Australia was never a colony, NSW, VIC, SA etc were colonies.
NSW was the first colony, and was founded on Feb 7th 1988.
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What’s wrong with Jan 1st - is it because everyone’s hungover? 
My preference would be to move Australia Day to Jan 1st and celebrate something like “Democracy Day” or “Indigenous Culture Day” or similar on May 27th. But to be honest if the option was to simply move the holiday to May 9 or May 27 then I’d be ok with that.
But the 26th was the day the British flag was raised and Britain claimed sovereignty over the Eastern seaboard.
I do agree that a lot of these dates are not only controversial but are contested or debated.
As someone who works plenty of PH’s the actual PH day off doesn’t really affect me in which month it’s held 
The term ‘Australia ‘ was coined by Matthew Flinders, first officially used by the British Admiralty in 1824, later in legislation to apply to the colonies of NSW and Van Diemen’s Land.
Marcia Langdon suggests 26 January could be called Convict Day.
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More that it’s allready a public holiday.
I like the May 27 date becuase it’s not about land or sovereignty which people will still have issue with. Giving everyone the vote is about freedom and inclusion for everyone, so can be celebrated.
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Captain Cook claimed the eastern Seabord for the British Crown on 29 April 1770.
At the Cook bicentennial, QE2 marked it as the date when Western Civilization began there.
Why don’t we have a vote. Wouldn’t that be the fairest way to decide it???
Because if we have a vote I’m betting the majority will keep it as is
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Isn’t that what a vote is for??
Deciding what the majority think.
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If we did that for everything imagine what it would look like. We elect a government to make these decisions for us
We have Federal Election every 3 years and State and Local government elections every 4 years. That is what votes are for in a Parliamentary Democracy; so that we elect farking government who make all the farking decisions. Except most are so p!ss weeak that they never make decisions.
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We don’t do it for everything.
This is pretty specific.
I see your point Saucy but I agree with Aceman that the govt should just change it. There was no vote to make it Jan 26 in the first place.
It’s always annoyed me that ( … unrelated topic warning!! … ) John Howard unilaterally outlawed gay marriage while subsequent governments for some reason felt that to reverse Howard’s decision they had to hold plebiscites/referenda and make a song and dance about it. Just govern FFS.
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I agree on BF on this. What is the point in having several levels of government if they are simply going to turn the decision back over to the plebs. They are elected to govern and that is what they should do.
Because it’s letting the public decide. I think it’s a much better way than the government just enforcing it. Especially if the decision is against what the majority would want.
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Aus day could be like Labor day or Queen’s birthday. Last Friday or Monday of January. Nothing more Aussie then making it a long weekend.
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We should just move it and rename the day to All Australians Day….fixed
Australia Day didn’t become an official national holiday until 1994 ( although it was recognised as our national day).
IIRC, before then the individual States designated the Monday closest to 26 January as the holiday date.
Similar to Q/K birthday holiday. Different States have different dates.
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I’ll take that bet.
In my experience, most people I have discussed this issue with want it moved and be renamed to be more about a celebration of being an Australian or even a celebration of Aboriginal culture.
What was done to the original inhabitants of this land by the British empire, and then continued on by a few others well into the 20th century, was shameful and disgraceful acts of genocide, and anything that celebrates the very start of that abomination, which is clearly distressful to our original peoples, should be and imo probably will be rejected by most people.
Move & rename it ASAP
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If this happened we would end up with law akin to Homer Simpson’s car.