Australia Day Poll

[easy_tiger]

Depends on whether they have the correct opinion, i.e. bourgeoisie white man bad, proletariat aboriginal man victim.

i'd love the opportunity to climb to the lofty heights of proletariat.

 

[Ian4]

I don't really care but in saying that I don't think changing the date will achieve anything other than a Greens celebratory circle jerk.

you say that as if that's a bad thing. and you also say that as if this is only supported by hardcore lefties.

Well it can’t be changed to January 1 Federation Day because it’s already a PH and there’s no way I’m losing a PH over all this! ;D

The obvious date that stands out like dogs balls is May 9.

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/australia-day-the-case-for-may-9-20180122-h0m65w.html

January 23 2018 Mark Kenny
There's a strong argument to move Australia Day to May 9

A hole in the argument to move Australia Day from January 26 has been the absence of a logical alternative – or any consensus for same.

But is that right?

In truth, the case for January 26 is rather thin from a national perspective. Even leaving aside dispossession, the founding of a British penal colony in what would later become NSW, is a dubious basis for Australia's national day. This was an act of empire building. Literally.

As the former Keating government minister Chris Schacht points out, it did not create Australia and the staking of the flag of Britain to claim New Holland at Sydney Cove holds little connection for the people of Adelaide, or Port Hedland. Remember, it is only since 1994 that the anniversary has been treated consistently in all states and territories, underscoring the date's NSW-centric significance.

The core propositions of this dispute are well rehearsed. Conservatives say there is no case for change, with some muttering sotto voce about the left's "black armband" view of history.

The Greens, plus some within Labor, and importantly, many Indigenous community members, say the date ignores what was an invasion and even presents it as an unalloyed "good", making it offensive to the original owners.

Clearly these positions are poles apart – the antithesis of the unifying purpose for which the anniversary was conceived.

It's a powerful point. Yet it is not one that has so far swayed the mainstream parties with the Coalition doubling down and Labor sitting pat, acknowledging on the one hand the sensitivities, while refusing to drive a shift.

Inflaming all of this is the way the day itself has evolved from a low-key commemoration to a gaudy flag-waving celebration of all things "Aussie" replete with fireworks, huge public events, and countless parties. Rising jingoism has transformed the character of Australia Day, simultaneously elevating its calendar importance while sharpening the sense that it is precisely the wrong historical moment to giddily proclaim unity.

So what are the alternatives? Schacht concedes the obvious choice would mark Australia's Federation on January 1, 1901, but says holding your national day on New Year's Day is impractical. There is however, a very good alternative that would (presumably) offend no one and which does all the things January 26 cannot.

That is, it marks a date on which multiple steps have been taken on the path to modern Australia's creation. A day when this new nation took practical form with its first sitting of the federal parliament, and which was reinforced subsequently, with the very first sittings in the newly created capital, and finally, the first sitting in the new (permanent) Parliament House on Capital Hill.

That date is May 9 – the same day in 1901 when we became a self-governing federation; again in 1927, when the Parliament shifted to Canberra (from Melbourne); and finally, in the bicentennial year of 1988, when the current Parliament House was opened.

What better way to celebrate the great milestones of nationhood than its formalisation as an institutional democracy empowered to make its own national laws under its own constitution?

A recent Australia Institute survey suggests less than half of Australians correctly identified the reason for January 26 anyway, and that 56 per cent were not fussed about when the national day falls.

If the country cannot bring itself to deliver meaningful constitutional recognition of the original inhabitant owners, nor even an Indigenous advisory body, for fear of creating a so-called "third chamber" of Parliament, surely settling on a date of national celebration that does not wilfully gloss over violent dispossession is reasonable.

 

[Giardiasis]

i'd love the opportunity to climb to the lofty heights of proletariat.

So said the bourgeoisie in Russia in 1917.

 

[tigertim]

And how many indigenous actually have a voice to express their opinion in our white news cycle?

ABC/SBS represent indigenous fairly well as do the Age and the Guardian.

Indigenous people also have FB and Twitter etc to voice their opinion.

 

[tigertim]

you say that as if that's a bad thing. and you also say that as if this is only supported by hardcore lefties.

The obvious date that stands out like dogs balls is May 9.

Didn’t you just say a couple of posts ago it was ANZAC day?

 

[Giardiasis]

ABC/SBS represent indigenous fairly well as do the Age and the Guardian.

Only as long as they hold the opinions I voiced earlier. There's no room for class traitors on those news outlets.

 

[Ian4]

Didn’t you just say a couple of posts ago it was ANZAC day?

Yes, I said ANZAC day is our true national day. but if January 26 were to be replaced, May 9 seems to be the most obvious date. Pretty sure the Australian Republican Movement want May 9 used as "Republic Day" when we eventually become a republic as well.

 

[tigertim]

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/australia-day-holiday-2018-attacks-on-day-reject-our-history-writes-jacinta-nampijinpa-price/news-story/62ed0801529f468aa3ffcd76db5c8456

THE PUSH to change the date of Australia Day has become more contentious as it engulfs our nation in debate during the lead-up to the occasion.

The “change” urgers claim January 26 marks the beginning of colonisation and genocide and is hurtful for Indigenous Australians. But that is shallow, meaningless, emotional rhetoric that does not represent the view of all Aboriginal people.

It is high time we rejected the myth that all we blackfellas think and feel the same. Peddling that myth silences the majority of us who hold different views from the enshrined “Aboriginal viewpoint”.

People such as Lynda Burney and Jackie Huggins have told you that the celebration of Australia Day causes us all great pain. Well, I have lived and worked all of my life in the far north, in Darwin and Alice Springs and in remote communities. I have never heard anybody talk of the pain of Australia Day.

Maybe there are some people, but everybody I know celebrates the day with enjoyment and pride. Perhaps all of this agony only happens in southern cities.

Let’s be honest about where the argument to change the date comes from: a place of resentment, anger and now hate. The vitriol that has been directed at me, as an Aboriginal woman, for voicing my opinion and for encouraging a healthier way of thinking, has been far, far worse then any alleged racist sentiment claimed to come from the celebration of Australia Day.

Is changing the date some kind of quick fix to obscure the failure to solve our real problems? Symbolic acts have no meaningful impact on Australia’s most marginalised, so why then are so many so happy to invest vast amounts of energy into a meaningless symbolic act?

It is a pathetic attempt at appeasing resentment, anger and white guilt.

And it will do what? Will it take pain away, placate anger, assuage guilt? Will it save the lives of those we keep burying before their time? Will it get one illiterate child to school? Will it get one pregnant mum to stop drinking grog to avoid inflicting a lifetime of disability on an unborn baby? Will it keep one angry young man out of jail? Will it prevent the bashing of one girlfriend or wife — or even the sexual assault of one child? I can’t see how.

This is a cop out — and a divisive one at that. Why don’t any of those shouting about the painfulness of January 26 ever mention the pain and suffering caused by the abuse of children, the violence against women and the incarceration of young men taught that law breaking is legitimate rebellion? This divisive gesture produces the following:

RESENTFUL Aboriginals who expect other Australians to change to appease their irrational anger;

WHITE Australians who accept the lie that all we blackfellas think the same and believe they are doing something meaningful to improve our lives;

ABORIGINAL people like me who know that symbolic acts do not make a single difference and who prefer that our people find genuine freedom and empowerment to initiate meaningful and lasting change;

WHITE Australians who have had a gutful of being made to feel guilty for the actions of others and who genuinely want our problems addressed but understand it takes real action on our part for that to happen;

CONCERNED immigrants who simply want to be proud and happy to be accepted as fellow citizens on Australia Day.

On January 26, 1949, we all became Australian citizens — including Aboriginal Australians — when the Nationality and Citizenship Act came into force. Neither my white or my black grandparents were citizens before that. Aboriginal Australians, including my grandparents, were still denied some citizenship rights after that through state legislation, but that had all gone before I was born.

Ian Macfarlane tells us that he wouldn’t celebrate the day of the battle of Culloden because of his Scottish heritage. There were Scots on both sides of that battle. It could be argued that it was a victory of the Protestant Lowlanders over the Catholic Highlands as much as a victory of a German king over everybody.

History is always complicated. My husband is a Scot. I understand their struggle, which began centuries before 1788. I understand their resentment towards the Sassenachs and we love to see them lose the Ashes. But it isn’t the imperial English celebrating Australia Day, it is all of us, no matter where we came from.

 

[martyshire]

OK, so at least one indigenous person doesn't really care if the date is changed.

It would be great to get an idea of how common her viewpoint is. Even if only one third of indigenous people wanted it changed and the other two thirds didn't care, that would probably still be persuasive to me.

 

[Ian4]

I read an article the other day that renders the suggestion that many indigenous Australians aren't offended by Australia Day as *smile*. If I come across it again I'll post it.

 

[easy_tiger]

Indigenous people also have FB and Twitter etc to voice their opinion.

#letthemeatcake?

 

[tigertim]

#letthemeatcake?

:

 

[tigertim]

OK, so at least one indigenous person doesn't really care if the date is changed.

It would be great to get an idea of how common her viewpoint is. Even if only one third of indigenous people wanted it changed and the other two thirds didn't care, that would probably still be persuasive to me.

I think I read that was 54% of indigenous wanted it to change. So about 350,000 people.

 

[martyshire]

I think I read that was 54% of indigenous wanted it to change. So about 350,000 people.

What about the other 46% though. Assuming they are undecided or don't care then the 56% becomes pretty compelling!

 

[tigertim]

What about the other 46% though. Assuming they are undecided or don't care then the 56% becomes pretty compelling!

Or....if the 46% don’t care or are undecided then why change it?

 

[Baloo]

you say that as if that's a bad thing.

I'd rather not be in the room, or witness on TV, a circle jerk.

and you also say that as if this is only supported by hardcore lefties.

No, I don't. You're making things up.

 

[martyshire]

Or....if the 46% don’t care or are undecided then why change it?

If changing the date helps the psyche of 350,000 people, and won't hurt anyone, to me that's a no brainer.

 

[tigerdell]

There are arguments about why to change the date
And arguments why the push to change the date is wrong (rebuttal as it were)
But what is the argument to keep jan 26?

Because its not unifying, being so Sydney centric.
Its not uniquely Australian, representing the start of a british colony and not the birth of a nation (spoken in a deep voice)
Its not traditional and hasnt been celebrated for generations
And its not overwhelming wanted by everyone

It is a good time for southerners to finish holidays with a bbq.
But what is the reason to keep jan 26?

 

[Ian4]

But what is the argument to keep jan 26?

Coz Melbourne Victory would lose its traditional Australia Day game against Sydney

 

[Elmer]

December 3rd?