What exactly does australia day mean to the majority of people? Some possibilities:
1. It is a day of remembrance and celebration of the day the first fleet arrived in Australia and the first time the british flag was raised (not the day of discovery, which would be contentious). However, very few people are still alive who stood on that shore in 1788 so the connection , to my mind, is not really there. Viewed from the indigenous population's point of view it would be the day some white folks arrived and said this is ours now.
2. It is a public holiday, a day off work and a day for which most people are paid unless they are self employed.
3. It is a time of relaxation and partying: Not for everyone and it is not compulsory.
So with those criteria in mind, how can we fix it? Incidentally, when you visit the Australia Day page it makes little mention of 1788, but does now seem to resonate typically the 60,000 years of human occupation.
Home – Australia Day
So perhaps there is a subtle shift from the brazen act of painting the map pink so favoured by the British forefathers.
The vast majority just want a day off. Any Monday will probably do. The corollary to this is that any government that removes the holiday and does not replace it can look forward to many years in the wilderness of opposition .
Perhaps an Independence Day would be more appropriate except we missed our chance when we told the Howard government in the referendum that we didn't want to be free of the last shackles of British rule. Would that be because of the convict heritage and a bizarre case of Stockholm syndrome? Consequently we would have to settle for Federation Day or something similar. Most countries have a similar concept "National" Day:
National day - Wikipedia
Providing nobody sees fit to close the pubs on the day of celebration or ban BBQs because that offends vegetarians ( before anybody jumps up and down there I have two gay females and one vegetarian in my immediate family and neither of them are SWMBO) we should be right to party: If we wish.
Of course we will be unable to please all of the people, but we might at least be able to please more than before without getting the remainder offside.
Regards
Paul
