AUSTRALIA Day is a national source of pride for most Australians.
It is a time to celebrate mateship, family and our love of beach, beer, barbecues and all things Aussie.
We do this by getting out and maybe indulging in a round of thong tossing or cane toad racing.
Many Australians see it simply as a day off with the traffic jam on the way to the beach made a little bit easier by seeing all the little Aussie flags fluttering in the breeze from motorists’ wing mirrors.
We should feel proud of our country.
Australia is a great place to live and as far as societies go, we have managed to get more things right than we get wrong.
But if you asked every citizen, most of whom could trace their family trees to somewhere other than Australia, how many would really be emotionally invested in celebrating the first fleet?
Australia Day celebrates the date in 1788 when British ships landed in Port Jackson, NSW, carrying human cargo considered to be the scum of society in Britain but still more valued than the people who already inhabited the land.
Whatever else we do on Australia Day, how many of us will pause for even a second to spare a thought for Captain Cook, Arthur Philip or the Union Jack they popped into Australian soil after declaring the land Terra Nullius (no man’s land) and claiming the eastern coast for the King of England?
Do we need to be so emotionally invested in the actual date we celebrate Australia?
The Terra Nullius thing was officially debunked after the Mabo court decision and most reasonable Australians accept the fact that Australia was inhabited by Indigenous people long before the first European arrived.
For some it is hard to understand why Indigenous Australians see a different history.
For most, Australia Day marks the birth of our culture, so why should we worry about political correctness or being sensitive to the emotions of a clear minority?
A poll conducted by the Australia Institute showed that most Australians do not care about the date Australia Day is held as long as we have a national day to celebrate our country.
There is an argument that Australia Day should be a time to celebrate the things that bring us together, not the things that divide us and it should be a party to which everyone is invited.
