A party to celebrate a blessed and bountiful nation’s past and present

Australia Day is essentially a celebration of our nation-building. Like Anzac Day, it is a day that has gathered into itself an increasing complexity as the national understanding of Australian life and history has deepened.

It allows us to count our blessings, reflect on our vexed history and understand that, despite tensions and criticisms, our shared values offer strength and unity.

This Monday’s national day is special because it comes just over a month after our sense of self was shattered by unexpected home-grown terrorism. It follows Thursday’s National Day of Mourning, when many paused to honour those who died or were wounded in the December 14 Bondi Beach terrorist attack.

Australia Day is an opportunity to reflect on that tragedy while our governments work out how to lessen the likelihood of a recurrence.

This year, the Sydney Opera House will glow at dawn with an Indigenous artwork; later, there will be a live night concert on the forecourt, ferries racing on the harbour, citizenship ceremonies and 150 events around NSW.

For Indigenous Australians, things are different. Australia Day commemorates Governor Arthur Phillip’s landing at Sydney Cove on January 26, 1788. For them, it’s invasion day. They mark the day at the Yabun festival in Hyde Park.

European arrival reduced the lives of both dispossessed First Nations peoples and expelled convicts. Undeterred, the Australian Natives Association (a lobby group for white people born in Australia) pushed for a memorial and the date was chosen as Australia Day in 1931. It wobbled on fitfully until 1988, when bicentenary protests about Aboriginal dispossession pushed into the public consciousness. Then prime minister John Howard forcefully defended the day against criticism – and bunting and beers became the Australian way of January 26.

There are many good reasons to celebrate. We have a vibrant democracy and successful multicultural society. On a world comparison, we have a high standard of living and a culture of egalitarianism. Australians have achieved international success in virtually every field of activity.

Younger Australians have embraced it in recent years and made it joyous rather than commemorative, with fervent displays of patriotism that sometimes teeter toward xenophobia.

It’s not that Australians love their country any more or less than previous generations, but it seems the laconic, understated, bronzed Australians of old have been replaced by those who believe in the need for a positive and public affirmation of national pride.

Today, the flag-raising is complemented by Australia Day honours acknowledging the contribution to national life of Australians from all walks of life. Among this year’s AC recipients are Chief Justice of NSW Andrew Bell, Indigenous athlete Cathy Freeman, quantum physicist Michelle Simmons, climate change scientist Peter Cook, former politicians Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and OECD secretary-general Mathias Cormann, and arts patron Paula Fox. Former NSW premier Kristina Keneally received an AO.

Today’s events, from solemn to festive, are evidence that Australia Day is more than a holiday. It is a day to cheer the Australian way of life and honour ourselves as a nation that has survived past and present sadness and marches on.

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