AUSTRALIA Day has to have a council to promote it. That makes it unusual among national holidays. The trouble with this national holiday is that the event it celebrates has very little to do with the nation. The Australia Day Council's efforts at promotion are now closer to success, an outcome achieved by forgetting the event and promoting celebration.
The event in question is the landing of Governor Phillip at Sydney Cove on January 26, 1788, and the raising of the flag. The space for the flagpole had been cleared by convicts who comprised the majority of the first European settlers. For most of our history, the presence of the convicts made this a very difficult event to celebrate. At the 150th anniversary of this event in 1938 the organisers of the celebrations ruled that the convicts were not to be mentioned.
It was easy for three of the other states to avoid the convict taint of January 26, Victoria South Australia and Western Australia had their own foundation days that did not involve convicts. They were not keen to celebrate the foundation of convict Sydney.
The first people to celebrate January 26 were the convicts who had become free and prospered in New South Wales. They organised dinners and a regatta on the harbour, which continues today in the form of the great ferry race. The day was known as Anniversary Day or Foundation Day, an occasion for holiday enjoyment rather than pondering the significance of European settlement on this continent. After convict times, the day continued to be honoured in NSW, but only there.
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