this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2025
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Party of "small government" wants to tell councils what they have to do on Australia Day.
On a related note, I wish they'd just hurry up and move Australia Day already. There are other suitable options than 26th January:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-25/australia-day:-change-the-date-options/9359260 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Day_debate#Suggested_alternatives
Personally 27th May seems like a good option to reframe the focus of the day, with 17 Sept being a similar alternative. For more formal dates, I'd go for 9 May or 30 July.
Going through the dates in that ABC article:
Stupid. Already a public holiday.
Too similar to the current date, and seems to be based entirely on "it's totally not the current date" rather than having any actual meaning.
Only really has significance to the ACT.
Of which it says
I'm not sure what this means. I thought that was 1 January? Otherwise, it's not a terrible pick. I wouldn't advocate it in a discussion of what day to pick, but if it came to a plebiscite between the current day and this date, this is the first one I would enthusiastically support.
I would support this being a public holiday, but it's one I would only reluctantly support for Australia Day. Better than current date, but not a good one. And I couldn't imagine it succeeding in a plebiscite. Too tied to Aboriginal people specifically.
My preferred options:
3 March as the day of commencement of the Australia Act (1986), which saw the last vestiges of Australia's status as a British dominion ended.
3 September as the day Australia adopted the Statute of Westminster with the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942, which removed the United Kingdom's ability to legislate over the Commonwealth of Australia and making Australia truly a legally independent nation in a de jure sense.
9 July as the date the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 became law, enabling the constitution to actually take effect on 1 January 1901.
The latter two also have the advantage of being outside that late December–early May period that sees most of our current public holidays.
Ultimately though, I'd support any date change that isn't already a national public holiday or "May 8".
Does the day need to be affixed to a particular date?
Can we not just make it the first Friday in February or something?
Not worried about any significance as long as we get a Sumner long weekend!
Personally, I would say yes. It's "Australia Day", not "have a day off in summer day". There are enough public holidays between late December and early May anyway. I wouldn't mind if it moved to the back half of the year. Though I wouldn't mind too much if it did stay in summer, as long as the new date marks something significant.