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Today, most of this has been replaced by dope smoking, humbugging booze artists determined to be offended by a completely arbitrary date!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.