My only gripe is that it means instead of missing an extra day of work, we have a holiday on New Years day- when everyone is hung over.

Remember it pays to be practical about these things...
(though better yet, were we to become a republic, we hold the referendum on a day of the year for which holidays are scarce (winter, spring) and make Australia day that one?

King Hazza, we would retain January 26th as a public holiday and call it 'Reconciliation Day'. But, AUSTRALIA('s)(birth)DAY was on January 1st, 1901, thus Australia Day is January 1st.

The fire works on the harbour bridge would celebrate two things the birth of a new year and the birth of a nation.

Jockey, I totally sympathise with your views on Aboriginal Australia and our (European-cum-multicultural) invasion and displacement thereof.

The 26th of January has always been Invasion Day to me.

However, I really like Sense's idea of calling it Reconciliation Day and continuing to hold it as a public holiday and a major day on this country's calendar.

We should realise that, as bad as it was, the invasion of Aboriginal Australia was nothing unusual in the history of humanity or indeed in the history of life on Earth. Many countries are built upon a history of invasion.

One very significant step forward would be to declare Jan 26 Reconciliation Day, while moving Australia to Jan 1.

Reconciliation Day is a great idea. But I think it should replace Australia day, whether it be on 26th or the 1st. I don't think we should have the two days.

The reason I think we should go that way is because we need to recognise more fully that we invaded this country. There's still many history deniers to this day who deny that. We stole aboriginal lands, murdered aboriginal people, decimated whole communities, brought horrific disease, stole and raped their women and forever damaged numerous cultures. And to this day there are those politically correct individuals within our society who blame aboriginal people because they are not just like us. These are the history deniers amongst us.

Because of aboriginal history, I believe Reconciliation Day should replace Australia Day. Let's show we're world leaders in this regard. Just because other countries don't do this type of thing doesn't mean we have to timidly follow the pack.

Ludwig and Sense- very good idea, I would definitely support that (and having an actual reconciliation day as a public holiday would be a very positive step).

Gentlemen - we have just changed Australian history - congratulations and well done!