Australia Day 2024

Back in the 1980s, Eugene Kamenka – Professor of History at the ANU – wrote eloquently about what Australia Day meant to him.

“My parents twice persecuted in Europe chose to come to Australia. I, like them, have chosen to remain here. The Australia we chose, and have chosen to cherish, is not the Australia of Ayers Rock, of the Tasmanian wilderness, of the didgeridoo or the corroboree.

The Australia we chose and choose to live in is the Australia of parliamentary democracy, political pluralism and the careful and individualised justice of the common law, the Australia of in-group tolerance and social diffidence, unideological, egalitarian, unassuming and self-reliant. This is the Australia that celebrates, as its most important National day, defeat (at Gallipoli) not victory in war.”

Today, we should all celebrate our good fortune in sharing this beautiful, although at times harsh and demanding, land.

A land that has forged us all into the resourceful and adaptive people we are today.

A land that has melded together people from many hundreds of vastly different cultures, countries and ethnic origins, allowing us to work together as one people.

As a nation we are not perfect. Far from it. However, let us use this day to reflect on our shared history, its mistakes as well as its successes, to think on its current trajectory and to plan for a better future.