Editorial: Mayeight!!!!

TALK of changing the date of Australia Day seems to be causing some people to become highly emotional and when you break it down I’m really not sure why.

First and foremost there will still be a public holiday and what could be more Australian than that?

Secondly, everyone agrees there will still be Australia Day when we will continue to celebrate everything we love about this great country.

See comic video below.

Thirdly, this has nothing to do with ANZAC Day, I was confused when someone recently claimed Australia Day is what the ANZAC’s died for….um no…they fought for Australia in international conflicts and in my study of the reasons for Australia entering those conflicts I can find no evidence it was to maintain the date of January 26 to celebrate Australia Day and I think you’d be hard pressed to find reasonable people to lay down their lives for that cause.

January 26 was originally chosen because that was the day the British arrived, but what they did when they first arrived is nothing any fair minded Australian could be proud of.

The British did at that time what they did best around the world, killing off native inhabitants and taking what they wanted for the Empire.

A Scotsman once quipped to me that the British took centuries to earn the title “pommy bastards” but boy did they earn it!

I have English ancestry and Irish ancestry and mostly likely some Aboriginal ancestry and on balance I am glad all of my ancestors found their way to Australia.

Some were in chains and I’m sure they weren’t too fond of the English who sent them out here and some were free settlers who were given land by the British to ‘colonise’.

And I also think about my Aboriginal ancestor who we can’t find any records of because in those days they were literally treated as animals under the British law, they were not afforded birth certificates, marriage certificates or death certificates and if she wasn’t slaughtered in the early 1800’s it is likely many of her Wonnarua family were.

So with the greatest respect to my English ancestors, I think of myself as Australian and while I am glad of some of the English influences that remain in our culture today such as the Sunday roast and speaking English, I really can’t get behind the killing native inhabitants, so instead of defending the indefensible I’m happy to change the date of Australia Day to one all of us can be proud of.

In terms of citizenship ceremonies, we have those throughout the entire year, sure on Australia Day it is the most popular day, but I also don’t understand why the Department of Immigration feels they have a dog in this fight and are threatening Councils that they can’t hold citizenship ceremonies on the new date, it makes no sense.

Let people become citizens on whatever date they want, while the rest of us get on with sorting out the BBQ.

So now the next issue is what date?

I love the idea of May 8….maaaate!!

But there are others who say they’d prefer to keep it in summer, which is a fair point so even a date either side say the 25th or the 27th?

Related story: Council Meeting: August 2017.

Editor
scone.com.au