No one whose vocabulary is bigger than "oi, oi" can say that Australia Day sits easily with them these days.

Login or signup to continue reading

On Monday, the now usual sight of an Invasion Day march will call for change to the date from one that marks the dispossession of this country from Aboriginal people. The movement may not be gaining popular support, but it is not going to die away.

And this year our national day will be marked by another protest movement. Anti-immigration marches are planned in all the capitals, including Canberra. While some who march may have legitimate concerns about population growth and sustainability, at their heart these are marches of the angry, the frustrated and those inclined to blame.

Their targeting of Australia Day is a targeting of our multicultural society, this great success story of diversity that was built on a story of English colonisation forced onto an ancient Indigenous one.

This isn't the first time I've written my letter about the challenge we face with our national day in a society that no longer looks and feels like it did when some of us were growing up.

This week I chatted with Steve Evans, a proud Welsh-Australian, about St David's Day in his former home. He could tell me exactly what I would see on the streets in Cardiff. Kids dressed in folk costumes carrying daffodils, men with leeks on their........

© Canberra Times