Since 1994, January 26 has stood as the official date for Australia Day, marked by a national public holiday. Australians have traditionally used this day to relax, often hosting barbecues to savor the summer, while numerous migrants embrace their new identity in citizenship ceremonies nationwide.

However, this date also bears a deep significance for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, as well as their allies. For them, January 26 is a somber occasion, often referred to as ‘Invasion Day’ or ‘Survival Day’, symbolizing a time of mourning.

As the debate over the appropriateness of this date intensifies, a growing number of businesses, educational institutions, and government organizations are taking steps to accommodate different perspectives. They are offering employees the choice to work on January 26 and select a different day for their day off.

Meanwhile, celebrations continue in various parts of the country, including atop Mount Kosciuszko in New South Wales, where some Australians gather to commemorate the day. The ongoing dialogue around Australia Day reflects the nation’s evolving understanding of its history and cultural identity.

In recent years, the National Australia Day Committee has also broadened the focus of the day to be more inclusive of Indigenous people and new migrants, calling on Australians to “gather with friends, family and their community to reflect, respect and celebrate”.

Historian Kate Darian-Smith from the University of Tasmania said if the date of Australia Day was to change, it would be an acknowledgement that people don’t recognise 26 January as a meaningful date for contemporary Australia.

“There’s been quite a lot of work in recent years to show that Australia Day is quite inclusive of recent migrants, of people from all parts of the world — we’re all Australian, we’re all together, we’re all part of our country,” she said.

“How do you scoop up and make an inclusive celebration in what is a day that — if we take it back historically — is commemorating that moment of British landing and invasion?”

Why is it marked on 26 January?

Some believe 26 January commemorates the landing of the First Fleet, when convicts from England first set foot in Australia in 1788.

However, the ships actually arrived at Sydney’s Botany Bay around a week earlier, sometime between 18-20 January. They decided to shift further north after finding the bay unsuitable.

The 26th was actually the day the fleet set ashore in Sydney Cove, a small bay in Sydney Harbour.

It marks the raising of the Union Jack flag in Sydney Cove by Captain Arthur Phillip, who also officially declared British sovereignty over half of Australia.

Darian-Smith said Australia Day commemorates the first night on shore in Sydney Cove and the formal establishment of the colony of NSW.

She said 26 January was later referred to as ‘First Landing Day’ or ‘Foundation Day’.

“By the early 1800s, dinners were being held to mark the foundation of the new colony of NSW,” she told SBS News.

As the settlement spread, other states marked their own foundation days.

“For example, in Western Australia, Foundation Day was held on 1 June, to celebrate the arrival of white settlers in 1829 [and] South Australia had a proclamation date,” Darian-Smith said.

For a long time, 26 January was seen as a very NSW-centric holiday, but Darian-Smith said the concept of a national day became more prominent in the late 19th century.

In 1888, there were celebrations in Sydney for Anniversary Day on 26 January to mark the centenary of the First Fleet’s arrival.

A bigger push for a national day emerged after the federation of Australia in 1901, with a group called the Australian Natives Association arguing for Australia Day to bring together the new nation.

Darian-Smith said that by 1935, all the states had adopted a common date and name for Australia Day on 26 January, but not all states had a public holiday on that date.

After the bicentenary in 1988, there were more discussions about a nationwide celebration, but 26 January wasn’t declared an official national public holiday until 1994.

Why do some see it as a ‘Day of Mourning’?

The arrival of the First Fleet is not seen as a day to celebrate by many due to the massacres and the treatment Indigenous people experienced at the hands of the British settlers.

Darian-Smith said opposition to celebrating 26 January was not new, and Aboriginal activists declared it a ‘Day of Mourning’ as early as 1938.

Tens of thousands of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians also marched in protest against the day in 1988 — Australia’s bicentennial year.

“The 26th of January will always be a day of mourning and a day of lament for my people,” Aboriginal pastor Ray Minniecon told SBS News before Australia Day in 2018.

“It was a deliberate invasion of our people. It also meant the massacres and genocides of our peoples right across this country.”

Who else wants to change the date?

Over the years, non-Indigenous Australians have acknowledged the issues around celebrating 26 January.

In 2017, the ABC’s national youth radio station Triple J announced it would change its popular Hottest 100 countdown to a different day after 60 per cent of listeners surveyed said it should — out of respect for Indigenous Australians.

Victoria has not held its annual Australia Day parade since cancelling it in 2023, although it continues to host other commemorative events.

Fremantle Council in Western Australia voted in late 2016 to move its traditional Australia Day celebrations out of respect for Indigenous people, but was later forced to back down.

In 2017, councils such as Yarra and Darebin in Melbourne voted not to hold citizenship ceremonies on 26 January, but were stripped of their rights to hold these by the Morrison government in 2019.

The Albanese government walked back the restrictions when it took leadership in 2022, allowing councils to hold ceremonies three days before or after 26 January, describing it as a “pragmatic” decision to make processing more efficient.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also overturned a ban stopping Commonwealth public service workers from swapping Australia Day for another day off, saying it was fine to have some flexibility in the system.

Who wants to keep Australia Day as is?

Opposition leader Sussan Ley has previously expressed support for Australia Day, saying it is an important part of “recognising who we are and where we have come from”.

“It’s an important day to recognise just how improbable and how incredible the Australian experiment has been,” she said during a speech on 26 January last year, likening the work of British settlers to establish a colony in Australia to Elon Musk’s efforts to build a new colony on Mars.

Her views align with previous Coalition leaders Peter Dutton and Scott Morrison.

“We should be celebrating our flag, we should be celebrating Australia Day and all that’s great about our country and the people who want to rewrite history or ignore certain parts of history, that’s not the majority view in our country and good Australians should stand up and say so,” Dutton told Flow News 24 in 2023.

Albanese has also brushed off claims his government will seek to move Australia Day.

“I support Australia Day, the government supports Australia Day, there are no changes here,” he said.

Will the date change?

Darian-Smith said there had been increasing debate and discussion about Australia Day, and she believes there has been a shift in attitudes — particularly with the number of companies allowing their workers to take a different day off.

“The day has become more and more problematic for larger numbers of Australians,” she said.

Darian-Smith said the fact that some organisations were now allowing staff to take a different day off meant there was already an erosion in what may have originally been envisioned for Australia Day — a day when everyone was off work on a public holiday.

“[But] I don’t think it is an easy resolution.”

Darian-Smith said most countries had a national day that reflected moments of national pride and national recognition — such as Independence Day in the United States — but the pride in Australia Day was no longer there in the same way.

“Certainly not in the way that it would be for example, with the French around Bastille Day,” she said.

She said some would argue ANZAC Day is a more important day, because it recognises the sacrifice of the nation, although this may also be fading in significance.

However, support for changing the date appears to have plateaued.

The latest Roy Morgan poll published this year found 60.5 per cent of Australians believe Australia Day should not be moved from 26 January — up 2 per cent compared to 2024.

Findings from the Deakin Contemporary History Survey also found public sentiment was stabilising. It found 59 per cent of respondents disagreed with the statement “we should not celebrate Australia Day on 26 January” in 2021. This fell to 56 per cent in 2023, before returning to 58 per cent in 2024.

A previous poll in 2018 by The Australia Institute found 56 per cent of respondents didn’t mind which day Australia Day was held on, so long as there was a national day of commemoration, while 49 per cent said it shouldn’t be on a day that offended Indigenous people.

Which other date could Australia Day be held on?

There is no clear alternative date to mark Australia Day on, as yet.

“It’s just a little more complicated than wanting to hold onto that moment when [Captain Arthur Phillip] came into Botany Bay,” Darian-Smith said.

Part of the attachment to 26 January appears to be linked to it falling in summer and possibly reflecting the sunny, relaxed spirit that has become linked to some people’s understanding of the Australian identity.

Other possible dates include the formation of the federation on 1 January 1901, 9 July, when Queen Victoria gave consent to the Constitution of Australia, or the Eureka Stockade on 3 December.

There is also the anniversary of the apology to the Stolen Generations (13 February), Sorry Day (26 May), the anniversary of the 1967 referendum (27 May), NAIDOC week (beginning the first Sunday in July), and the anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (13 September).

But for now, Australia Day continues to be marked on 26 January.

—-Additional reporting by Myles Morgan.

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