First Monday in feb for Australia Day

I’ve just posted the below post on my Facebook page , if you agree , please share , if not , feel free to cut and paste . Outside the obvious debate as to whether we should change or not , if we do change we’d need a new date that doesn’t have any political baggage that would alienate sections of the community


First Monday of feb for our new Australia Day ( please share )

New day for Australia Day ?

One ongoing debate in Abbustralia is the relevance of the current date of Australia Day . I won’t rehash the pro’s and cons but I heard a debate about this on news radio this morning and the conclusion was they needed a date that brought everyone together .

Mmmm , big ask I thought , but after a moment the solution was obvious .

What does EVERYONE in Australia love ?

A long weekend!


That makes it a Monday ( don’t be pedantic and say it could be Friday , a good Aussie will take the Friday off anyway ...)
Has to be In summer .
Date will rotate each year .
Somewhere between Christmas and Easter . ( we have a long weekend in October )
Could be Feb or March , but sometimes Easter is late March

Any specific timing will be arbitrary , but the first Monday of Feb seems a logical choice ( Australians do like trying to be )

So my vote is for first Monday in feb as our new Australia Day .

Cliff Turner ( ex Pom , naturalised Aussie and proud to be one )

 

Not the ideal date, it would cause confusion with kids going back to school at that time.

 

A group of people lobbied the Federal Government to apologise to Aboriginal people. The Federal Government said "sorry". Later, a number of people have observed that saying "sorry" didn't actually achieve any positive outcomes for Aboriginal people.

Now a group of people are lobbying to have the date of Australia Day changed. Will changing the date improve the lives of any Aboriginal people? Or will it be another "sorry"?

 

May 8. M8 was flagged.

 

Tokenism.

 

Change it to January 26.

 

Just as long as we don't lose a public holiday I think most Australians will be happy whenever it is.

Most countries celebrate their day on independence, or some marker of it. 4th of July for the Americans, 14th July for the French etc. Our day of independence is Jan 1 - but that's already taken as a holiday.

If we want to honour our first peoples perhaps we could choose a day that means something to them? A day to do with Mabo perhaps? Maybe the day the high court declared terra nullius null and void.

 

Can't change it. My brother was born on Australia Day, how will I remember his birthday now?

 

It's about time we added a public holiday!!

 

I would like the date changed. I like the Monday in summer idea, however I'd ideally like to make it away from beginning of school though.
How about the start of Lunar New Year?
We are in Asia after all...

 

Not on face-book , but only my opinion but why not add the extra day at Easter time would give extra time for people to relax and spend more time with family..

Just a pity Bill-Leak's not still alive a few simple upfront equal-opportunity cartoons and his harsh judgments would have had it sorted ..imho..

the bleak picture bill leak cartoons - Bing images

 

everyday?

 

I think this is a great point. Right now Australia Day means something via a historically significant date, even if not everyone agrees with it. Having it as a floating day renders it fairly meaningless.

Honestly though I don't see that it should be changed. One way or another, the continent of Australia was going to be colonised. The British Empire was a lot better than some of the alternatives at the time. I acknowledge that there were some very bad aspects to this, but colonisation was inevitable and there have bee positive outcomes for indigenous Australians. The simple fact that we're willing to debate this topic is evidence of this.

 

Why can't we just leave it alone?

Saying 'sorry', or changing the date of public holidays does nothing really. Were WE the ones who did wrong to the aboriginals? Can us saying anything change the past? The answer is NO. What we CAN do is remember that these things happened & change the future so that it doesn't happen again.

To me changing the date is like covering up the past. Acknowledge that bad things happened and keep the date, educate, and learn to accept each other & treat each other as equals. Stop the racism in reverse, to try and make up for something that we (those alive today), had absolutely nothing to do with.

 

Agree don't change it. Also when you think about it the Aboriginals weren't the only ones to suffer, the first convicts/settlers suffered too, imagine living in sunny old England and committing some petty crime like stealing a loaf of bread and then being sent to the other side of the world with strange animals, insects and weather you're not used to or accustomed to......... Just saying.....

 

It is true that Jan 26 for Australia Day is relatively recent. That makes me wonder how it has all these negative feelings for some people. If the date was changed relatively recently, will changing the date again really change anything? What happens if the new date becomes associated with those negative feelings? Change it again?