Why we celebrate Australia Day on January 26?

January 26 – it’s one of Australia’s most divisive days. And while there are differing interpretations of what it means to celebrate it, the origin of the date is indisputable.

For some, our national holiday means little more than a day off, a BBQ, copious amounts of alcohol and soaking up the last real moments of summer.

But for Indigenous Australians, Australia Day is not cause for a pool party or First Fleet re-enactment, but for mourning. Invasion Day marks the dispossession of our first people — who continue to suffer the effects of colonization and racism.

And as an increasing number of Aussies come to acknowledge this — and join the call to change the date, or abolish it entirely — it begs the question why we bother to celebrate January 26 at all.

What’s the significance behind Australia Day?

While there are differing interpretations of what it means to celebrate on January 26, the historical origin of the date is indisputable.

At its base level, Australia Day commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet, 224 years ago, at Port Jackson.

January 26 is not a day for celebration – that’s why news.com.au is campaigning to change the date of Australia Day, so we can celebrate the best country in the world, without leaving anyone behind.

Some of the Fleet — comprised of 11 ships, aboard which were more than 1,480 men, women and children — actually arrived at Botany Bay more than a week before, on January 18, 1788. Having found Botany Bay was not as bountiful in freshwater and fertile soil as explorer Captain James Cook had suggested, the ships decided to move north to Sydney Cove.

“Arthur Phillip arrived at Sydney Cove and raised the national flag of the United Kingdom on January 26, 1788. In doing so, he founded the colony of New South Wales and, at the same time, commenced the dispossession and marginalization of Indigenous people,” Kungarakan Elder and University of Canberra chancellor, Professor Tom Calma, wrote for in 2018.

Despite the Proclamation of NSW Governor Richard Bourke in 1835, implementing the legal principle of terra nullius (“land belonging to no one”) as the basis for British settlement, Australia was inhabited long before the arrival of the First Fleet — Indigenous people had been living on the continent for tens of thousands of years prior.

For Indigenous Australians, the raising of the Union Jack in 1788 marked the beginning of decades of massacres, land theft, stolen children and oppression.

“Today, Indigenous peoples are still recovering from the chain of events that were set in motion on that day in 1788,” Prof Calma explained.

“The ongoing impact can be seen in disturbing rates of Indigenous incarceration and the growing over-representation of Indigenous child in out-of-home care, to give just two of many examples.”

Has Australia Day always been observed on January 26?

The origins of celebrating Australia Day on January 26 don’t actually date back that far.

The occasion was initially referred to as “First Landing Day” or “Foundation Day” and early settlers held anniversary dinners to commemorate it. But the holiday was still quite a NSW-centric occasion and other states had their own holidays — until 1888, when “Anniversary Day”, as it was then known, was a holiday in all capital cities except Adelaide.

Even at this stage, there were reservations about celebrating this day as many thought NSW’s convict origins were better left in the past. The NSW governor Henry Parkes also recognized the day was a reminder to Indigenous Australians of how they had been “robbed”.

So it wasn’t always an obvious choice for Australia’s national day.