By Brett Manning, Trustee of the New Aussie Constitution Trust

The draft New Aussie Constitution is a proposed replacement for the current Australian Constitution that has been developed independently of government. Please visit the New Aussie Constitution Trust website listed below for more information.

We live in one of the most amazing countries on earth. Our environment is stunning, our community has great freedoms and we can feel very real safety while enjoying it all.  So why is it that I cringe now as Australia Day approaches every year, just wanting it to pass. I’m sure it never used to be this way.

In this article we’ll look at how the draft New Aussie Constitution proposes to change the date for Australia Day to try and restore the honour and dignity to what should be a national day of pride and celebration for all Australians.

To change or not to change, that is the question?

As Australia Day approaches, this sense of national cringe comes upon me as the press scrambles to find this years’ stories of woe and oppression of indigenous Australians that they can sheet home to our national day. That’s the press that are not running around to find the most outrageous Local Council trying to out ‘politically correct’ all the other Councils with some anti-Australia Day stunt that seems less about the issues and more about who can get the best headlines.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely understand why indigenous Australians may not feel inclined to celebrate Australia Day on the 26th of January. While that date appears to not actually line up with the historically significant event of settlement normally assigned to it, I get it that to some Australians it represents the event of forced colonisation.

So why not just change the date? What argument would I have as a non-indigenous Australian against changing the date that we celebrate this awesome country of ours. The most likely response might be tradition. It has always been on the 26th of January, so why should we change it. You could even argue the colonisation of Australia by Great Britain has played a major role in the country that Australia is today and so we shouldn’t be heading down the rabbit hole of looking for revisionist history. We should, in fact, be remembering all of Australia’s history, the very good and the very bad that has gone before.

However, there is no escaping the fact that a small but important part of Australia’s society cannot share in the celebration of our national day if it is held on the 26th of January. As a consequence, as every Australia Day approaches, the press gets easy fodder to report on from those who cannot accept the date and those that don’t see why we should change it. The end result is that the honour of Australia Day is somehow diminished

To me, I want Australia Day to be a celebration of this fabulous place, where everyone is pretty much free to live as they want, because we are basically a very tolerant society. If that means changing the date of Australia Day, I can swallow any pangs of tradition and move the date. The world won’t end. Frankly, if that kills off the bad press trying to sensationalise division in the community and a certain few Local Councils having a feeding frenzy every time Australia Day approaches, then I’m all for it. Doing the right thing, by choosing a more inclusive date, can give our national day back its honour.

So, the proposed draft New Aussie Constitution proposes a new date for Australia Day – 10 August. Why 10 August you ask? That was the day in 1967 that the current Constitution was amended to include all Australians, indigenous and non-indigenous as equal Australian citizens before the law. It was the first day that we were all just Australians, and that seems a good place to start to celebrate a national day.

The New Aussie Constitution doesn’t have to specify a date for Australia Day and like all aspects of the draft, it is up for discussion and feedback. We also don’t have to change the date of Australia Day but it is something which we can choose to do, to bring all Australians together to celebrate this incredible nation that is our home.

If you want to learn more about the proposed draft New Aussie Constitution, take a look around the website www.newaussieconstitution.com.au or you can throw your support behind the not-for-profit New Aussie Constitution Trust by liking and sharing this Blog. Please feel free to comment or email us directly because this draft is very much a consultative process, where we want to hear from as many Australians as possible.