In order to select a new day for the celebration of Australia Day, it would be preferable that the day should highlight some historical event of which the nation can be proud. It should also be a day that unifies all Australians regardless of ancestral origin and it should be in a traditional month in the Australian calendar.
The proposal is that Australia Day should be celebrated on a floating day…
the last Monday in January every year.
The selection of January satisfies the traditional month that all Australians recognise is the month for Australia Day.
The selection of January satisfies the historical event of the publication of Matthew Flinders’ “General Chart of Terra Australis or Australia” arguably the major achievement of his life’s work, along with his book “Voyage to Terra Australis”.
The significance of Flinders’ contribution to the exploration and mapping of the continent deserves to be elevated to greater height in the consciousness of all Australians.
His naming of our country “Australia”, motivated by the quest for unification, should be an event of immense national pride worthy of greater recognition. After all, because of him, we are “Australians”.
The selection of the last Monday in January is twofold.
Firstly, Australians are used to having a January public holiday for Australia Day and there is a tradition of this holiday “floating” to a Monday.
In all states of Australia, the official Australia Day holiday floats to a Monday if it falls on a Saturday or Sunday.
For example in 2025 the Australia Day national holiday floats to
Monday 27th January.
Secondly, the last Mondays of January in Flinders’ and Bungaree’s circumnavigation of the continent in the Investigator in 1802 and 1803 hold, up to this point, a hidden symbolic significance to indigenous Australians.
