By Jo Nova
On Monday for Australia Day, don’t forget to March For Australia.
12:00 noon – 2pm January 26th.
The globalist unaccountable Blob wants us to forget what makes The West great. They want to erase our heritage, our customs, our history, and even the names of places in the land we grew up in.
The gradual character assassination of every early hero is not an accident. Their stories of success can be turned into woke-fairy tales to scare little children.
When we become a lost people, apologizing for every tiny imperfection, we are easy to rule. But when we stand on the shoulders of the world’s greatest civilization we expect to be treated as equals. For we are the children of people who built a nation. And it’s a nation worth defending.
March For Australia locations Monday
Melbourne: Flinders St Station
Sydney: Prince Alfred Park, Cleveland St
Gold Coast: Macintosh Island Park, Surfers Paradise
Adelaide: Wigley Reserve, Corner of Anzac Highway and Adelphi Terrace
Perth: Wellington Square, Hill Street Entrance
Canberra: Parliament House Lawns.
Hobart: St David’s Park Davey St.
Australia Day is a test. If we don’t celebrate it, they will take it away.
Plus, we meet great people.
Yay – and I’m still voting for One Nation
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Anyone who doesn’t does not love Australia.
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I’m with you JT.
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Wonderfully said, Jo!! We are coming down from the country to attend a friend’s Oz day celebration, but our heart and thoughts will be with all the proud Ozzie’s at Prince Albert Park & all around Oz.
Thank you for your stirring thoughts for our nation. We will continue to fight for our history and all who have gone before us to form this nation. I think about them almost every time we drive the precipitous route into our valley and how difficult it would have been to negotiate it by dray. I hope we can honour them by showing the same sort of courage in defending our values in these turbulent times.
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I wonder if the Gestapo will be out looking to arrest people for saying things other people don’t like under the new “hate speech” laws (fully supported by the fake conservative Libs who said they’d oppose them)?
E.g. is it hate speech to oppose terrorist ideologies, or other crimes? Is it hate speech to wave an Australian flag, but not a terrorist flag? Is it hate speech to display a picture of Albanese in a bikini, despite his regime not even believing in binary genders? Is it hate speech to disagree with anthropogenic global warming? Is it hate speech to think that the covid “vaccines” were ineffective and harmful in many cases?
Is it hate speech for a Leftist to say they hate white people, heterosexuals, Jews, Christians and people who believe in free speech and capitalism? (Probably not!)
And these laws will do nothing to stop another Bondi massacre. In fact they will increase the likelihood of another because it is not permitted to criticise the terrorist and hate ideology that caused it in the first place because such ideologues are the preferred demographic of the Labor Party and Labor voters for life.
The thing is, the new censorship laws are so open-ended, no one yet knows their full implications until a Leftist activist “judge” and prosecutor decides to test them and make an example of someone for thought crimes and put them in jail for five years.
Meanwhile, people’s speech is already suppressed because no one wants to go to jail for a thought they had thinking it was perfectly OK and later deemed a though crime.
Now Australia is effectively a One Party State, there is no limit to where this madness will stop. But it won’t end well. Dictatorships never do.
Finally, the most important question of all, is it “hate speech” to hate the totalitarian “hate speech” and censorship laws?
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The Hate Speech Laws from what I can see are not Objective. They are Subjective and this means that these so called ‘Laws’ can be interpreted any way that the Judges see fit.
Political interference Big Time comes to mind.
This not how a Legal System should operate. Laws should be Objective and specific.
March for Australia on Monday.
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Selective enforcement is actually fairly normal in Australia.
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“You Can Vote Yourself Into Socialism But You Have to Shoot Your Way Out”. I hope we haven’t reached that point in Australia yet. The next federal election will tell us.
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“Criminal Law”?
As it was explained to me, quite a few years ago:
Conceived by Criminals
Drafted by Criminals
Enacted by Criminals
Enforced by Criminals
“Administered” by Criminals
ALL exclusively for the benefit of aforementioned CRIMINALS?
Remember also that “Criminal Negligence” is a REAL thing.
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See this “caveat”:
“The most terrifying force is not wild or reckless. It is the quiet fury of a man who wanted only to be left alone. He is not a warrior by nature, not a disruptor by design. He is a man who works, who dreams, who loves, who builds a life in quiet corners. A man who asks for nothing but the space to exist, to provide for those he holds dear, and to live on his own terms.
He endures. He endures because endurance feels like strength, because patience feels like wisdom, and because peace seems like the greatest gift he can give the world. He endures because he knows that fighting back, truly fighting back will destroy the life he once believed in. It will tear away the version of himself that held hope in his heart and faith in the quiet power of waiting.
But there is always a breaking point. And when it comes, when the weight becomes unbearable, when the pushing and prodding and taking leave him with no room to breathe, the man who wanted to be left alone changes. He crosses a threshold, and he does not come back the same.”
(Anon) but much quoted
Caveat 2:
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
– Samuel Adams.
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Guaranteed the paid anonymous ” neo nazis” will be there and the media will concentrate on those few and associate them with the millions of peaceful aussies who love this country and hate where its heading
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People have already been arrested for flying the Australian flag at an Invasion Day protest in Sydney. The Palestinian flag was also displayed at that protest. No one was arrested for that flag.
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Where was the outrage about the two historic statues, one destroyed and one vandalised in Melbourne by Lefist criminals on Jan 22?
And I doubt whether they’ll be repaired or replaced, because the Labor Government itself believes in erasing our history.
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When the Left finally get their statue of their beloved Dan Andrews, I bet that won’t be allowed to be vandalised and will probably be under 24/7 police guard.
They might even make a special crime to harm the statue of Andrews with severe penalties.
Just like statues of any other dictator, Stalin, Kim Il-sung, Saddam Hussein etc..
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And, along similar lines, I have always imagined our “lanky” ex prime minister will have a fence around his grave to prevent dancing. Even though the left disapprove of all manifestations of boundaries for others, including front doors, they approve for themselves.
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I notice that the Adelaide location is down at Glenelg near the sea. With a prediction of 42 degrees on Monday that might help the attendance.
Personally I will be about 60km away, inside and hoping the air-conditioning keeps going. (SA has had 10 years of wishful thinking about electricity supply).
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SA can at least, for the moment, rely on the diminishing amount of coal power from the eastern states, something that Green Labor voters are apparently ignorant of.
If they really were a “renewables paradise” why don’t they disconnect the interconnectors to the eastern states, two in number now, and a third under construction. And wouldn’t they need fewer interconnectors, not more?
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Few people seem to realise that the percentage of installed capacity when intermittent wind and sunshine dependent equipment is not deliverable constantly.
AEMO rating capacity factor for wind turbines is 30-35% of installed capacity on average over time, for every 100 MW of many combined wind turbines at one location therefore at best can only deliver up to 35 MW intermittently.
When people claim wind and solar installations have reached a percentage of total demand they are usually using the advertised installed capacity.
SA is a prime example of many voters being given a false impression.
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NONE of the crap and corruption is INTENDED to end “well”
The catch is this:
WHO is lining up to “rescue” us? One candidate springs to mind. Being turned into another country’s “lifeboat” in a “Unilateral gentlemens agreement” does NOT constitute “rescue”.
More creative “management by crisis”.
Old (Russian??) wisdom:
A baby bird falls out of its nest and it is very cold.
Along comes a bear, who, instead of eating the bird for a snack, gently places it in a steaming fresh pile of moose droppings.
The chick starts to warm up and feel better. Soon it begins to chirp with joy.
A passing wolf hears the noise and gobbles down the chick.
Moral??
The one who drops you in the 5h1t is not necessarily your enemy.
The one who gets you out of the 5Uit is not necessarily your friend.
If you find ourself in the 5H1t; don’t make a big noise about it.
YMMV.
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The few people I know who hate Australia Day have never read any Australian history. A remarkably successful colony. No genocide, all equal under the laws, and, at least up till now, freedom. And that’s from 1788 to present!
My daughter in law will receive a copy of Tony Abbots History of Australia on Monday. See if that makes her reflect on her ignorance but I am not expecting much change.
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My interest in Abbott’s book was more or less confined to the years of the Great War. Abbott appears to have swallowed the notion that a nation’s values are just “sustaining myths”. This is more or less direct from those (particularly historians of the past five decades and more) who have condemned Australian involvement in that war. Australian values were located deeply and although people wondered at times about the merits of it all they did not lose hope in victory. People could sing in those years: they sang the great Christian hymns and the national anthem regularly in public, all known by heart. No longer. Perhaps it is little wonder that people now turn away from the Coalition, which clearly has not the ability to sing, but then who does?
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Read Geoffrey Blainey for Australian history and, above all, not Manning Clark.
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‘No genocide …’
Tasmania comes to mind.
Australia was set up as a prison colony and a good doctor on the first fleet brought along some smallpox in a vile.
The idea worked in the Americas, but only to be used as a last resort. Needless to say that time came around and they wiped out large numbers of Port Jackson natives.
A disaster for the local population.
I
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Who told you that? Do you not know that, prior to the modern era of molecular biology, you could only catch smallpox from another human being who was sufffering it, not from samples?
And have you not read The Fabrication of Aboriginal History by Keith Windschuttle? There was no genocide. The Aborigines died from diseases imported non-deliberately with the white man, and from a large number of local fights over Aboriginal women in a land where white men hugely outnumbered white women early on. These led occasionally to larger raids, but only occasionally. More generally, a farming culture and a hunter-gatherer culture wil never understand each other’s attitude to land use and ownership even with the best will in the world.
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Best to read both sides of the argument before venting your spleen.
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/ockhamsrazor/was-sydneys-smallpox-outbreak-an-act-of-biological-warfare/5395050
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Too right mate. The link you provide states that it presents what is essentially speculation, and nothing in the equally detailed Wikipedia article on “Smallpox in Australia” strengthens your case.
If whites deliberately succeeded in bring out viable smallpox samples – a huge IF in itself according to Wikipedia – then what was their purpose in doing so? Your assumption of genocide is nonsense, because smallpox was known to hammer whites. They’d be shooting themselves in the foot. I’d be keen to read what Watkin Tench actually wrote, but I’d guess that they brought out an attenuated strain to protect themselves in case the Aborigines – about whom nothing was known – infected the whites with virulent smallpox.
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‘ … then what was their purpose in doing so?’
Perceived self defence, the Governor was speared in Manly, which then became the starting point of the pandemic.
Also, no blame on the French who were camped at Botany Bay.
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It’s an odd weapon for self-defence that trashes your own side as well as the perceived enemy. Far more logical that they brought out with them an attenuated strain that would confer immunity (for such was known) in case the Aborigines happened to harbor smallpox. Remember that it was rampant in Asia and 18th century Brits knew nothing of the Aborigines.
Show us what Watkin Tench actually wrote. His words are the only written evidence that some version of smallpox might have been delberately brought to Australia.
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Watkin Tench was probably not the only one in the frame.
‘Smallpox was a common virus in Britain and most of the colonists would probably have had some exposure to it already.
‘The surgeon John White had brought something called ‘variolas matter’ with him in a sealed tube – this was basically pus from a person with smallpox that was then used to inoculate people to try and prevent them being killed by the disease.’ (State Library NSW)
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One of us has some Australian history to learn Gordo. Let’s focus on what you have written.
1. Before declaring that Australia was set up as a prison colony (singular) you should study the histories of Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth which were never prison colonies.
2. Australia came into being in 1901 not with the First Fleet.
Now it’s your turn. What is the source of your claim that smallpox was brought in a phial on the First Fleet?
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Perth was still taking prisoners from the old dart well into the miid 19th century.
The ABC article is a only a tester to illustrate the diversity of views.
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Perth. Yes it was. In fact there were two. I stand corrected.
Intentionally inflammatory propaganda is not a “tester” and you did not present it as such. Even their ABC’s article points out the factual weaknesses it contains.
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The other point, Adelaide was a German town without convicts and Melbourne was a free enterprise model without a slave class.
‘ … Intentionally inflammatory propaganda …’
That is debatable, aunty offered different points of view and its up to the rational mind to discern whether its a yarn or not.
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Adelaide was a German town you say?
Adelaide was settled in 1836 by British settlers led by Colonel William Light. The Germans arrived two years later with the arrival of immigrants from Prussia.
Going back to what prompted this discussion, it was not a penal colony and Australia was not settled as a penal colony let alone one equipped from the outset with bioweapons.
Their ABC only ever offers one side of a story and it is never amenable to reason. Nothing comes out of their ABC other than propaganda.
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On climate change the Australian Brainwashing Company is a disgrace, complicit in creating mass delusion,
No value in throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but I think the organisation has passed its used by date.
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So What El Gordo?
Perth was settled by farmers and immigrants. Read their story in the Sydney Gazette 1829. It was a tough first year or two and some felt great disappointment. The river was salty for 20 miles. There was no wood for fencing posts, and no clay for bricks. The land was poor, and any cows were unfenced and without grass and they wandered away. They later found the clay in the hills, and the best wood on the planet in the Darling Range. There were some richer patches of soil, but the grey-white sand in much of Perth is infertile and the local flora is tough for anything to eat. Some people felt Gov Stirling sold a story to attract immigrants from England.
Though after the one bad account the Gazette author was careful to say that the general feeling among the 800 settlers was not of dissatisfaction. Apparently “experienced farmers were pleased with the character of the country” and some passengers of the Lotus who were bound for Sydney abandoned their original intention… maize, peas, beans and potatoes were thriving well.
The next column discusses the philosophy of free trade at great length…
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Free trade over protection was a big issue, as it is today.
The main objection to having cheap convicts is that it suppressed the wages of free settlers.
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Jo, am I right in saying that the penal colonies in the Swan District came a few years after the area was settled?
So they were not involved in the founding colony?
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Yes. Albany founded in 1826, Perth in 1829. First 75 convicts arrived in 1850.
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“Smallpox in a vile”??
Jenner was the bloke who finally “cracked” the smallpox show, in 1796.
First fleet?
1788.
In the unlikely event ANYBODY, crews, screws and “cargo” had any sign of smallpox, they would NOT have been allowed to sail.
12 dodgy wooden ships trundled across the Atlantic to South America, where they took on food and water. Then, across to Capetown for more supplies. Still no smallpox. The idea ( pre-Suez Canal) was to catch the circulating “high-latitude” (almost Antarctic) winds that would speed them across the lower-end of the Indian Ocean, skate past the bulk of Terra Australis, including sailing SOUTH around Tasmania (the charts showed it as big peninsula). They rocked into Botany Bay and staggered ashore. STILL no smallpox.
That scourge showed up a bit later. Interestingly enough, it arrived from the “north”..
Best surmise is that this variant originated in the south-eastern “East Indies”, at that time a toss-up between the Portuguese and the Dutch as a “prize”.
The Macassans and their trading partners from nearby islands, appear to have lived with the horror for long enough that It was not an automatic death-sentence, but it left victims “disfigured”. The locals in what was later named Arnhem Land (because the Dutch had noticed it). There was wide-scale rotating “tribal travel”; covering food sources and offering, “cultural and genetic exchanges”. At some time, a bunch of pock-marked folk passed through the Botany Bay / Sydney area and the rest is subject to heated debate.
The “Arnhem Land” people, the Yolngu, were the first and almost the only long-term “native” users of METAL tools. plates, etc., traded from the “Trepang” fishermen from Macassar and further North. Who will be the first to “find” a 40 thousand year old blacksmith shop in the NT? The triumph of the Indigenous nomads needs NO bogus “enhancements”.
The chestnut about “smallpox-laden blankets” is s straight lift from stories of very unsavoury behaviour in parts of North America. What was the “pre-innoculation” lifespan of a distributor of blankets loaded with smallpox?
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See also Geoffrey Blainey’s books:
“The Triumph of the Nomads”; essential, serious reading on the REAL story of the incredible success in the survival of the Oz “First people” (even if there were at LEAST three waves, between whom there was not always “sweetness and light”).
The other book is: “The Tyranny of Distance”; basically about the “colonial experience” that has been utterly corrupted and denigrated by the terminally degenerate usual suspects.
NEVER forget the utterly evil campaign to “un-person” Blainey.
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My suggestion is Girt, the unauthorised history of Australia, by David Hunt.
Informative and witty.
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And John Hirst.
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I hope this Australia day goes ahead without the clueless violence from the usual left wing morons, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
I have a simple plan to think about how lucky we were to be born in Australia and I just hope we can change back to better times and again be thankful for our heritage.
Alas common sense is not that common today, but we can always hope that things might change, although I’m not holding my breath.
Just remember to put Labor, the Greens and Teals last on your ballot papers in 2028.
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You were lucky to be born here! We could not believe our luck when we arrived in 1966 as very young (and pregnant with our first child) immigrants and amongst the last of the “ten pound Poms”, although weere Scottish. It was a wonderful country, it may have lacked some of the sophistication of the Old Dart, but it made up for it with its easy going lifestyle, great sense of humour, a government that did not run your life and a chance to succeed. I had a job to come to at $60pw, which just about kept the wolf from the door, but by 1970 we were able to buy a block of land in the Northern Beaches and build a house, thanks to my wife’s impeccable budgetary skills. It was a wonderful time which young people from now on into to foreseeable future will never experience.
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Agreed. The opportunity for social mobility is one of the things in the very heart of the country. Everybody who wanted to work for a better life was most welcome.
Now it is still there but not so much.
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Peter,
Our first child was born in 1966, so we have both seen Australia over similar periods. My forebears trace back to arrival from Great Britain in 1856, my wife’s Scots father arrived here about 1920.
Young people in Australia today, no matter where or when they came from, simply have not experienced the golden years for Australia, when after World War Two, people realised without being told that a lot of hard work was needed to get the Nation back on its feet and competitive internationally. Hard work has its own rewards. We developed legendary agriculture and farming. Australia rode on the sheeps’ back, Tasmania was the Apple Isle and so on. We discovered more valuable minerals and exported some to create great national wealth. There was a widespread personal work ethic to put more back for society than you took out. We were the generation that Made Australia Great Again. We created the World’s lowest cost, most reliable electricity generation system.
Then the Powers That Be corrupted the whole achievement. We saw massive immigration, some of it from countries that had different work ethics and ideas about how to run a country. Our politicians became increasingly tainted with non-Australian policies which elbowed out our successful Aussie way, allowing a sad increase of bludgers, malcontents, lazy people with revolutionary ideas. The critical place of the University admitting people based on unusual skill was replaced by dumbed-down openings to all and sundry and a big drop in excellence and quality of research. The non-productive bureaucracy was allowed to grow to bloat size, paid by increasing taxes to spend more time devising new ways to expand itself.
The damage has been immense. We moved from being a Nation with formulae for being the best place in the world to live, to being one of the mongrel worst. Geoff S
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Sad, but very true, Geoff. My grandkids, all boys, now young men, are lucky that their Mum and Dad are well off (much better than their grandma and grandpa!). One, the middle one, 25 has spread his wings, has a job as a Grip with a film making support crew and is living, rent free, with two mates in a nice home in Bondi while the owners are OS. The other two, one older, one younger, are still living with Mum and Dad and show no signs of leaving! I feel sorry for my daughter who, at 58, has no chance of experiencing the freedom that we did, with our kids all having left home by the time I was in my mid 40’s. Different times, indeed.
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and the Libs.
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Just remember to put Liberal,Labor, the Greens and Teals last on your ballot papers in 2028
There FIFY
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They said you’d never make it (TV ad 1988)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqPkVLpcDSM
But you did!
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I am planning to attend the Melbourne March.
Not much interest from my friends and aquaintances.
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Sorry Jo, sad to say we are a nation no longer but a land of tribes and have been for some time now. There are many places in this country where I can’t go because ancestry. Is it hypocrisy to rant against modern Australia but still want/expect all the benefits it provides, rather than living the life of the forbears?
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Yes, under Australian Apartheid laws, there is now race-based access to many and an increasing number of areas where anyone not of the correct race cannot enter.
And large amounts of land is tied up under race-based titles where it remains out of reach and unproductive (unless tribute is paid) and unsellable by its titled owners.
And forget about trying to do any honest archaeology that doesn’t conform to the Official Narrative.
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Rusty, careful The Blob wants us to think we have no power.
We have had some wins already.
Australians are waking up and learning how to fight the Blob.
We are not yet in the gulag, and while we still can march, speak (carefully), phone, email and mock them, we have many tools to turn this around. Our biggest enemy is apathy.
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Now Australia is a virtual One Party State, will the commies be erecting a Kim Il-sung style statue of Comrade Chairman Dear Leader Albanese?
I asked Gulag AI, which is fully woke, not logged in, to create such an image but it responded:
The e Safety Kommissar would be most pleased that her Dear Leader, both of them, are protected from such ridicule.
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There used to be a park near Ballarat with statues of all the Prime Ministers.
I wonder whether it is still there.
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It most certainly is! In the Ballarat Botanical gardens. Every now and then one of the statues gets vandalised. There’s been discussion for better security etc.
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Good grief, who wants to look at that lot? How about statues of some creative Australian men and women?
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I await for the first legal stoush with Cartoonists and Commedians taking the mickey (P*ss) out of this Feral Laybore Guv’ment.
And any State Laybore Guv’ment as well. Sictoria readily comes to mind.
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Turmoil in Australian political parties is not new, going back to the 1950s for example the ALP fell apart and their left factions split with their right factions who formed the DLP or Democratic Labor Party.
Consider the falling apart internally during the Whitlam Labor short years in government.
Then Hawke Labor 1983 and internal leadership struggle resulting in what was a secret Kirribilli Agreement that PM Hawke would stand down in favour of PM Keating. Labor then went very close to a loss at the 1993 election and suffered a landslide loss at the 1996 election.
The successful Rudd Labor victory of 2007 was unsettled for Labor and by 2009 he was dumped in favour of PM Gillard who led at the 2010 election resulting in all the new seats gained in 2007 being lost, and Labor forced to form alliances including with the Greens to create a minority Labor Government. After returning to PM Rudd before the 2013 election labor lost in a landslide to the Abbott led Liberal-National Coalition, and the Coalition remained in government until 2022 but changed leader/PM twice during those years.
Labor swapped Opposition Leader Shorten for Albanese after the 2019 election loss.
Never say never when considering political parties and the future.
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‘Now Australia is a virtual One Party State …’
Its the Singaporean democratic model and not applicable to Australia.
Don’t despair, a change in leadership is coming to the Coalition and they should romp home at the next election.
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My recollection of Australia Day from my youth is that it was simply a public holiday on a Monday near but not necessarily on the 26th January. I don’t recall anybody getting excited about it as a commemoration. I don’t remember it even being a day on which new citizens were granted their citizenship but I’m not sure.
It was as I recall the most Australian holiday of all because nobody paid any attention to it. I think it was better that way.
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Couldn’t agree more FG. It was so much better that way. Cant recall what changed it, maybe some Sydney centric influencers etc who wanted to have it on 26th January. Also, so much less hype that way. If you wanted to celebrate AD, go right ahead. If you didn’t, yep that’s ok too. I also dont think we need the national anthem for a lot of public events either. AFL- grand final yes, rest of finals, nope. Then there’s WTC……
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Forrest, what you long for was a time when it felt like we didn’t need to teach children why they were lucky and what they should be grateful for, but that was an illusion. If we had used the event to explain the bigger geopolitical picture to the next generation, and how we are the luckiest people on Earth, we wouldn’t be sitting in this hole now.
Australia Day started on Jan 26 in NSW in 1818 with Gov. Macquarie. But it was not until 1994 that it was officially recognised as a public holiday in all states.
We probably need a new national anthem. One that people feel inspired to learn the words to and to willingly sing.
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Waltzing Matilda came second to Advance Australia Fair in the 1977 vote. John Bertrand had Down Under by Men At Work played before each leg of the 1983 Americas Cup.
It is still possible to write national songs that become loved; Scotland has Flower of Scotland, written within living memory.
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Down Under is my preferred option.
‘Waltzing Matilda’s origin lies in 1895 when poet A.B. “Banjo” Paterson wrote lyrics to a melody played by Christina Macpherson at Dagworth Station, Queensland, inspired by the region’s 1894 shearers’ strike and a local legend, becoming Australia’s beloved unofficial anthem.
‘The story tells of a swagman (hobo) who steals a sheep, and when caught by police, drowns himself in a billabong (waterhole) rather than be arrested, with his ghost haunting the spot.’ (AI generated)
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Anton, as a Scot who left his native land 60 years ago, Flower of Scotland, played on the bagpipes, especially by a lone piper at sunset, still brings tears to my eyes. Not because I feel any loss, but as a proud Australian now it just brings back memories of the beautiful country Scotland still is, or was. My wife and I are going back for six weeks this northern summer, it will be wonderful to catch up with siblings, their children and their children’s children, about the only things I really miss. However, I fear that my country of birth has probably changed as much as my current native land.
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Jo, I don’t see how Gov Mac started Australia Day in 1818 when Australia did not exist until 1901. Perhaps he was celebrating the founding of the settlement at Port Jackson which as somebody born and raised in Melbourne is really a Sydney thing.
But I don’t “long” for anything in the past. I consider my generation of Australians to have been almost outrageously lucky and I wish the generations who follow the very best in making the nation in their own image. I certainly wouldn’t want them to feel obliged to do anything just because I think it was better the way it was.
If they want to focus on the geopolitical picture then more power to them. But there be dragons. My counsel remains that it was better when it was the most Australian public holiday of all.
I’m happy as long as some of the things which make Australia such a wonderful place to call home get a look in every now and again.
Oh and as somebody who grew up singing God Save the Queen and swearing allegiance to the Flag every morning, when it comes to Advance Australia Fair I’ve heard worse.
Over to you!
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Fair point Forrest — Gov. Macquarie was celebrating the founding of NSW — the first colony — on January 26th. But the meaning of Australia Day and that celebration are tightly connected. Macquarie endorsed the name “Australia” in a message to London on dec 1817. Hence that first celebration on Jan 26th 1818 was also probably one of the first official uses of the term “Australia”.
It was Flinders who suggested it BTW in 1803.
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Yes, the date is a dead giveaway isn’t it.
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How about Won’t Get Fooled Again by The Who?
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For those who believe the lie that Australia was founded on institutional “genocide” and unfair treatment of the previous nomadic inhabitants, look at this poster, 1816.
https://victoriancollections.net.au/items/59674c0c21ea6f16144f8933
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Fair is such a slippery word and genocide doesn’t mean what it used to.
But I think I might have been a bit miffed to see new arrivals on the shores. And I might have been a bit miffed to have the locals throwing spears at me.
The rest is history mostly by motivated people with their side of the story to tell.
Oh and yes, the dark armband version of history is a modern invention.
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If you really want to know about rampant Invasions and how to civilise the locals then just study the Spanish and Portuguese history in stealing all the Gold and Silver in South America when they were ‘Colonists’.
Simply murder.
The British were mere amateurs in killing/murdering the locals that they settled and ‘civilised’ around the World.
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Yes, the definitive account of Conquistador brutality in the Americas is by the honest and appalled Catholic priest Bartolomé de las Casas, in his book-length essay “A short account of the destruction of the Indies”. It is easily found online in English.
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Thanks for that Anton.
And when the Spanish moan on and on about Gibraltar and the Brits owning it they never talk about giving back Spanish Morocco to Morocco.
Absolute hypocrites.
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Agreed – yet it deserves to be said that they got rid of human sacrifice in the New World pretty sharpish.
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Arrgh those bloody Englishmen, responsible for everything bad in the world.
1/ Banning the triangle trade in slaves.
2/ Creating the industrial evolution that changed everyones lives for the better
3/ Declaring the practice of “Suttee” where a widow was burnt alive with her deceased husband, outlawed. (Ask Indian women if they are grateful for that)
4/ The Westminster system of parliament
5/ the separation of church and state.
6/ Equal opportunity under the law for aborigines and whites
etc etc etc.
They may not have been as successful in these endeavours as they might have hoped, but don’t look at anyone else.
Don’t look at Arab slavers allegedly still operating today
Don’t look at the Belgians in the Congo up until the 1950’s
Don’t look at Native American Indians and their practices of absolute cruelty to captives BEFORE europeans arrived.
Don’t look at aboriginal practices of infanticide BEFORE the poms arrived.
etc etc etc.
The lists are endless just keep looking backwards to find something to be aggrieved about. Don’t look forward towards a better world for all. If you do that you might be forced to participate.
Clearly the world would have been a better place without those pesky Poms
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If that were forcibly outlawed today, can you imagine how the Left and “feminists” would react? They would be outraged.
It would be the opposite of their silence in support of the oppressive anti-women Iranian regime.
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Of course we now practice infanticide before birth, rather than after…
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What did the Brits ever do for us? Here Peter Ridd answers that question: plenty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcZQS4LBugk
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The book Liberating Aboriginal People from Violence by Stephanie Jarrett shows how cruel it is to ignore problems in Aboriginal communities for reasons of cultural sensitivity.
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Sambar, great comment but I must take exception to your reference to “Englishmen” and the current understanding of “Poms”. No, Australia was not colonised by the English, but by the British, including English, Scots, Welsh and Irish. What nationality do you think Governor Lachlan Macquarie was, for goodness sake! The English were OK, but the real strength came with the Celts, the Irish and Scottish who were the majority who set up farming practices over the next 100 years. The fact that so many people of aboriginal descent have Scottish surnames is testament to the custom of giving aboriginal people who lived and worked on land farmed by Scots the surname of the farmer.
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David, that is a cracker !!!!!…great find
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And just in time for Australia Day, the following is revealed about statue vandalism.
The Left really do hate history. But we already knew that. That’s why they demand censorship and the rewriting of history.
(PAYWALLED)
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Immature
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Well, I’m looking forward to thousands of Indians, Chinese and Muslims marching, all waving two flags, one of their land of birth and the other the Australian flag.
That will tell you all you ever need to know about immigration.
“think about how lucky we were to be born in Australia ” ..some of us here… Weren’t a third of Aussie born overseas, and tens of thousands more here aren’t even citizens, so not counted as Aussies.
Make the most of this one, Australia day will soon enough be like Waitangi Day in NZ, taken over by the Maori activists for political grandstanding and demands, and feared by politicians because they have no spine and and cannot stand up to the activists.
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Nearly 20% of folk living in the UK were born outside the UK.
Certainly some born to Brits overseas [military, planters etc.].
Some European, like my lodgers.
But, in about 70 million, it’s not a small number.
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I wonder how many Australia Day opponents realise that the British Colonies that started here with the Colony of New South Wales that covered a much larger area than since Federation of States, including New Zealand, and with a Colonial Secretary Department managing, ended with Federation of States forming Commonwealth of Australia 1900?
That First Nations countries were hundreds and with different languages and customs, and no system of government, or agriculture that was the original basis of colonies created in many places around the world.
The First Nations were of course migrants from various places overseas and at least two entry points via what is now Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.
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The small picturesque Victorian country town where I serve, will be holding a comprehensive Australia Day celebration with a parade including 55 national and international flags as well as various vehicles. There will an Aussie sing along followed by flag raising and singing the National Anthem. There will be a citizenship ceremony, an address by the Shire Mayor and, surprise, surpise, a saisage sizzle.
The Anglican Prayer Book has at least one decent prayer for Australia: “We bless you, God of the universe, for this land, for its contrasts of landscape and climate, for its abundance of wealth and opportunity. We bless you for our history, with all its struggles in adversity, its courage and hope. Give us in our diversity tolerance and respect for each other and a passionate commitment to justice for all. Bless us so that we might be a blessing to others …..”
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Thanks Padre,
Perhaps the most important words in the prayer are these;
Tolerance and respect are in short supply at this time and Justice is something we badly need. Justice does not mean tolerating bad behaviour and criminality. It means the opposite.
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Not exactly a hu-u-uge amount of coverage of Australia Day on the BBC website, here in the UK. Sharks, yes – but 26th January – errr …
They did manage a little coverage of January 26th –
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9wxx29yknpo
… but that’s for India’s Republic Day [also 26th January].
I’m sure the BBC thinks it has its priorities right. Perhaps tomorrow it will cover the marches in your cities … but I won’t be holding my breath.
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I’ve just attended my 3rd March for Australia event in Perth and sadly was very disappointed by a number of aspects:
TIMING
Turned up before Noon to find out at around 1230 hrs that the “march” would take place at 1430 hrs.
No mention on the website nor mention on supporter site.
My wife and I left early as we had commitments post 1400 hrs.
Tragic that the March for Australia had been displaced in priority by the Invasion Day events.
FOCUS
Australia may have began with Anglo-Celtic roots but talk by the organisers today was lost in a “White Australia” time warp.
Post WW2 Australia has been developed and improved with the input from people from many countries including: Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Egypt, Vietnam plus many more. These migrants integrated and provided a diversity which has enriched our society/nation.
Sadly large groups of recent migrants especially from the Middle East, Africa and some parts of Asia have NOT shown any interest in integration.
This seems to have coincided with the increased migration since about 2001, by both sides of politics, and blown out under the current Fed Govt.
Can we please return to annual immigration of skilled workers of about 100k and screened refugees of about 30k?
Could the Perth organisers of March for Australia please focus on improving communication about the event. An updated website makes it fairly easy to achieve.
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Nigel Biggar on what would have happened to the Aborigines if others had come instead of the Brits (and how nonracist the Brits and their descendants are):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C76L6fmtM5c
The Greenlanders would do well to ponder who they would prefer to the USA.
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