Australia Day Poll | PUNT ROAD END | Richmond Tigers Forum
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Australia Day Poll

Which applies to you?

  • Celebrate Australia Day. Keep the date.

    Votes: 43 52.4%
  • Celebrate Australia Day. Change the date.

    Votes: 26 31.7%
  • Don't celebrate Australia. Keep the date.

    Votes: 2 2.4%
  • Don't celebrate Australia Day. Change the date.

    Votes: 7 8.5%
  • Prawn sandwich on the barbie

    Votes: 2 2.4%
  • Other...please specify.

    Votes: 2 2.4%

  • Total voters
    82
tigertim said:
Or the irony in people saying “Aborigines are the first Australians and should be listened to and respected.”

But the “second” Australians shouldn’t......

But the “third” Australians (Greeks, Lebs, Vietnamese, Italians etc) should.....

Segregation, ain’t it great.....

Don't really get this line of argument - but it seems to be integral.

Most people I know are a combination of the second and third groups (except I don't think I know anyone with any first fleet ancestry) and I can only think of maybe one person that is so self flagellating that he trots out the 'white Australians are the bad guys' line. I don't think he really believes that anyway - just after attention. For the rest of us, we're just people. None of this 'us and them' BS. No one is attacking our rights or freedoms. If someone wanted to take footy or lying on the beach or lasagna away from me, THEN there would be an 'us and them' situation; THEN I'd feel like I wasn't being respected, but this is just a random public holiday that can be on a different day...? Who cares?

I don't think most white people that want to change the date are saying that feel less entitled to live in Australia than anyone else. Just like most Indigenous people don't want to 'burn Australia to the ground' and most people that want to leave the date as it is are not horrible people that lack empathy.

The media like to be divisive, which generally makes us a poorer society. On this matter they have been extremely successful.

The issue should not have been this big a deal. It should have been like keeping the noise down in a share house because one of your flat mates has to work in the morning. Minimal inconvenience to the majority but a sign of consideration to the guy that has to work in the morning. Will it solve all of the problems in the life of the guy that has to get up early in the morning? No. But it's just a nice thing to do and it might help him have a good day at work.

Meanwhile another annoying flatmate with a megaphone is telling us that this guy doesn't really want to go to work tomorrow, and that he hates us anyway. Then the vegan dread lock flat mate is calling everyone idiot and insensitive. The noise is keeping the guy up, but it's not from the music, it's from the insults being thrown between the guys with man buns and the guys with jet skis. It's enough to make you want to find another share house...except it's on a big block in a nice spot.
 
martyshire said:
Don't really get this line of argument - but it seems to be integral.

Most people I know are a combination of the second and third groups (except I don't think I know anyone with any first fleet ancestry) and I can only think of maybe one person that is so self flagellating that he trots out the 'white Australians are the bad guys' line. I don't think he really believes that anyway - just after attention. For the rest of us, we're just people. None of this 'us and them' BS. No one is attacking our rights or freedoms. If someone wanted to take footy or lying on the beach or lasagna away from me, THEN there would be an 'us and them' situation; THEN I'd feel like I wasn't being respected, but this is just a random public holiday that can be on a different day...? Who cares?

I don't think most white people that want to change the date are saying that feel less entitled to live in Australia than anyone else. Just like most Indigenous people don't want to 'burn Australia to the ground' and most people that want to leave the date as it is are not horrible people that lack empathy.

The media like to be divisive, which generally makes us a poorer society. On this matter they have been extremely successful.

The issue should not have been this big a deal. It should have been like keeping the noise down in a share house because one of your flat mates has to work in the morning. Minimal inconvenience to the majority but a sign of consideration to the guy that has to work in the morning. Will it solve all of the problems in the life of the guy that has to get up early in the morning? No. But it's just a nice thing to do and it might help him have a good day at work.

Meanwhile another annoying flatmate with a megaphone is telling us that this guy doesn't really want to go to work tomorrow, and that he hates us anyway. Then the vegan dread lock flat mate is calling everyone idiot and insensitive. The noise is keeping the guy up, but it's not from the music, it's from the insults being thrown between the guys with man buns and the guys with jet skis. It's enough to make you want to find another share house...except it's on a big block in a nice spot.
I quite like this post Marty. Particularly your analogy in the final paragraph - sums up perfectly how many of us feel when this whole noisy tabloid and social media lead debate comes up each year.

Thing with Australia Day, when I was a kid in the 80s-90s, there really seemed no concept of 'celebrating' Australia Day as such. I don't know, maybe we were just more apathetic then. But the whole flag waving, jingoistic fluff never really seemed to be much of a feature. Sure we appreciated the day off and it was a nice summer weekend to have family time (still the way I think of it now I have small children of my own - adore the extra time with them), but it wasn't really a day of 'celebration' (akin to 'celebrating' Christmas) with 'Australia' themed BBQs, spending a fortune on booze etc etc. It's nearly like it's become a day of noisy 'celebration' in response to noisy opposition.......or is that the noisy opposition is in response to Australia Day becoming more of a noisy 'celebration'? Anyway, this sums up the divisive self fulfilling loop it seems to have been whirled up into.

Personally, before all the 'invasion day' noise, I always found 26th Jan an odd choice for a national day, but from totally different motivations. It was selected (correctly or incorrectly) to mark the arrival of the first fleet. Which to me, only really represents the beginning of Sydney. This perpetuates a *smile* Sydney-centric view of Australia that nothing of consequential value exists outside the borders of Hornsby in the north, Sutherland in the south and Penrith to the west.

In actual fact, 'Australia' didn't come into being until 1st Jan 1901 when 6 self governing colonies joined together - or if you like, the 5th or 9th Jul 1900 when the act to federate was passed and received Royal Assent respectively. Hence why I've always felt, 1st Jan (by adding an extra day to the new year's break) or 5th or 9th of Jul would be appropriate dates. People may not like the idea of a Jul public holiday. But think of that long period in the middle of the year with no public holidays in sight. Might be a welcome break. And the non brains trust at AFL House would no doubt love the marketing bonanza for yet another themed match and round ;). Or the idea of extending the NY break by a day. Who wouldn't like an extra day to nurse a sore head from the excesses of NY festivities? Or if one were inclined, they may make it a two day bender instead of one. ;D

But then, to me personally, it shouldn't really make that big a deal. Every family line I trace back goes back 6 generations in Tasmania, (yes throw the jokes at me ;D ). So as a sense of identity, I really have no historical links to any other part of Australia. Having spent time living in several states and overseas, I feel no more at 'home' in other parts of Australia, than I do in Europe, where my ancestors came from 6 generations ago. But yet, Tasmania feels quintessentially and unquestionably my 'home'. I am certainly 'Tasmanian' first and foremost, but am pretty apathetic to any 'Australian' identity - don't really feel much of an 'Australian' identity as such.

Although I must say, having been notionally in favour of a more appropriate date well before the 'change the date' campaign became the latest trendy cause (for alternative reasons I stated above). The divisive language used by the more megaphone enhanced 'Change the Date' activists has put me at pains to side with them.
 
martyshire said:
Then the vegan dread lock flat mate is calling everyone idiot and insensitive.

I hate vegans with dreadlocks.

If you dont love a steak and a comb, leave
 
So basically the aboriginals need to build a bridge and get over it. Can’t change the past, let’s just move forward.

Hopefully with some sleep and some breakfast,
 
MD Jazz said:
So basically the aboriginals need to build a bridge and get over it. Can’t change the past, let’s just move forward.

Hopefully with some sleep and some breakfast,

;D 8- :afro
 
easy said:

Easy I don’t necessarily agree with you and snake on everything but I’m with you here.

Not too many aboriginals take over the family business - unless it’s the dole collection thing.
 
Giardiasis said:
Unlike the irony in people advocating for large immigration today and yet disparaging it back in 1788.

do you really not see the difference between welcoming immigration today and having issues with the way Australia was settled 200 years ago and the way Indigenous Australians were treated as this time?
 
City of Yarra put out a memo for staff to not call it Australia Day but to call it the “26th January public holiday”

Pathetic really.
 
mrposhman said:
Brodders, but isn't the issue that the indigenous leaders have indicated that they don't want a date change, they want the day abolished altogether as they don't want to celebrate that they were invaded. Changing the date will do nothing.

Part of the issue is there arent "the Indigenous leaders", there is no person, or group of people who represent Indigenous people.
there are definitely some people who want to 'burn' Australia, and they often figure prominently in reporting, but I would guess they are well and truely in the minority.
There are other 'leaders' such as Jacinta Price, who was quoted previously, who are smart and articulate. and 'on the right' on issues such as this. then there are leaders who love Australia and celebrate being Australian, but dont want to do that on the day that commemorates Cook declaring Sydney Cove would be a good place for a penal colony, and the massacres and displacement that directly followed.

there are also non-Indigenous Australians who are uncomfortable celebrating the day Cook landed in Sydney and decided that was a good place for England to send prisoners. he did not 'settle' Australia on that day, not claim the continent for the English. He 'claimed' Sydney and the surrounding areas.

again i dont see who loses by changing the date, which has only been the date nationally for 20years, but i see plenty who will gain.
 
Brodders17 said:
He 'claimed' Sydney and the surrounding areas.
Yep, Sydney.

My previous rants didn't really cover this but the other reason I want to change the date is, as someone from a Southern state, the arrival of the first fleet has little significance to me.

I identify a lot more with the history of the country below the Barassi Line. Take a minute to Google Melbourne's population growth during the gold rush and think about what the god rush did to this country. Melbourne went from bushland to a world powerhouse city (Melbourne's prominance was greatly diminished during the depression) and the wealth from the gold rush dragged the rest of Australia up economically and culturally.

As footy lovers and (mainly) Victorians, South Australians, Western Australians and Tasmanians on this website, a lot of our culture, the best bits of our infrastructure and most of our 'european-ancestry' comes from that period; not from people shipped to Sydney 50 years earlier.

Without the discovery of gold in Victoria, most of us wouldn't be here and neither would our footy, our big stadiums our nice architecture. The arrival of the First Fleet in Sydney was one of many mere stepping stones.

Call it parochialism if you like but 'Sydney Day' can get stuffed. :p
 
martyshire said:
Yep, Sydney.

My previous rants didn't really cover this but the other reason I want to change the date is, as someone from a Southern state, the arrival of the first fleet has little significance to me.

I identify a lot more with the history of the country below the Barassi Line. Take a minute to Google Melbourne's population growth during the gold rush and think about what the god rush did to this country. Melbourne went from bushland to a world powerhouse city (Melbourne's prominance was greatly diminished during the depression) and the wealth from the gold rush dragged the rest of Australia up economically and culturally.

As footy lovers and (mainly) Victorians, South Australians, Western Australians and Tasmanians on this website, a lot of our culture, the best bits of our infrastructure and most of our 'european-ancestry' comes from that period; not from people shipped to Sydney 50 years earlier.

Without the discovery of gold in Victoria, most of us wouldn't be here and neither would our footy, our big stadiums our nice architecture. The arrival of the First Fleet in Sydney was one of many mere stepping stones.

Call it parochialism if you like but 'Sydney Day' can get stuffed. :p
Hence why, before Canberra was conceived, it was looking more likely Melbourne would win out in the bunfight with Sydney to be Australia's capital (in fact Parliament did sit in Melbourne in the early years of Federation). At the time of Federation (1901), Melbourne was the more wealthy and powerful city.

Although, I might add, that you guys are technically a colony of Tasmania. The Port Philip Bay colony was founded by settlers and administrators out of York Town (which became Launceston) in northern Tasmania. ;) ;D
 
Panthera Tigris said:
Although, I might add, that you guys are technically a colony of Tasmania. The Port Philip Bay colony was founded by settlers and administrators out of York Town (which became Launceston) in northern Tasmania. ;) ;D

Tassie is one of my favourite stepping stones ;)
 
Panthera Tigris said:
Hence why, before Canberra was conceived, it was looking more likely Melbourne would win out in the bunfight with Sydney to be Australia's capital (in fact Parliament did sit in Melbourne in the early years of Federation). At the time of Federation (1901), Melbourne was the more wealthy and powerful city.

Although, I might add, that you guys are technically a colony of Tasmania. The Port Philip Bay colony was founded by settlers and administrators out of York Town (which became Launceston) in northern Tasmania. ;) ;D

yes, just as Australia is to England, Victoria is to Tassie.
 
Brodders17 said:
and 'on the right' on issues such as this. then there are leaders who love Australia and celebrate being Australian, but dont want to do that on the day that commemorates Cook declaring Sydney Cove would be a good place for a penal colony,

You must have been reading up your history in the Herald Sun.

Cook was there in 1770 and not January 26. It was Phillip on January 26 1788.
 
tigertim said:
City of Yarra put out a memo for staff to not call it Australia Day but to call it the “26th January public holiday”

Pathetic really.

Not really, tiger. If Yarra doesn’t recognise Jan 26 as 'Australia Day' then it only follows that as an organization they stop referring to that date by that name. Otherwise it would be a bit silly.

I do wonder though if in the future more and more local gov areas get banned by the Feds from performing citizenship ceremonies (like City of Yarra) because they’re not recognising Jan 26 as Australia Day where will all their new citizens have to go to be sworn in as true bluers.

In 40 years maybe Woori Yallock.
 
tigertim said:
City of Yarra put out a memo for staff to not call it Australia Day but to call it the “26th January public holiday”

Pathetic really.
Agree its pathetic too.

I wonder if staff dont do it.
If they are sack i wonder if the staff member have retribution against their employer
 
glantone said:
Not really, tiger. If Yarra doesn’t recognise Jan 26 as 'Australia Day' then it only follows that as an organization they stop referring to that date by that name. Otherwise it would be a bit silly.
What’s silly is they don’t want to recognise the day but still take the public holiday off. Hypocritical really.