No one is forcing anyone to salute, drink beer or eat a sausage sandwich. You can be sure if you change the date many will find it clashes with some other day of 'significance'. Basically I don't think most Australians care except for the aboriginal industry trying to cash in on victimhood. I was asked today by a blackfella how I was going to celebrate Australia day. He seemed very happy when I told him I was joining with my Phillipino and African friends who are becoming aussies.

Dear Cossomby,

My husband and I shall be spending Australia Day
with my frail, elderly mum, and the residents of her
aged-care facility with a special barbeque lunch,
followed by a game of Bingo and afterwards a
screening of an Australian-film in the lounge.

I read your last post and it's not easy having to deal
with such pugnacity on a public forum and (as Poirot
stated on another discussion) - "one gets weary of
wiping foaming spittle" flung at you, "off the computer
screen."

However, this is an important issue that needs to be
opened up for discussion.

The following link provides some perspectives for
discussion (whether we agree with them or not), they are
worth discussing:

The link tells us that "Most countries celebrate the
day they gained independence from colonial rule.
Australians celebrate when it began."

The argument continues - that - "January 26, 1788 isn't a day
to be happy about. It was the day British forces
landed at Sydney Cove and claimed the land,
dispossessing the First Australians."

We are told that, "We cannot change our history, as
much as we might desire it. We cannot ignore our
history, because it has made us. But we can change our
future."

The writer Thomas Keneally agrees with this.
Let's get the discussion happening!

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/we-can-do-better-than-january-26-20130120-2d10n.html

Australia Day is Grumps Day Off!

Maybe it should be re-named that, 'Grumps Day Off' and there could be efforts to extend the good vibes to more days of the year.

I think we should celebrate the first fleet.
Governor Phillip was a worthy father to the nation that has became Australia. His dealings with the natives were compassionate and wise and his treatment of the convicts and marines was exemplary. He was a great man with enlightened ideas and a genuine belief in fairness.

What happened to the original inhabitants of this land was not down to Governor Phillip and the First Fleet.

All my aboriginal mates and all the aboriginals that I have ever known, except for a few activists, are bloody glad that the British came here before other Europeans.
I haven't met an Aboriginal hunter for 60 years that didn't prefer a rifle or shot gun for downing roos, pigs or emus.
Sure they got the raw end of the stick but today they have health care, unemployment relief and subsidized housing.
I also haven't met one of the so called 'stolen generation' that wasn't glad that he/she was taken from the environment in which they then lived.

A successful Aboriginal business woman that I knew in Sydney escaped from Arnhem Land when she was in her early twenties, she already had four children, having been married off when she was 12.
Once away from the tribe she found employment with a family in Nth Queensland and got an education.
She was all for European culture as a way of life that was far preferable to what she had to look forward to in what was then a closed territory.
Aboriginal people are far better off today than they were in 1788.

Australia Day should be celebrated when we finally cut the apron strings from the 'Mother Country'.

I have never felt comfortable with all the nationalistic rubbish that goes with this date every year , with mindless morons cruising the streets in big cars festooned with Australian flags and stickers bearing such tasteful slogans as ' F### off! We're full!".

How anyone can be proud of a date when a foreign country thousands of miles away sends in soldiers and prisoners to take over a land that was already inhabited is beyond me. We need to grow up and move on from that part of our history.

I am proud to have been born an Australian, but I will wait until we become a republic before I get too excited about Australia Day.