple J’s Hottest 100.
But there is a different way to look at the day, or specifically, the date it sits on.
The Greens candidate for Eden-Monaro Tamara Ryan recently stated she believed celebrations on January 26 exclude the nation’s first people, as it is the day foreign invaders colonised their lands.
When this story was posted on the Bega District News’ Facebook page, a commenter said when Australia becomes a republic, Australia Day can be moved to this new date to create a national day.
They said this will remove the insensitivity around holding the current event on January 26 and create something all cultures living in Australia can share and love.
There is strong support for a republic in the top two tiers of Australian government, as recently seven of the eight state and territory leaders signed a declaration supporting the end of the constitutional monarchy.
However, last year Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who is the former head of the Australian Republican Movement and led the case for a new constitutional model in the unsuccessful 1999 referendum, said the next occasion for a republic referendum to come up is going to be after the current Queen's reign.
This is surely food for thought, as when Australia becomes a republic – it is not a question of “if” but “when” – and a new national day is created to celebrate this occasion, January 26 will most likely become forgotten as the day of celebrating national pride and instead be a note in history of when the British began settling these shores.
The meaning of Australia Day changes for different people; for some it is a day to acknowledge those who put countless hours into helping their community, or to drink and relax for others.
But surely these can both be done on another date that is not insulting to our nation’s first people?
