AUSTRALIA Day should be a day of national celebration and reflection, as we remind ourselves how exceedingly lucky we are to live in the land so aptly named by Matthew Flinders.
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Tony Abbott put it well when he once remarked that he had "won the lottery of life" by being born in Australia.
Little wonder so many whose birthplaces were not so propitious have been beating a path to our shores through the years, by both fair means and foul.
Unfortunately, though, Australia Day has degenerated into an annual apology-fest, heavy on political correctness and on making sure our commemorative activities and speeches are not likely to offend minority groups.
It's all become too prickly.
For that reason, I am warming to the notion that we should find a new date and justification for a national day of celebration, and the commemoration of our federation as a nation in 1901 seems as good as any.
It's easy for us to forget, in this 21st century, what an epic achievement that federation of the six founding States was, and how hard fought, by giants of visionary statesmen.
No greater giant led the way to federation than the leonine five-time Premier of NSW, Sir Henry Parkes, whose famous Tenterfield speech in 1889 cut through the petty jealousies of the State colonies and inspired our forebears to take the road to unity.
"Surely what the Americans have done by war," he said, invoking the memory of the American colonies' bloody march to nationhood, "the Australians could bring about by peace".
If we were to shift Australia Day from a commemoration of the 1788 British arrival in Sydney Cove to a commemoration of Australia's Federation, the obvious date for it would be January 1, when the Commonwealth of Australia was formally proclaimed.
But as others have pointed out, a national celebration on New Year's Day - hard on the heels of Christmas and New Year's Eve - would be overdoing the party somewhat.
A better option all round could be to adopt July 9 - the day in 1901 when the Constitution was given royal assent - as the date for annual observance.
And if that course were adopted, I think the name should be changed from the rather meaningless and self-indulgent "Australia Day" to "Federation Day", which (like Independence Day in the US) at least reminds us of what we're celebrating.
It's the fact that we have the unique good fortune, and inheritance, to occupy our own island continent as a (more or less) cohesive, mutually co-operative, democratic nation.
That's not to say we can afford to be complacent. There is much about present-day Australia in need of fixing, although it might take another statesman of the Henry Parkes mould to stir us to action.
Inequities abound, our tax dollars are not well apportioned between tiers of government, rorting of our over-generous welfare system is rife, vital industry sectors are being lost due to union greed, and lawlessness sullies our towns and cities.
But for all that, not to mention the droughts, fires and floods that are all part of our heritage, we wouldn't want to live anywhere else, would we?
Not for ever, anyway.
Peter Austin
Former editor and long time columnist and property writer for The Land.
Former editor and long time columnist and property writer for The Land.
