Australia Day - 26th January?

[eZyT]

Changing the date is inevitable and a no brainer,

politics aside, we have 7 national holidays all crammed into Dec, jan and April.

stick it somewhere in the spring

people wont really care when they get pissed with an Australia flag cape on

 

[tigerman]

Changing the date is inevitable and a no brainer,

politics aside, we have 7 national holidays all crammed into Dec, jan and April.

stick it somewhere in the spring

people wont really care when they get pissed with an Australia flag cape on

I reckon they should make it the Monday after the Grand Final.......that would pee everyone off, because it would be known as Richmond Day.

 

[eZyT]

I reckon they should make it the Monday after the Grand Final.......that would pee everyone off, because it would be known as Richmond Day.

sounds pretty inclusive to me.

Ive always maintained there are 2 types of Australian; those that barrack for Richmond, and those that wish they barracked for Richmond

 

[eZyT]

Have to say, I'm a bit disappointed we didn't join Essendon and North in being a bit stronger with our statement yesterday.

I think as individuals and organisations, its important to pick your battles to avoid issue fatigue.

and this battle is pretty much done and dusted I reckon.

plus I think its good policy to not be associated with Essendon on anything

our boys warming up in black plain brand tshirts all 2020 was way more powerful than some press statement.

 

[Jason King]

Yeah, Australia Day meant nothing when I was a kid it is all just confected nationalism. Australians used to be very bad at nationalism and patriotism, it was a much nicer country without all that crap.

No idea why us white fellas want to celebrate the day that a pile of out forebears were sent to the end of the Earth for stealing a loaf of bread so they didn't starve, seems a bit weird to me.

DS

PS: ANA is the Australian Natives Association, they were born here but not indigenous, more confected nationalism.

I remember the 1988 Bicentennial stuff and the free coin we got at school. That was a pretty big deal but we were very much kept in the dark about indigenous culture and racism at the same time.

You are right the whole patriotism thing I don't get. Celebrate being an Aussie but also look at what we can do better and what we right royally *smile* up.

 

[spook]

I don't mind TBR's idea of the last weekend of summer. It's got to be summer. I reckon half the reason people don't want it moved is because it's perfectly placed where it is. Nearly everyone has had some time off over Christmas and New Year's and getting going again can be a bit of a bummer. Having that day off at the height of summer is a concession that work sucks, especially when it's hot, and *smile* this is a great country to be in if you don't have to work on a hot day. It just wouldn't be the same on a darkening autumn or wet spring day.

 

[Panthera Tigris]

A couple of points for discussion. As a kid (I’m bang on the cusp of millennial and gen x) Australia Day was not really much of a big deal. My observation was that we were a far more apathetic society. There wasn’t really such a concept as “celebrating” Australia Day (at least not in my neck of the woods) It was kind of just a shoulder shrug, day off. If someone asked me how I was “celebrating” Australia Day it might have been met with a baffled expression.

Sometime in the early 2000s during the Howard years it all became a wanky and jingoistic. About the time ANZAC Day took on an uncomfortably quasi-religious, jingoistic life form, rather than the more appropriately marked Remembrance Day.

What happened about then was an equal and opposite reaction by the activists types, who take the art of self flagellation and white guilt also to quasi-religious extremes.

So what do I think of Australia Day? I always felt it a peculiar day to mark. A day that marked the beginning of Sydney basically (and even that is debatable). Very little if any relevance to the concept of Australia. It surprises me that all of the other States of the Commonwealth ever agreed to have ‘Sydney Day’ masquerading as Australia Day. Cementing a *smile* Sydney-centric view of Australia that nothing of relevance exists north of Hornsby, south of Sutherland and west of Penrith. As well, of course, with the obvious other connotations which make it kind of defending the indefensible.

Hence I always felt (even before it became a trending discussion) that it should have been an extra day added to the new year break (2nd Jan) to mark the beginning of ‘Australia’. That being, Federation.

And not like Australia Day is some kind of ancient revered tradition. It really came only 25-30 years ago.

Thing is. By dragging our heels so long, even if it does get changed there will be demands to keep the 26th as self flagellation....errr sorry, ‘Invasion Day’ with all manner of quasi religious rituals. Where as if the more pig headed conservatives had proactively changed it early on in the piece, it would have simply changed and people would have shrugged their shoulders and got on with things. Once again by digging their heels in disproportionately over something that wasn’t actually that important to defend, they have created an equal and opposite reaction and entrenched a divide that will now stay with us into perpetuity.

I’m closer to the conservative side of the spectrum on cultural issues. But pragmatically so. This is what annoys me about the Political conservatives. Totally tone def and dogmatic as to what are important issues to die in the ditch over and what really isn’t that important to defend. It means they use up any credibility and good will when it comes to actual worthy issues.

 

[eZyT]

I don't mind TBR's idea of the last weekend of summer. It's got to be summer. I reckon half the reason people don't want it moved is because it's perfectly placed where it is. Nearly everyone has had some time off over Christmas and New Year's and getting going again can be a bit of a bummer. Having that day off at the height of summer is a concession that work sucks, especially when it's hot, and *smile* this is a great country to be in if you don't have to work on a hot day. It just wouldn't be the same on a darkening autumn or wet spring day.

a very southern viewpoint.

here's an idea;

The government mails you an Australia themed joker card every December 31. maybe its a kangaroo in a jesters hat. and you can show it to your boss, wife, husband, wifeband, and have a day wearing an Australia flag cape and getting really pissed whenever, and wherever the *smile* you want.

a joker is irrefutable and to even roll your eyes at its implementation risks you being labelled 'un-australian'.

A CMO may play it with abandon on the worst day of a global pandemic, a teacher may play it on parent teacher night, you can play it on your wedding day if it all gets too much; no play is socially unacceptable.

you can carry over jokers and have a week in the cape every 7th year if you're the type who stockpiles easter eggs

jokers are fully transferable and tradable

I don't care.

 

[MD Jazz]

For one, just read your post attached to my comment. You obviously didn't.

t beats me why You keep referring the "The Left" being the ones pushing for change

do you mean changing the date? Cause that’s not what I said. I referred to the lefts penchant for judging historical characters with modern standards.

 

[spook]

The modern left just doesn't understand that burying indigenous infants up to their necks then knocking their heads off was all fine and dandy back in the day.

It is unfair of the left to judge historical norms like rape, murder, genocide, enslavement and theft through a modern prism.

 

[spook]

a very southern viewpoint.

#VICBIAS

 

[Djevv]

26th is the best option I reckon. After Jan 26th 1788 nothing was ever the same again on this continent. It was the beginning of the modern Australian nation as opposed to what was there beforehand. If we become a republic all this changes.

Purely pragmatically it gets all the ratbag anti-Australian protests out of the way on one day because you know there would continue to be protests on this day regardless and protests on the new day as well.

 

[tigerman]

We get told stories of war heroes like Colonel Sir Weary Dunlop, General Sir John Monash and Major Michael Shanahan and his faithful stead Bill the Bastard.
Our parents and grand parents tell us stories of Richmond legends Jack Dyer, Mopsy Fraser and the like.

It's not hard to work what these poor souls told there children and grand children. The women were kidnapped and raped, the men were massacred or if they were lucky, put in chains.
We invaded their country and to rub their noses in it we make our National day the day that the first fleet arrived.
If changing the date for Australia Day can ease any of the pain then why not do it?
I find the 26 of January disrespectful for our First Nation brothers and sisters, and can certainly understand why they do.

Haunting pics showing Australian aboriginals shackled and chained around the neck expose the brutal treatment of indigenous people

HAUNTING photographs reveal the disturbing abuse of aboriginal people less than a century ago — a reminder of the dark past of oppression they suffered at the hands of the white population. Indigen…

www.thesun.co.uk

 

[Sintiger]

26th is the best option I reckon. After Jan 26th 1788 nothing was ever the same again on this continent. It was the beginning of the modern Australian nation as opposed to what was there beforehand. If we become a republic all this changes.

Purely pragmatically it gets all the ratbag anti-Australian protests out of the way on one day because you know there would continue to be protests on this day regardless and protests on the new day as well.

Which ratbag anti Australian protests are you referring to ?

 

[Brodders17]

Which ratbag anti Australian protests are you referring to ?

probably dickheads like these:

Cops drag away man draped in Australian flag at Melbourne Invasion Day protest

An Invasion Day protest in Melbourne on Tuesday was crashed by a counter-protester draped in an Australian flag who was forcibly removed from the scene by more than a dozen police.

www.news.com.au

 

[LeeToRainesToRoach]

They were still massacring blackfullas though.

Yes.

The Native Police killed 24,000 Indigenous people across the state, according to one historian's estimate. Another estimate puts the death toll at just over 41,000.

'There's only one reason that the Native Police were there — to kill Aboriginal people'

Queensland's Native Mounted Police massacred thousands of Indigenous people on the colonial frontier, and most of its troopers were Indigenous themselves. It's a difficult legacy for their descendants to come to terms with.

www.abc.net.au

 

[spook]

Yes.

'There's only one reason that the Native Police were there — to kill Aboriginal people'

Queensland's Native Mounted Police massacred thousands of Indigenous people on the colonial frontier, and most of its troopers were Indigenous themselves. It's a difficult legacy for their descendants to come to terms with.

www.abc.net.au

"You have to look at it in the context of a society that had been utterly disrupted," cautions Professor Barker.

"They'd had loved ones and kin killed, their wives raped and their land taken off them.

"These young men were trying to make something of themselves in these new circumstances."

 

[Djevv]

Which ratbag anti Australian protests are you referring to ?

Invasion Day protests, what else?

 

[spook]

Seriously, Lee, what are you trying to imply? That because whitefellas used blackfellas to murder other blackfellas it was okay? That it wasn't horrific attempted extermination of a people because some of the targeted race helped? I'm trying to see how what you seem to be suggesting is not reprehensible.

 

[LeeToRainesToRoach]

"You have to look at it in the context of a society that had been utterly disrupted," cautions Professor Barker.

"They'd had loved ones and kin killed, their wives raped and their land taken off them.

"These young men were trying to make something of themselves in these new circumstances."

There are plenty of sources that state the Native Police embraced their work with relish. Think about those numbers - 24K the low estimate for the Queensland Native Police alone.

A minimum of 40,000 Indigenous Australians and between 2,000 and 2,500 settlers died in the wars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austr... 40,000 Indigenous,settlers died in the wars.

That doesn't leave all that many for the white settlers.

As someone else said, if people want to shine a light, tell the whole story warts and all and not just the bits that suit. Not sure it will make anyone feel better, although the people in the article wanted the story told. There are now as many people identifying as indigenous as at the time of the First Fleet, so perhaps the key to getting Aboriginals aboard is for them to see themselves as survivors rather than victims... similar to the early convicts.