I don't chew burnt meat and get pissed on Australia Day. I do nothing that I don't do every other day and I am sick and tired of the controversy this particular day causes. I can certainly live without it and the unpleasantness caused, mainly by people who want the date changed purely for political reasons. Change the date.Get rid of it altogether. It doesn't matter for the other 364 days of the year. One day of faux love and loyalty doesn't make up for squabbling and divisions of the other 364.

Given the new divisions and hatred in this country; creeping Socialism and debt caused by a dictatorial political class; a carping, scare-mongering media; overcrowding, homelessness, more interest in the environment than in people, but still wanting more people (30 million of them predicted by 2032) to consume on behalf of Big Business Australia Day is a joke: just an excuse for another day off, in the Land of the Long Weekend. Two extra non-productive days off recently because Christmas Day and New Year fell on a Sunday. Now, they want more public holidays because of the change in population. Yes, that's right: celebration of foreign holidays for the foreigners who didn't want to stay in their own countries and celebrate there. All on tonight's news. What a bloody farce!

Here's a couple of things to consider:

Firstly the 26th of January commemorates the
establishment of the first settlement in the
colony of NSW.

Holding onto January 26th to only celebrate one part
of our country's history and celebrating one of the
darkest periods. A period of slave labour,
oppression, and imperial social strata continuation
is something worth debating and re-considering.

The 26th January does not define Australia today.

Hi Foxy,

If one had to make a choice for 'Australia Day', then 1st January the day of federation seems an obvious choice. I'm not so pissed off with the past history of colonisation, as bad as it was, but what really does piss me off is the failure of truth telling and recognition of the past. How can we move on as a nation if 97% refuse to recognise the inhumanity of the past perpetrated against Aboriginal people. To add insult to injury there are those who want to celebrate the very day colonisation begun. Is it not an exercise in "rubbing their noses in it".

An example; Australia has an excellent War Memorial in Canberra, where we honour the deeds and scarifies, by mostly White Australia, in foreign wars, everything from the Boer War to Afghanistan. There is the one and only war fought on Australian soil which goes unrecognised, a war in which 100,000 Indigenous and 3,000 European Australians perished, I'm referring to the very long, fought over about 140 years, and very painful for Aboriginal people Frontier Wars. There is total refusal by Australia to recognise those wars. There was not the glory of Gallipoli or the heroics of WWII, but a horrific war never the less. Something white Australia still fails to recognise to our shame.

"That was the day Australia was settled by a modern society of its time." Proud Boy you really get to me.

Dear Paul,

I agree - we should have truth telling in our
history. That's why The Voice to Parliament
would help. And yet it's still being knocked back by
some.

I see no harm in changing the date if it will contribute
to this country's history and promote good will.

The whingeing about Australia day comes from a genuine movement.

Movements attract misfits. The desire to change traditions usually corresponds with their personal unhappiness. Mass movements also attract misfits because they take all comers: people who can't make friends or fill in their days are relieved of their problems by being obedient to a cause.

Hi Foxy,

In its day a 'Windows Pensions' of 5/- week (NSW 1926) was opposed by conservative politicians, on the grounds it would make for "loose kept women" and besides NSW couldn't afford it. Seems starving women with children was preferable to having "loose kept women". Praise to Labor's Jack Lang. I'm sure OLO's spats and straw hats brigade still oppose windows pensions for the same reasons. Must ask ttbn and a few others.

p/s After WWI there was an abnormally high number of young widows with children in Australia, (I wonder why) and they had been left to fend for themselves. Jack Lang declared this was not right and in those days the states had a lot more control over things, the Commonwealth was secondary. Lang said he was going to pay a 5/- (50c) weekly pension to women. Before that women had never received any kind of government payment, they were only for men. In 1941 to his credit Bob Menzies introduced child endowment 5/- week for the second and subsequent child only, shock horror it was also paid directly to mothers. In 1942 the Curtain Labor government took over widows pensions from the states, and as a 'temporary" war time measure paid £1.5s ($2.50) to widows, seems there were a lot of widows at the time (I wonder why).