Australia’s national day, which falls today, has two purposes. It is an opportunity for Australians to celebrate who they are and how fortunate we are to live in a stable democracy, thousands of miles from terror, strife and conflict. But it also marks the end of Australia’s languid summer when it’s time to get back to work and for children to start a new school year. It’s a timely excuse to have a long weekend, blessed by late summer sunshine.
Unfortunately, however, Australia Day has become an ideological plaything of Australia’s professional grievance industry. Left and Aboriginal activists rebadge it as Invasion Day, protesting the arrival of Britain’s First Fleet on 26 January 1788 as the beginning of more than 200 years of colonisation and dispossession for Aboriginal Australians.
In opposing the national day, activists have even started their own Australia Day traditions.
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