Republished with Permission
Peter Williams
It’s January the 26th, just another summer Sunday in Central Otago.
But across the Tasman it’s their national holiday, Australia Day, commemorating the date in 1788 when Captain Arthur Phillip, commander of what became known as the First Fleet, raised the Union Jack at Sydney Cove.
Like many New Zealanders I’ve been in Australia on a few January 26ths, mostly in my former life as a cricket correspondent reporting on various New Zealand teams’ exploits there.
What always struck me about January 26th was the sheer amount of fun the Aussies had on their national day.
They went to the cricket. They went to the beach. They went to the park. They had a barbecue. They put on big concerts where the likes of John Farnham or the Little River Band or Olivia Newton-John were the star attractions. The Aussies, in those days at least, really celebrated their existence in the Lucky Country.
In those far off halcyon days of the 1980s the role of Australia’s First Peoples was never or seldom mentioned in the discourse. The contrast between there and here in the same era – the Treaty of Waitangi Act was amended in 1985 to allow claims dating back to 1840 – was significant.
Whereas news reports of Australia Day activities back then were about the happy public gatherings at sports events or concerts, the coverage in New Zealand of our national day 11 days later was all about protests and how Treaty conditions had been constantly breached.
Those protesting in this country were absolutely right of course. The Treaty Settlement process was soon to get underway although no actual deals would be done for more than a decade. It took that long for us Pākehā to be properly educated about what had gone on at places like Ōrākau and Parihaka.
But since those far off days 40 years ago, Australians have had a great awakening and the rights and history of the First Peoples are far more prominent now than they were then.
But has that awakening been overtaken and consumed by dollops of unnecessary guilt?
A quarter of the way through the 21st century a sizeable faction of the population want to drop the name Australia Day to replace it with something fatuous like Invasion Day or Survival Day, and at the same time change the date.
It will never happen.
A News Corp poll this week showed 87 per cent of Australians want January 26th retained as the national day and any government that changes the date would lose the support of three quarters of the voters.
The reality is that despite the hard core 10 per cent or so who will protest loudly for aboriginal rights, Australia has become the wealthy, modern democratic nation it is today because of the impact of the occupants of the First Fleet, their descendants and the millions of others who arrived in the country in the last 250 years.
Yes, the majority need to give sectors of the indigenous population more of a helping hand to play a constructive role in modern Australian society, but then that helping hand requires some serious reciprocity. Those receiving assistance need to help themselves to a better life as well.
Australia, like New Zealand, has a portion of its population who just don’t like themselves, who somehow feel guilty for being happy and affluent and enjoying the benefits of a modern democratic society that has plenty of space for everyone, let alone some of the best weather on the planet.
Today the news reports of Australia Day will be dominated by the protests and the marches, and not of the millions just having a great time with a barbie and a beer. A balanced media should be telling you about both.
The brilliance of the day across the Tasman is in its name. It is a day for all Aussies to celebrate what they have and what they could and will have if they look ahead with optimism and not backwards with regret.
In this country Robert Muldoon was responsible for some dreadful things as Prime Minister in those nine turbulent years between 1975 and 1984 – abolishing the previous Labour Government’s Superannuation scheme the worst of all.
But not far behind was his ruling that Norman Kirk’s 1974 installation of February 6th as New Zealand Day should be rescinded and the name Waitangi Day reinstated.
Half a century on, if we marked New Zealand Day instead of Waitangi Day I wonder if we’d have as much fun as the Aussies do on our national day? We could celebrate what this country has been and what it could be if we insist that all New Zealanders are equal before the law, where there can only be one democratic form of government and where there are enough human and physical resources for us all to live modern and comfortable lives without reviving tensions of the past.
That’s a New Zealand Day I’d really like.
And on this January 26th, if you do hail from over there, have a snag and a beer for me.
This article was originally published on the author’s Substack.