In the advertisement there was just one who was not amused - the barbecue lamb!

In reality, there are many more of us, lambs who are not amused by the politicians' feasts.

Firstly, if a camp dwells where the consensus is to abandon the celebration of Australia Day altogether, I'm firmly in that camp!.

And I'm not alone. The huge money waste towards fireworks on New Year's eave, exploding from Sydney harbour bridge, was pathetically non-matched by a fizzer of an event on Australia day from Darling Harbour.

Let us match New Years eave celebrations with Chinese New Years celebrations, and be honest!

1. Reckon noone should be offended by what is for most - a day of red meat on the barbie and beer. Politics and ideology have no place in this ritual.

2. I've heard Tasmainian Aborigines arrived by boat first and then mainland Aborigines (who arrived later by boat) forced the first group away to Tasmainia.

3. All the pressure groups pushing for Australia Day to be changed to a new date would still complain about new date Australia Day.

Today's Aboriginal Australians should celebrate Australia Day as the British arrival led to the lifestyle that they now enjoy.

They should be eternally grateful that they live under the British concept of democracy, had another European Power, of the time, taken over Australia then the only trace of them would possibly be in the history books, if they even rated a mention.

It is well to remember that Mabo and its aftermath firmly rests on British Law, and the concept of women's Rights, so foreign to pre 1788 Australia, only exists because Australia became a British possession.

Graham makes the point well that there are those who endorse the celebration of Australia Day, as well as those who reject it.
I suspect that many people fail to differ between "celebration" and "commemoration", with the celebratory aspect emphasised in enjoyable festive activities such as food and fireworks.

Our British colonisers brought with them a lifestyle, customs and legal system which had grown over many centuries. These were completely foreign to our original inhabitants who also had many centuries of tradition behind their own lifestyle and laws.

One of their deepest spiritual traditions is that the land owns them,they do not own the land, but the European subjugation of our Aboriginals was a classic example power taking control.

This is touched upon in the post from Is Mise where it states that "Aboriginals should be eternally grateful that they live under the British concept of democracy. Had another European Power of the time taken over Australia, then the only trace of them would possibly be in the history books, if they even rated a mention, and that it is well to remember that Mabo and its aftermath firmly rests on British Law".
I challenge strongly that there should be any sense of gratitude; that is like saying that somebody only murdered you a bit!

In developing our colony the British set the ground rules for the formation of a new nation. It meant that anyone was welcome to become part of it provided that they did so under the existing practices.
That has been the basis for immigration to Australia; it has given us a huge mixture of different nationalities coming together to grow a distinct culture, as well as the tendency to 'take the mickey' out of pretentions occasions and people.
I'd like to think that we do it regularly to Australia Day.

Dear Graham,

Thanks for that mate. Good piece.

I am not a hugely jingoistic person but I will admit we fired up the barbie, strung a decent sized flag up overhead and toasted our blessings. Later we dusted off a few Paterson verses and had a lot of fun airing them yet again. The Man from Ironbark probably tipped the others for humour but Mulga Bill's Bicycle and the Geebung Polo Club weren't far behind.

The sentimental favourite though was of course Clancy of the Overflow, pure mastery.

I am not wedded to the 26th of January one bit and if upsets a good portion of our indigenous brothers and sisters then I say move it. McFarlaine's first of March works for me and I suspect would for most people.

Dear Is Mise,

You wrote;

“It is well to remember that Mabo and its aftermath firmly rests on British Law, and the concept of women's Rights, so foreign to pre 1788 Australia, only exists because Australia became a British possession.”

Have a little pride in Australia's history. The first part of the Commonwealth to grant women not only the right to vote but to stand as candidates was South Australia (Finland was the first European nation to do so). New Zealand had given women voting rights about the same time. Nationwide suffrage was granted at Federation here but it took the Poms over 20 years to catch up.

Those were the days, when this nation was among the leaders of progressive politics. Now look at us.

I'm not sure that sure that "our long history of settling disputes peacefully" with carry into the future given the increasingly bellicose attitude of the militant Left.

I agree with Graham's final paragraph wholeheartedly.

On one hand , we have the inner City 'Elites' with their 'progressive' politics, happily living in their dream world bubble.

In the rest of the Continent , we have the 'unwashed' majority,so despise by those 'Elites'..

Brexit , Trump , etc.... the days of the 'Elites' are soon to get more Interesting.

On top of that , when we have the recession , their pretend jobs will be the first to go !

Having never experienced a down turn , they will have bugger all idea what to do.

Australia Day will be the least of their problems...

Dear Graham,

I don't see what all the fuss is about.
Australia is a great country to live in
and that's what most people celebrate
on Australia Day. It brings communities
together, it brings people together and
it celebrates the good this country has
provided for most of us. All we can do is
accept the present and try to improve
the future. Changing the date of
Australia Day - won't change our past. If we
want to change the date - why not wait
when and if we become a Republic.

//Graham makes the point well that there are those who endorse the celebration of Australia Day, as well as those who reject it.//

But he fails to make any mention of the just-plain-over-it camp. I like this country, and I'm grateful for the public holiday. But on one side we have the people who show supreme disrespect to our flag by wearing it as a cape (not appropriate flag protocol - it's not an item of clothing and shouldn't be used to cover anything except coffins) telling us we should be all jingoistic and nationalist on the 26th Jan. And that annoys me - these people who claim that they love our flag so much, yet cannot be bothered to educate themselves on how to show it proper respect. It's like a bloke claiming that he loves his dog while he chains it up with no shade or water.

And on the other side we have a lot of people telling us that we should be all sad and mournful because bad stuff happened to innocent people who'd done naught to deserve it after one particular 26th Jan. And it did, but bad stuff has happened to innocent people forever and will continue happening. I already have one day of the year set aside for self-imposed compulsory mourning, on 11th Nov. But aside from Remembrance Day, I prefer to spread my sorrow over bad things happening to innocent people out over all the other days in the other year. All things in moderation. Too much at once will give you depression.

So I avoided barbecues, flags, protests, flag-burnings... the whole damn lot. I stayed inside and finished a book (by an Englishman) then started another book (by a Seppo). Two books in one day? Obviously I'm very unAustralian. I should probably be stoned by the morality police for my seditious reading of books when I should be out getting drunk.

//Adding insult to injury the advertisement doesn’t even mention Australia Day, except in a passing question from Cathy Freeman “Hey guys, what’s the occasion?”, to which the answer is “Hey, do we need one?”.//

Yeah, and that's why it's a good ad. We're sick of being told that we need to be extra-patriotic on one arbitrary day of the year, and that if we aren't we're not proper Aussies. Proper Aussies are laid back and don't go in for the hand-on-heart, flag-waving patriotism of the Septics. I'm highly suspicious of any Australian that is overly patriotic, because patriotism isn't very Australian.

We'd rather love our country equally all 365 days of the year, and hold impromptu barbecues whenever, and for no real reason, because we have such nice weather that we can do that. The notion that you don't need a special occasion to enjoy life is more Australian than the notion that you must get out and celebrate on the 26th.

//And then there is Po’s throwaway line “Hey, aren’t we all boat people?” Offensive to both sides//

I guess that's why it's not offensive to me. Because I'm on the third, 'Really? Who gives a crap?' side. My ancestors were boat people - the aeroplane not having been invented back then. They were hardly going to swim all the way from Ireland, were they? I don't see what's offensive about the statement of fact: they were definitely boat people. As was everybody else who settled in Australia prior to the last 50 years or so. History. Whoopdee-frigging-doo.

.

Dear Graham,

.

The historical significance of the 26th January as Australia Day is not evident.

The First Fleet landed in Botany Bay between the 18th and 20th January 1788 but found that it was unsuitable for the establishment of a permanent settlement. Bad weather caused delays in moving to the more suitable site that Governor Phillip and his officers discovered on the 21st January, 12 kilometres to the north at Sydney Cove in Port Jackson, where they encountered the local Aboriginal people.

Though Phillip and a few officers returned to Sydney Cove when weather permitted, on the 26th January, and took possession of the land in the name of King George III, it was not until the 7th February 1788 that the formal proclamation of the British colony and the official vesting of the whole of the eastern seaboard of Australia in the name of the British monarch, actually took place.

The annexation by Phillip and his officers on the 26th January 1788 was, in fact, only a repetition of the annexation that had already been effected by Lieutenant James Cook when he planted the British flag on Possession Island, eighteen years earlier, on the 22nd August 1770. Both performed exactly the same annexation of Aboriginal sovereign territory in exactly the same terms for exactly the same British monarch, King George III, who reigned from 1760 to 1820.

On the 7th February1788 a more formal ceremony was held to enact that same annexation and to officially invest Arthur Phillip as Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of the British penal colony of New South Wales.

All three annexation ceremonies hardly qualify as events that anybody could be proud of. That, however, should not prevent any of us from taking pride in our country - including our indigenous compatriots.

What better date to symbolise Australia Day than the day we declare an independent republic ?

In the meantime, I suggest we leave it at that !

Except to add that I'm pleased that Foxy shares this point of view and I hope there are many more who do as well.

.

Toni,

I too read a book on Australia Day, didn't eat any steak or drink anything alcoholic, nor did I attend a barbecue (I abhor them as my people learned to cook indoors centuries ago).
All in all a quiet day.

Banjo,

If Republic Day became a reality and a day of celebration there would still be protests,by the Monarchists, the loonier of the Loony Left, the Anarchists and a few others who wait to be invented.

Yes Banjo, is mise and Foxy. As Pete says, the very first of the first Australians, were Tasmanian, driven to that tiny island by the land grabbing interlopers who followed. And those second and third comers, had in their "LAW," barbaric customs no civilized human being would try to defend or justify! And included reported cannibalism, infanticide and sexual slavery among a host of other prehistoric stone age customs?

Today, most of this has been replaced by dope smoking, humbugging booze artists determined to be offended by a completely arbitrary date! And shown as humbuggers of the first water, by the spurious labeling of emaciated slaves in chains, invaders!

And those bleating the loudest may have more white genes and DNA than many a European? And to those I say, BAH HUMBUG! And lets hear what the silent fair dinkum traditional Aborigine thinks about Australia day and what they'd change if they could? Understanding that the hands of time, can't be forced by any means whatsoever, to run backwards!

Leaving those who want to progress, little other choice, than find any and all positives in the imposed change!

And yes Diver, I too share your lack of enthusiasm for the annual burn of millions of bucks worth of fireworks, or money going up in flames! All while kids starve!
Alan B.

Every white, Christian, and British derived cultural institution in Australia is under attack from the left wing "Cosmopolitans", Brian Young. Australia Day, Christmas, ANZAC Day, the Australian flag, and the monarchy. Left wing "historians" fabricate lies such as the so called "stolen generations" to denigrate the Australian people and their culture, a culture and people who created the modern state of Australia, which has been classified as one of the best countries in the world to live in.

I divide the left wing "cosmopolitans" into two classes. The first, is those tertiary educated luvvies who usually inhabit the public service, who need to think that they are morally and intellectually superior to everybody else. They also need to think that given enough money, the government can solve any problem. Conditioned by almost two decades of education to always think that their teachers and professors know everything, they are easy meat for indoctrination into "cosmopolitan" thinking by those curious people who dream of destroying the very society they choose to live in. Why do you think the Aum cult in Japan exclusively preyed upon university students?

The second, I define as recently arrived migrants. Many of these people hate the Australian society they chose to immigrate to, because the success of the North European people in turning Australia from a barren wasteland populated by the most socially backward race on Earth, into one of the best countries in the world is an unwelcome reminder of the shortcomings of their own people and their own culture. These "cosmopolitans" tend to be intensely patriotic towards their own race and culture, and are they are amazed that educated Australians embrace an ideology that denigrates their own culture and people.

These imported "cosmopolitans" gleefully join with the first group to caste aspersions upon the Australian people and their culture, and demand change that they say will make Australian culture more "inclusive". This is another way of displaying that they never had any intention of integrating into the culture they chose to immigrate to.

This cultural divide is making Australia unstable and prone to disintegration.

.

Dear Alan B.,

.

Though I am not sure to have understood all of your post, the message is nevertheless clear that you are appalled by a certain number of inhuman and immoral practices which you claim to have occurred among successive generations of our Aboriginal peoples - presumably, prior to British colonisation - which (inhuman and immoral practices) were replaced (no doubt, following colonisation) by drug and alcohol abuse.

While there is no lack of evidence of the latter (post-colonisation practices), my attempts to find evidence of the former (pre-colonisation practices) have, to date, been to no avail. Perhaps you would be kind enough to indicate your sources.

The reason I consider the 26th January a regrettable choice for symbolising Australia Day is not because, as you write: “… dope smoking, humbugging booze artists [are] determined to be offended by a completely arbitrary date …” but because that particular date happens to correspond to one of the three occasions on which the British authorities proclaimed the annexation of Aboriginal sovereign territory unilaterally, without any prior sign, warning, discussion, negotiation or agreement with the country's indigenous inhabitants - and, to boot, without the slightest offer of compensation for the annexation of their lands.

That, to me, is reprehensible, irrespective of all other considerations, whatever they may happen to be.

It is reprehensible according to my moral values as an ordinary, third generation, Australian-born citizen.

.

I hate to disagree especially since it's Graham's article, though I'm really only responding to the what's implied from the title and description.

"Australia Day needn’t be an ideological battleground"

I wish it didn't have to be, but I don't think we're ever going to have a largely unified and peaceful Australia Day ever again.
Especially when people like George Soros funding movements to deliberately stoke civil unrest across the planet in support of Globalism.

"We celebrated two Australia Days this year. The bad news is that they were on the same date as each other and not only will there be no extra holiday but half the population wasn't able to see what the other half celebrated."

Only one side was celebrating and this is essentially the problem.
Every year to those who identify as indigenous, we're essentially celebrating the invasion of their homeland; their peoples subjugation and their cultures demise.
And whether we actually see it that way ourselves doesn't really matter, because that's obviously how they see it.

I guess it'd be like continually ripping open a semi-healed wound...
(whilst talking about reconciliation and equality is like lecturing people on proper healthcare when you hypocritically keep ripping your own wounds open...)

This issue has begun to fester and we're probably going to have to do something about it if we truly seek national unity.

To end Australia Day, for many of us would also be like wiping out our own heritage and identity, just as was done to them, is it not?
If we don't end Australia Day and simply change the day, is it not just celebrating the same 'invasion' thing just on a different day?

Foxy's right about waiting for a change to a republic to occur so it would mean something.
But what would it mean?
Our existing aussie heritage is wiped and we start anew?
And why should the indigenous have to wait for the queen to go?

A dilemma with many issues.

The Billboard?
1 Muslim + 1 Australian = Promotion of 'National unity'.
2 Muslims = devisive and stokes civil discontent.

Hi AC

Re " I don't think we're ever going to have a largely unified and peaceful Australia Day ever again."

I'm not that pessimistic.

ANZAC Day Marches were disrupted for years in 1970s/80s but then Bignoting Causes On The Back Of That National Day largely stopped.

In any case people will realise that if Australia Day were shifted to other dates anti-Australia radicals would still protest about having an Australia Day on any day of the year.

They may accept Anti White People Day.

Some suggested reading from the pen of Watkin Tench.

http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/ozlit/pdf/p00044.pdf

Is Mise a wonderful read so far. A new perspective often ingrains one toward accepting that ones prejudices can be altered through enlightenment, thanks for the opportunity to understand a firsthand account of the real situation verses a perceived one.

Regards
Geoff

The "Cosmopolitans" ironically blocked a multicultural parade in Adelaide.
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/01/26/protests-disrupt-adelaides-parade
(Note the "Hundreds of Aboriginal activists" are mostly White 20-somethings.)

This clarifies their agenda (or lack thereof).

When a celebration of multicultural diversity gets in the way of their anti-traditional bulldozer, diversity can go to hell!

The only true agenda of these protesters is DESTRUCTION!
When diversity destroys, they celebrate it.
But when celebrating diversity empowers traditional institutions (national day), then they attack diversity too.

Their only goal is destruction of all norms and traditions, so there is little point appeasing them with new days, new flags, new heads of state or constitutional amendments. Any new "institution" will be attacked too.
They will never be happy, full stop.

For the rest of us, a new day poses problems too.
Any day you chose will have some tragic history, either here in Australia or the world at large.

This is the day the Granville train crashed, that is the day Azaria Chamberlain disappeared, that's when Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin, that's when Hiroshima was bombed, etc.

No day of the year will have *no* negative connotations or associations.
Every day will be inappropriate or offensive to someone.

26th January has been used for generations, according to Wiki, "records of celebrations on 26 January date back to 1808". No new date will have greater significance than the existing one.

As for Aborigines, would they be protesting if they all drove Porsches and lived in mansions? No.

So the issue isn't the day, the flag, the queen, it's their contemporary living conditions or quality of life.
Symbolic musical chairs will not change those conditions.

the problem is not Australia day, it is the fact, that, the official ceremonies on
the day are always based on ships arriving from England.. This is touted and televised
right across the country.

The officials should look at basing the celebration on todays Australia not some old
historical event. Let it be a day of national picnics and barbeques.
Its only commonsense.

Having said that, I did not like the billboard with the two little muslim girls on it.
To me it was similar to putting kids wearing German uniforms up on a board to
celebrate Jewish day.
We are at war with people who wear this garb and have sworn "Death to the Infidel",
Now ,that is threatening the life of my kids and their kids,you cannot expect me to
have a feel good feeling about seeing this uniform being worn on a huge billboard on
Australia Day. No matter how totally innocent the little girls wearing it are.

Australia Day is already an ideological battleground, there is no point in denying it.

It is part of the Culture War that has been running for a decade or more, and is totally unconnected with the original intention of the celebration.

With the rise of One Nation and Donald Trump in the USA, the lines of battle are becoming more fluid, and the advantage would seem to lie with the defence. In my opinion, we should wait and allow the “balance of forces” to become clearer.

Funny that most of the protesters at the Inversion Day marches were of European (mostly anglo) descent; must mean something.

Yes Is Mise

Middle Class Anglo kids.

With rich Mummies and Daddies to shock.

Reckon protests shouldn't be on the streets - but then again Mummy and Daddy wouldn't see their "radical" dearests on ABC News.

Dearests who prove they're so grown up until their Mummies need to bail them out.

March 1. Lets' celebrate:

1562 Huguenot massacre
1692 First Salem witch trials
1713 Fort Neoheroka destroyed, starts war
1793 Battle of Aldenhoven, over 2000 dead
1811 Egyptian ruler invites enemies to dinner, kills hundreds
1845 US President authorises annexing Republic of Texas
1854 German psychologist Friedrich Eduard Beneke disappears, possibly suicide
1910 Worst avalanche in US history buries train in Washington, 96 dead
1932 Charles Lindbergh's son kidnapped
1939 Japanese ammunition dump explodes, 94 dead
1941 Bulgarian alliance with Axis powers
1950 Commie spy Klaus Fuchs convicted
1953 Stalin has a stroke, dies a few days later
1954 Hydrogen bomb detonated on Bikini Atoll
1954 Armed Puerto Ricans attack Capitol building
1956 Formation of East German "people's army"
1964 Villarrica Volcano erupts, destroys half a town
1966 Socialists take power in Syria, following coup
1973 Black September storms Saudi embassy, killing 3 hostages
1974 Watergate indictments
1981 IRA prisoner Bobby Sands begins hunger strike
1990 Video game company raided by US Secret Service
2007 Tornado hits Alabama high school, killing 8
2008 Armenian police kill 10 peaceful protesters
2014 Gang attacks commuters with knives at Chinese railway station, 31 civilians dead, over 140 injured

Yay, March 1!
(Thanks Wiki)

Geoff of Perth,

Glad that you're liking it, it rather shews Philip's administration in a different light to that favoured by his detractors.
Watkin Tench is a largely ignored first hand witness but then he didn't have the benefit of foresight (as a direct opposite of hindsight) so he missed the chance to be PC !