@Rusty (sorry I can’t quote from phone)

Waitangi Day has only been celebrated as New Zealand’s national day since the late 1940s. It has been proclaimed as the New Zealand national day since 1974.

Prior to this, most white New Zealanders celebrated the National Day on January 29th, the date at which the British landed with a mandate to take the land. The New Zealand government did make a conscious effort over many decades to erase the previous national celebration day and replace it with Waitangi Day.

I am aware of the controversy around the Waitangi treaty,
notably that sovereignty was ceded to the Crown and that not all the Indigenous New Zealand chiefs signed it. Nevertheless the 1840 treaty did give full legal rights to the Maori (something Aboriginal Australians would not achieve until 1967), and there are other compensatory clauses that have been shown to have legal force over decades.

Of course this did not mean the Maori did not face discrimination.

The principle here, though, is important. The New Zealand National day celebrates the ceding of sovereignty by negotiation and the creation of a state where Maori were given full citizenship rights.

Our National day celebrates the forceful, unlawful removal of sovereignty from Aboriginal people by military force, disease and (in a few places) conduct that we today would call genocide.

The New Zealand National day has been changed from a moment of forceful conquest to a treaty. Ours still commemorates conquest.


By the way you mentioned that Canada’s National day celebrates the unification of the British states. That’s correct. If we were to follow the same precedent, our National day would be on January 1st.

Weightist

Yeah  that is a head scratcher. 

I happen to think Briggs is a giant fat flog.  Does that make me a racist?

^ Dafuq?

Are you generalising you sick fuck racist?

Yay.

Not sold on recognition in the constitution though, dont see the point of it. Open to different arguments though.

How bout Treaty and some recognition in the Constitution?

I'm sure a Referendum would probably be defeated (hard to say without any decent polling lately), but shit anything is worth a shot.

-PB

What are you talking about? The government tried intervention decades ago, by taking young aboriginal children out of abusive environments similar to children of any other race. And look what happened, its now referred to as the 'stolen generation' and every non-aboriginal person born before/during/after said events is endlessly held accountable. Its a no win situtation for the government. Best cause of action is to do nothing and hope natural selection sorts it out.

Hopefully doesnt change. The 26th marks the start of colonisation, which was the beginning for the country known as Australia. Nothing could be more appropriate. The left is social cancer, always finding reasons to dump guilt on white Australians. 

Wouldnt the winds of change for increased Aboriginal employment, reduced poverty, increased participation, optimism etc take precedence over a date on the Gregorian calendar? Its hard to fathom why something so trivial, so tokenistic ranks the top of peoples agenda for media, social and politcal focus.

Its no like changing the date is gonna do anything for aboriginal outcomes, if anything it will just bring into sharper our flag, which is a daily reminder of Aboriginal disposition and genocide, then our anthem, which consists all kinds of racist and misgonystic innuendo. Look at the current debate, never has Australia been more multicultural, equal tolerant, yet never have the shrills of racism and inequality been so loud. There is no end game, people just love to bitch, moan and complain over the most futile, pointless shit , meanwhile women continue to get bashed and raped, kids molested and neglected and no one gives a fuck.

For me, it's a bit of a dull topic tbh. It's been done here the last half dozen years and there's enough mainstream discussion happening on it now.
The winds of change are coming, you can see even in this thread some previously fierce opponents moderating their point of view.

:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

Aha in the old days you would have gotten a few more nibbles here

Yesterday it was SSM
Today it's Australia day
Tomorrow its gonna be the offensive flag
Then the anthem
Then the name - named by a Brit

Slowly and slowly chipping away at Australia's history, traditions and identity.  The left are jizzing themselves at the moment because the SSM vote got up they think Australians are ready to trash their own history to appease a few disgruntled Aboriginals and marxists.

What I would find very encouraging is increasing indigenous employment, reducing domestic violence, sexual assault and poverty, but lets put that on the back burner for now and focus on the cure to all ills, changing the national holiday.

Keep the public holiday - calling NSW foundation Day or some shit. Find a new date for Australia Day and make that a PH too. Problem solved and we get another day off.

Need an August Public Holiday.  Too big a gap between the June and October ones

Darryl Summers Birthday is the 6th

May 8 or detonate

Voices for change are growing louder every year. Very encouraging and I expect it to happen in the not too distant future.

I don't think a date change really hurts anyone, so I don't see why not.

Best suggestion I've seen is to have it on December 1st to kick off summer. Wouldn't mind that at all. 

Ken oats mate. The one day a year us aussies can get on the piss hey!

Like most left wing argumentation important details and facts are missing, or deliberately twisted.  Firstly Waitangi Day is highly controversial as it was the day NZ sovereignty was handed to the British empire.  Can you imagine what the indigenous would think if our national day was commemorative of the day the British formally took control  of their land?  They would want the date changed.  Its a similar story in Canada and other countries, Canada day commemorates the unification of three separate of colonies into a single dominion ruled by the British.  The way you presented the argument was the modern progressive governments changed the date of the national day to appease indigenous citizens due to sensitivities of having their land invaded, which is BS.

Land theft? I think this kind of emotionally charged language is why this debate is blowing up. It was 1788, it's colonialism and the actions of the British were viewed completely differently. I think using the standards of today's society to judge the actions of 200 years ago is counter productive to progress. 

There is a difference between empathy (which we should feel for the unnecessary suffering of the aboriginal people) and guilt (which a minority seem to think is justified because our skin is the same colour as our colonial ancestors). 

I think a lot of indigenous Australians are uncomfortable with the date.

I think it just doesn't make sense to have a controversial date. Does it need to be a set date?

The British arrived at Botany Bay a few days before moving to Port Jackson on the 26th. The colony was formally proclaimed on February 7. Dates all over the place. 

The date itself shouldn't be changed. Every prime minister of late has said no to this suggestion and it works fine as it is. The SJW have hijacked this and enough aborigines have spoken about moving forward and using the day to promote the best of modern Australia.

The above posts and suggestions are also good ones. January 1st won't really work while March 3 for the Australia Act isn't particularly exciting.

I feel many Australians connect with the start or initial phase of something. They see this time as the beginning and exciting prospect of Australia all those years ago.

Any change would not change the way the left carry on. Anything celebrating Australia has been used to reopen past wounds that most of us really have moved on from. 

Fun fact: We are the last country in the entire commonwealth to still celebrate its national day on the date of British colonisation. Every other country has changed it - including New Zealand. Why?

Because all those other countries realised that none of the things that make their countries great today can be traced back to that date - or that other, better days supplanted it.

January 26 wasn’t the founding of our democracy, or the creation of our civil rights. It was not even the foundation of our national government, which didn’t appear until January 1, 1901. Most of the people who landed that day were working class prisoners who had only slightly better legal and political rights than the local Aboriginal people who died of Smallpox and violence.

The date is simply the anniversary of the original act of land theft and dispossession by the British.

I’ve never wanted to fly our flag, which contains the British flag still on it, on that day.

In New Zealand, they also, like us, held their national day on the anniversary of British colonisation, until they realised that was insensitive and changed it to Waitangi Day all the way back in the 1930s.

Instead of taking the same noble path, we doubled down on the stupidity. Most Australian states didn’t even celebrate Australia Day until the 1980s. It was only celebrated in NSW. They got dragged along when Bob Hawke and later John Howard wanted to make a big deal of the bicentenary and national identity.

When we become a republic it should be changed to the date of the proclamation of or full independence from the monarchy.

Does Briggs count?

aboriginals aren't actually complaining though, its a minority whipped up by Marxists 

Can't even get pissed and enjoy yourself without virtuous hysterics complaining about it. Anyone non-aboriginal who thinks they should change the date should be avoided along with their high horse - if their chins were higher their neck would break. The aboriginal community should nominate a date, but they won't because there isn't one they can choose. The aboriginal nation has never existed - they were a various number of tribes speaking different languages who warred with each other when Europeans arrived: but forget about that shit, western civilization = bad 

It's been a public holiday since 1988.

If we pride ourselves as being a diverse, multicultural nation, then we have to accept that this began with the settlement of the first fleet. Before 1788, Australia was a collection of Aboriginal tribes without a common language and that was it. The settlement of the British (ultimately) paved the way for the Irish, the Chinese, the Greeks, the Germans, the Italians, the Vietnamese etc. to follow.

I'd be open to discussion about changing the date, but it has to be a date that actually makes sense to our history- like January 2nd (for Federation, as NYD is already a holiday). Suggestions we should change it to May 8 are cringe as fuck and reek of "ANYTHING but January 26th" desperation...