Letter to the Editor: January 26 not a suitable date to celebrate Australia

Brenda Jeanes (Letters, January 17) argues that January 26 is a suitable date for Australia Day. Really?

What other nation on earth celebrates their national day on the day on which the country was first colonised by a foreign nation?

Surely our national day should represent a day of unity, a day on which we as many people came together to be one people.

Unfortunately, the date on which we Australians celebrate our national day divides this country and exposes an ugly gaping wound.

To those who support the current date of Australia Day, January 26 represents the beginning of this nation.

To those who oppose it, January 26 represents the day on which a group of occupying colonists began the process of dispossessing the First Nations people of their lands.

Until we as a nation can have a mature and honest discussion about what January 26 really represents, I don’t see this wound being healed.

Grant Sutherland, Kalgan

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