Conservative politicians are dominating Facebook advertising about changing the date of Australia Day, analysis shows.
After Woolworths announced last week that it would no longer stock Australia Day merchandise due to declining demand, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, condemned the move as an “outrage” born from the retailer’s “woke agenda” and said most Australians likely thought the same.
Now several conservative politicians are paying for advertisements on social media platforms lobbying against changing the date.
Every year without fail, there’s all this noise about Jan 26th in the two weeks leading up to the date, then the conversation fizzles out again until next year. And then we do it again next year.
What even is the debate? Polls have repeatedly shown that while we absolutely want a day to celebrate the country, we aren’t particularly attached to January 26th. There is no real significance to Australia for the date, it’s the day the English arrived in Sydney. At best, it could be called “Sydney Day”.
We can’t have it on Foundation day, that’s already a public holiday (yes, the holiday matters to us). Personally, I’d vote for a date in Winter. There’s presently a big gap between June and September where we would welcome a public holiday. First Friday in August would work nicely. I like the idea of it always being a Friday because some people already have Mondays off and they miss most of the long long weekend bonuses.
I was thinking 9th of May to commemorate the first sitting of the Australian Parliament
Agreed. I don’t see how or why “we” are attached to the date. Australia Day was made an official public holiday in 1994, not that long ago in retrospect. So why not change it? (I know the various states and territories were celebrating the day before 1994, but still).
I’d be in favour of having Australia Day always on a Monday or Friday, guarantees a long weekend, and is there anything more Australian than celebrating on a long weekend?
I’m very happy for them to change the date, as long as they don’t remove it altogether.
Public holidays give me something to look forward to when I’m feeling burnt out with work.
It should probably be kept in summer because Aussies love a BBQ, but personally I wouldn’t mind winter as I love the cold.
