Next week Australians will celebrate their national day.
Australia Day is celebrated on January 26 each year. This year marks 223 years of European settlement and 110 years of Federation. The name of the day has undergone several changes: from Foundation Day to Anniversary Day to Australia Day.
Captain Arthur Phillip from Britain Captain Arthur Phillip, from Britain, took formal possession of the colony of New South Wales (on the east coast of Australia) on January 26, 1788 and became its first Governor.
The first official celebrations were held in 1818 to mark the 30th anniversary of European settlement. In the early nineteenth century, the anniversary was called Foundation Day. On the 50th anniversary, a public holiday was declared in New South Wales and it became an annual event. By 1888, all colonial capitals of Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Darwin and Hobart), except Adelaide, proclaimed Anniversary Day a public holiday. In 1946, the Commonwealth Government, States and Territories agreed to observe one national day and it became known as Australia Day.
In the bi-centenary year of 1988, the year was named a Year of Mourning for Australia’s First Nations peoples, who regarded the year as a celebration of survival.
Before 1901 each state and territory of Australia had its own government and state flag. The federal dream was to join all of the six states and the one territory of Australia to form one nation – “One people, one flag, one destiny”. [The Australian Capital Territory was not yet established.]
On January 1, 1901, the first Australian government, under the leadership of Edmund Barton, was sworn in. This was the formal proclamation of a federated Australia by the Governor-General Lord Hopetoun.
Australia Day is celebrated on January 26 each year. This year marks 223 years of European settlement and 110 years of Federation. The name of the day has undergone several changes: from Foundation Day to Anniversary Day to Australia Day.
Captain Arthur Phillip from Britain Captain Arthur Phillip, from Britain, took formal possession of the colony of New South Wales (on the east coast of Australia) on January 26, 1788 and became its first Governor.
The first official celebrations were held in 1818 to mark the 30th anniversary of European settlement. In the early nineteenth century, the anniversary was called Foundation Day. On the 50th anniversary, a public holiday was declared in New South Wales and it became an annual event. By 1888, all colonial capitals of Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Darwin and Hobart), except Adelaide, proclaimed Anniversary Day a public holiday. In 1946, the Commonwealth Government, States and Territories agreed to observe one national day and it became known as Australia Day.
In the bi-centenary year of 1988, the year was named a Year of Mourning for Australia’s First Nations peoples, who regarded the year as a celebration of survival.
Before 1901 each state and territory of Australia had its own government and state flag. The federal dream was to join all of the six states and the one territory of Australia to form one nation – “One people, one flag, one destiny”. [The Australian Capital Territory was not yet established.]
On January 1, 1901, the first Australian government, under the leadership of Edmund Barton, was sworn in. This was the formal proclamation of a federated Australia by the Governor-General Lord Hopetoun.
MARTINA NICOLLS
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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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