Oz Day fuss

[supersparky]

Cuppa i don't know whether it is the need to have a respectful debate or the inability of some of us to be able to put into words how we feel without resorting to being rude and disrespectful to either side of the conversation. I know in my case I just can't express what I feel. The words just aren't there. I just wish that I had paid more attention during English classes at school. There are always two sides to a story, some of us just aren't prepared to concede that there is another possible point of view. And it isn't just this topic that some of us struggle with either.

[Dot]

No one can beat me at putting my foot in my mouth and not being able to say what I mean. Maybe we should have a resident Lingo teacher.

[Greynomad]

Sometimes it's just easier to 'pull your head in" as my father used to say?

Bruce,
It seems with this debate that being a turtle just means you end up in turtle soup.

As I said in a letter today to Stan Grant, "I don’t think the Aboriginal people can hold present-day white Australians responsible for that [white massacres of blacks], any more than I can hold you responsible for murder, arson and stock theft carried out by your ancestors."

I was prompted to write after reading a piece he wrote for ABC News Online where he said:
“I spent January 25 with my father's voice. I gathered with other Aboriginal people for a vigil to mark THE NIGHT BEFORE THE SHIPS CAME. We stood with each other and the spirits of our ancestors who on this day in 1788 stood on the cusp of a new world.”
(emphasis added)

My response began with,
"Like many Australians, you have the wrong idea about what we celebrate on 26th January."

I'm looking forward to his response, IF and when it is received...

[Cuppa]

Sometimes it's just easier to 'pull your head in" as my father used to say?

Yup, much as one might with an aggressive drunk.

[dapope]

Sometimes it's just easier to 'pull your head in" as my father used to say?

Yup, much as one might with an aggressive drunk.

Pretty much.
There is clearly different views.
I know mine don't agree with the majority view here. Maybe the small amount of debate here is enough to save another starfish. Who knows.

[Dot]

This is from Normie Rowe's page I thought interesting.

So Australia Day came and went with little fanfare following the arduous previous 12 months. And yet the truth that could’ve been told was still kept a dark secret by media and educators alike. So, believe this from a aVietnam Veteran and Order of Australia colleague of mine.
It Was Not an INVASION
Subject: 26th January 1949
Just a reminder of the history of Australia Day on the 26th January. Amazing how many of us do not know this. Particularly the younger generation.
Hi, this synopsis highlights the lack of knowledge of the origin of "Australia Day" being celebrated on the "26 January" each Year.
Writer's quote: " I have fact-checked this very good synopsis of the facts that appear to have disappeared over the years of selective education….
Facts about Australia Day
Our Education system is not competently advising our children !!
Don't expect the media to educate you that's not part of their agenda. Australia Day does not celebrate the arrival of the first fleet or the invasion of anything.
Captain Cook did not arrive in Australia on the 26th of January. The Landing of Captain Cook in Sydney happened on the 28th of April 1770 - not on the 26th of January 1770.
The First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay on the 18th of January. The 26th was chosen as Australia Day for a different reason; however, Captain Cook's landing was included in Australia Day celebrations as a reminder of a significant historical event.
Since the extravagant bicentenary celebrations of 1988, when Sydney-siders decided Captain Cook's landing should become the focus of the Australia Day commemoration, the importance of this date for all Australians has begun to fade.
Now, a generation later, it's all but lost.
This is because our politicians and educators have not been doing a good job promoting the day. Our politicians have not been advertising the real reason for Australia Day, and our educators have not been teaching our children the importance of the 26th of January to all Australians.
The media, as usual, is happy to twist the truth for the sake of controversy.
In recent years, the media has helped fan the flames of discontent among the Aboriginal community Many are now so offended by what they see as a celebration of the beginning of the darkest days of Aboriginal history, they want the date changed.
Various local Councils are seeking to remove themselves from Australia Day celebrations, even refusing to participate in citizenship ceremonies, and calls are going out to have Australia Day on a different day.
The big question is, why has the Government allowed this misconception to continue?
Captain Cook didn't land on the 26th of January. So changing the date of any celebration of Captain Cook's landing would not have any impact on Australia Day, but maybe it would clear the way for the truth about Australia Day.
The reality is, the Aborigines in this country suffered terribly under the hands of British colonialism. This is as much Australia's history as the landing of the first fleet, and both should be remembered, equally. Both should be taught, side by side, in our schools.
Australians of today abhor what was done under British governance to the Aborigines. We abhor what was done under British governance to the Irish and many other cultures around the world. So, after the horrors of WWII, we decided to fix it.
We became our own people.
On the 26th of January 1949, the Australian nationality came into existence when the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948 was enacted. That was the day we were first called Australians and allowed to travel with Passports as Australians.
Under the Nationality Act 1920 (Cth), all Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders born after January 1, 1921, gained the status of British subjects. In 1949, therefore, they automatically became Australian citizens under the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948.
Before that special date, all people living in Australia, including Aborigines born after 1921, were called 'British Subjects' and forced to travel on British Passports and fight in British wars.
We all became Australians on the same day!
This is why we celebrate Australia Day on the 26th of January!
This was the day Australians became free to make our own decisions about which wars we would fight and how our citizens would be treated. It was the day Aborigines were declared Australians.
Until this date, Aborigines were not protected by law. For the first time since Cook's landing, this new Act gave Aboriginal Australians by inference and precedent the full protection of Australian law.
Because of this Act, the government became free to help Aborigines, and since that day much has been done to assist Aboriginal Australians, including saying 'sorry' for the previous atrocities done before this law came into being.
This was a great day for all Australians!
This is why the 26th of January is the day new Australians receive their citizenship. It is a day which celebrates the implementation of the Nationality and Citizenship Act of 1948 - the Act which gave freedom and protection to the first Australians and gives all Australians, old and new, the right to live under the protection of Australian Law, united as one nation.
Now, isn't that cause for celebration?
Education is key! There is a great need for education on the real reason we celebrate Australia Day on the 26th of January. This reason needs to be advertised and taught in schools. We all need to remember this one very special day in Australia's history, when freedom came to all Australians.
What was achieved that day is something for which all Australians can be proud!
We need to remember both the good and the bad in our history, but the emphasis must be the freedom and unity all Australians now have, because of what was done on the 26th of January 1949, to allow all of us to live without fear in a land of peace.
Isn't it time all Australians were taught the real reason we celebrate Australia Day on Jan 26th?
Ray Payne OAM

[Shirley]

Certainly interesting if the facts are true, I didn't know all that info, we all just need to move forward as Australians.

[Riverlander]

Yes. Very Interesting. Always wondered why they use the 26th as Australia Day.

[T1 Terry]

Who writes the history and who passes it from generation to generation verbally can make huge differences in the reporting of just what happened. A lack of understanding by those writing the history can also twist how it gets taught over the yrs.
This link has some interesting bits, who knows what are facts and what is "alternative facts" from either side
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-29/ ... d/12195148
As far as the landing of the first fleet, yet another murky mess where dates are blurred to suit the story line, looking through this line gives a lot of different dates, https://artsandculture.google.com/exhib ... Iml9CVl_Kw
they list the first landing as 20th Jan 1788 at Port Botany, the first flag raising by Governor Phillip in Port Jackson at a site he named Sydney Cove was 22nd Jan 1788 and the rest of the fleet moved from Port Botany to Port Jackson and disembarked on 26th Jan 1788.


The act mentioned in that email that did the rounds, the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948 https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C1948A00083 shows it was assented on 21st Dec 1948 and also shows that act is no longer in force and first superseded Nov 2009, then a complete dog breakfast by the look of it with 10 different superstitions to what ever is used as the act now days .....

From this site https://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item-di ... ml#history
History
Before Federation in 1901, formal expressions of citizenship followed the processes of self-government in each of the Australian colonies, so that in general, the constitution of each colonial government in relation to Britain directed the form of citizenship practised.

The Federal Council, set up by some of the Australian colonies before Federation to advance issues of joint interest, had in 1897 drafted an Australasian Naturalisation Act enabling Europeans naturalised in any colony to have this status in every other colony. This provision was adapted in Sections 34 and 51.xx of the Australian Constitution Act 1900. The Commonwealth then passed the Naturalisation Act 1903 which followed this principle, excluding Aboriginal people as well as people from Asian countries from recognition. The Commonwealth Nationality Act in 1920 consolidated all relevant decisions to that date, thus embedding the concept of naturalised Australians sharing the same rights and relations to government as the natural-born Australians – a concept which strikingly avoided the issues of the standing of Indigenous Australians. This Act introduced the term 'alien' to refer to all those outside the group of naturalised and natural-born citizens.

Immigration policies after the 1939–45 war raised the need to define Australian citizenship in law. The re-settlement throughout the British Commonwealth of large numbers of non-British born people, both refugees from eastern European countries and immigrants from countries such as Italy and Greece, raised concern about how well these people would belong to their new countries and relate to their new governments. A conference of the Prime Ministers of countries of the British Commonwealth in 1946 determined that each country of the Commonwealth would define a specific citizenship while all citizens would remain British subjects. The Parliaments of Canada, New Zealand, and then Australia passed legislation implementing this decision.

The idea of Australian citizenship implicit in the Act was thus one primarily shaped by British law, culture and traditions, rather than by those of Australia's indigenous people and all others who had made their home in Australia since 1788. Unlike the Australian Constitution Act, and legislation since, the Nationality and Citizenship Act did not discriminate against Indigenous people, implicitly including them through the more logical use of the term 'natural-born'. Aboriginal people finally won the right to vote in Federal elections in 1962, and the success of the referendum in 1967 altered those sections of the Australian Constitution with discriminatory effect.

Amendments to the Nationality and Citizenship Act in 1955, 1969, 1973, 1984, 1986 and 1993 progressively changed the assumption of 'Britishness' as the heart and soul of 'Australianess'. The concept of 'British subject' was removed by the 1973 amendment (the Australian Citizenship Act) but the concept of 'alien' remained until the 1986 amendment.



The real shame we should all share is shown in this ABC time line
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-06/ ... 86176?nw=0
It seems May 27 1967 in a referendum the Australian voters recognised that we were all one people and should all be subjected to the same Commonwealth laws rather than a state by state mish-mash.

Will we ever be all one people, we can't even put aside state to state rivalry and get a standardised set of laws, what hope do we have?

T1 Terry

[Cuppa]

Any notion that 26th January is a day for Aboriginals to celebrate becoming first becoming Australian Citizens is laughable & a deliberate twisting of reality by the 'right'.

It is a 'fact' that has this year been spread far & wide by those wishing to circumvent every possibility of the balance of power between black & white Australians changing. No doubt someone somewhere chanced upon this seemingly convenient date to launch yet more reason to suggest what should or shouldn't happen to the Australia day date, & folk like Normie Rowe, & others with an agenda, jump on the bandwagon to give it false credence.

Ask yourselves - why in all the years of to & fro-ing about changing the date has this 'fact' not been at the top of the reasoned, (& less reasoned) debates, but this year it's everywhere? I call deliberate bullsh*t to suit an agenda.

Yes in a law introduced on that day it is true that Aboriginals along with every other then 'British subjects' in Australia were made Australian citizens but it made zero difference to the lives of aboriginals who continued to be subjugated & it was a further 19 years before they were even allowed to vote. Being made Australian Citizens on paper was nothing they had either asked for or had/have reason to celebrate

As Terry said "Who writes the history and who passes it from generation to generation verbally can make huge differences in the reporting of just what happened. A lack of understanding by those writing the history can also twist how it gets taught over the yrs"