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The Australia Day Debate: 7 Questions for Those Who Want to Change the Date

A full 76 per cent of Australians want to continue celebrating Australia Day on 26 January, according to the latest poll by the Institute of Public Affairs.

Notably, that’s a rise of seven percentage points from last year.

Also notably, the poll pegged young Aussies as the most patriotic, with a whopping 83 per cent of 18-24-year-olds supporting Australia Day in its current form.

Each year, we’re told the date of Australia Day must change; that the arrival of the First Fleet marked the ‘invasion’ of Australia; that we can’t have national unity until historic wrongs are made right.

Before I accept these propositions as true, I need a few questions answered. Here they are:

1. Why change a date most Australians support?

An overwhelming — and growing — majority of Australians support our national holiday. If Australia is a democracy, and democracy is a good thing, and the opposite of a democracy is a dictatorship, isn’t it undemocratic — dictatorial even — to override the will of Australians on this matter?

2. How long before ‘stolen’ land becomes home?

The basis of the change-the-date argument is that Australia was built on stolen land. If that’s true, will changing the date of Australia Day mean we can move on, put the (alleged) theft behind us, and consider Australia our shared home? If not, why not?

If not, when does our national redemption come?

3. Why are we being cast as avatars of our ancestors?

Those who say we must change the date of Australia Day because of invasion and theft are not merely making assertions about history — they’re staking claims in the present.

Specifically, they’re dividing Australians into indigenous and non-indigenous, and assigning perpetual victimhood to the former and perpetual guilt to the latter. In short, we’ve all been cast as avatars of our ancestors.

But how is this fair?

How can a preschool-aged white kid be held responsible for events that happened hundreds of years ago and about which they have no comprehension?

In what way is an accomplished, city-dwelling indigenous Aussie more disadvantaged than a poor white labourer struggling to survive in the regions?

If only a fraction of someone’s ancestry is indigenous, why should that fraction determine their moral superiority when the majority of their white lineage bears (alleged) guilt for historical wrongs?

How many generations must transpire before settler bloodguilt fades?

These are only some of the conundrums we create when we divide our societies by indigeneity. But there are more.

4. How long until people become indigenous to their own country?

My father’s parents migrated to Australia from Germany. My mother’s side, who were also of German descent, have been in Australia much longer. Australia is the only homeland I’ve ever known, yet I am not considered indigenous to Australia. If I’m not indigenous to Australia, where am I indigenous to? Germany? This seems doubtful.

More practically, how much longer until my descendants can be considered indigenous to Australia?

I’m not trying to be cute with this line of questioning.

The Pemarangk people, who once lived on the land I now call home, didn’t always live here either. Based on what we know of inter-tribal warfare before European contact, they likely took this land from a prior group by conquest, who probably did the same. Indeed, Australia’s entire Aboriginal population ultimately traces its ancestry back beyond this continent via ancient migration routes through Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

In other words, the Pemarangk became indigenous to this land but didn’t always enjoy that status. If they can gain it, why can’t I?

5. Why do migrants belong before native-born Australians do?

Modern immigration adds another layer to this confusion. We readily confer full Australian identity on people who arrived only recently, even as we question the belonging of Australians whose families have lived here since the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries.

To paraphrase a meme that recently made the rounds on social media, “Why is a North African who migrated here ‘Australian’ while I’m living on stolen land 240 years later?”

The inconsistency on these issues makes the change-the-date campaign feel less like a call for unity and more like a grudge against Aussies with European ancestry.

6. Is the problem the date or the fact that Australia exists?

It was only recently that I realised how many dates each year have already been set aside to mourn injustices committed against Aboriginal Australians, including:

13 February | Anniversary of the National Apology
21 March | National Close the Gap Day
21 March | Harmony Day
26 May | National Sorry Day
27 May | Anniversary of the 1967 Referendum
27 May — 3 June | Reconciliation Week
3 June | Mabo Day
1 July | Coming of the Light
7–14 July | NAIDOC Week
4 August | National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day
9 August | International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples
7 September | Indigenous Literacy Day
13 September | Anniversary of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People

Given all that has been done to atone for Australia’s past, is it really believable that making one more tweak to the national calendar will succeed where all prior efforts have failed?

More pointedly, are those calling for a change of date looking for a solution — or a problem?

Indeed, given the movement’s decolonisation rhetoric, we’re right to ask if the end goal is to abolish Australia Day or abolish Australia in its current form.

7. Why is this debate creating a more divided nation?

More positively, people calling for a change of date usually frame it as a step towards national unity and reconciliation. However, after watching this debate for many years, I’ve seen little evidence of that.

“Maybe changing the date will resolve the disunity,” I hear my detractors say. But given how unpopular the idea remains with the Australian public, that seems singularly implausible.

The fact is, the change-the-date campaign has made Australia more divided than ever. It’s achieving precisely the opposite of what it claims.

It’s time we applied Stafford Beer’s principle: the purpose of a system is what it does (POSIWID). Outcomes speak louder than promises. After years of driving division rather than unity, it’s clear the Australia Day debate has run its course. It’s time we moved on.

Despite our faults, past and present, Australia is a nation for which we can feel incredible love and pride.

So happy Australia Day — and enjoy celebrating our great country!

I remember this old post during the Voice campaign.
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