People who advocate the day to be called a day of mourning seem to be overlooking the fact that if the British hadn't claimed this land, the French were only a week behind and the Dutch and Spanish were also colonising unprotected lands wherever they found them. In terms of treatment of indigenous people the British wouldn't have been the worst option.
The other issue that is always overlooked by indigenous people is that the first white inhabitants happen to be the white ancestors of many of our indigenous people. Dislike it as they may, it's their own ancestors they are protesting, without whom they wouldn't exist today.
It's refreshing to see that a remote traditional tribe in Arnhem Land is calling Australia Day Thank You Day, in recognition of the skills and services brought to this country, especially in the field of health, saving the lives of many who would have otherwise died.

The only solution to the problem of Australia day, is accepting that the history that some hold onto to add fuel to the furnace of resentment! Is unity!

We must come together, for in truth, we cannot turn back the hands of time, nor rectify/undo past wrongs!

We could perhaps exhume some graves and put those responsible, even as corpses and from both sides of the deliberately confected divide, on trial, with witnesses for the crown and the plaintiff represented by elders from both camps?

And given no verdict could or would be found, let those not happy with the result? Beat themselves about the head with a brick? And more productive than eternally regretting the past!

People dragged here in chains just did not invade, just tried to survive, as any of the critics would, if asked to stand in their stead?

Part of which must include, withstanding the rigors of an eternally long sea voyage under sail! Sustained by a single bowl of slop per day! Plus any vermin they could catch!

Nor did those that followed as indentured servants, (slaves) who'd otherwise starved to death at home or in the alternative wilderness and northern winters!

The soldiers who came with the shiploads of dead or dying or horribly emaciated prisoners had little other choice than follow lawful orders; or stand trial in a court marshal and before a subsequent firing squad!

As always and as part of centuries long ENGLISH TRADITION! Many nations were colonized or annexed including large swathes of Ireland, Scotland and Wales! With many of those Celts, swelling the ranks of the transportees!

Invasion day is therefore a deliberately divisive and confected term, so sow the seeds of disunity!?

And only serves the needs of the new, would be if they could be, invaders from the north?

Get over it and yourselves! The pages of history can never ever be rewritten or revised!

Time to accept the irretrievable past, move on and build the best possible future, even from the ashes and ruins of an unchangeable past! AS HAVE OTHERS!
Alan B.

Warren Mundine is almost always correct. He's a deep thinker. But his objection - and the objection in Stephen Chavura's article - to celebrating Australia Day on 26 January is a bit misguided, if technically correct. Yes, 26 January is a bit random, given that Australia didn't exist before 1 January 1901. But it's as good as any other day and celebrates Australia as it now is. Frankly, what evidence is there that moving Australia Day to 27 January would quell indigenous discontent, as Chavura argues? None, I'd say. In fact, any other date would still be a provocation to those who currently oppose the celebration of 26 January. They oppose the FACT of settlement, not the date.

Objections to 26 January are misguided. Let's take Fremantle City Council's proposal to move the ceremonies to a different date, for example. Why does 26 January carry any negative implications for Western Australia? Were indigenous inhabitants of what is now Western Australia aware of British settlement on the east coast in 1788? Absolutely not. The first white settlement on the west coast didn't happen until 1826, at Albany and the Swan River colony was not established until 1829. So there is a lot of posturing about the entire concept of a national celebration on 26 January.

It is not all that difficult to understand that the 26 January settlement led to the other colonial settlements and eventually to colonial self-government and then to federation. So it's as good a day as any other, though, perhaps one might argue that 7 February, the date on which Arthur Phillip formally became the first Governor of New South Wales, would be equally appropriate.

Indigenous Australians were very lucky indeed that it was the British who settled here. The French and Spanish and Dutch have far less salubrious records of colonisation, as indigenous populations in other parts of the world would attest. It is also not well understood that Captain Arthur Phillip had very specific instruction to ensure the well-being of the indigenous population and he carried out those instructions very well, considering the circumstances.

Yes Big Nana! Perhaps those resenting our history might like to change places with Tibet and embrace entirely voluntary Chinese rule?

Around the world we can see folks now occupying land once occupied by someone else!

Even here on Mainland Australia and before anyone sighted a single white fella!

Time to set aside an unchangeable past, move on, prioritize and build the best possible future for ourselves; our kids and their kids!

And only doable if we unite behind shared (bigger picture) purpose! Affordable housing and decent wages/returns for one and all, etc/etc!

And a planet rescued and preserved to serve/succor us all!
Alan B.

Move it to Jan 1st as that is when Australian was born.

When I see the professionally outraged Aboriginals and their hangers on setting up remembrance days of the peoples they killed then and only then.

It might be worth while considering setting up a day of celebration of when white man move the what was to be become the country of Australia from the stone age to the industry age in one giant leap. what would be a suitable date mmmm how about the 26th of January

The "Boo Hoo" bandwagon of Aboriginal discontent must stop, before the insults to the vast majority of the rest of us becomes intolerable!
That illegitimate wagon has disappeared over the horizon and down the dusty road long ago, with over $40bn a year of tax payer funds with it!