Let’s celebrate Australia Day

26 January is the national day of the greatest country on earth. Let’s celebrate it.

In recent years, the lead-up to Australia Day has increasingly brought about predictable suggestions that we should be ashamed of celebrating, or even enjoying, our national day.

A clear majority of Australians don’t agree. We want to be able to take a day on 26 January to enjoy being citizens of the best country in the world.

We’re incredibly fortunate to live in Australia. Around the world, hundreds of millions of people are confronted every day with war, conflict and sectarian violence.

But that doesn’t mean life in Australia is easy. The vast majority of Australians are working harder and longer than ever to make ends meet and provide for their families. Many are working longer shifts, overtime, nights and weekends. The days of weekends being set aside for rest and relaxation are a distant memory.

When Australia Day rolls around at the end of January, most Australians want to be able to unwind and enjoy the day. They’re not making a political statement, just showing some national pride and participating in what has for decades been a much-loved milestone in our calendar.

That’s why it’s so promising to see that the attempts from corporate Australia and Federal Government in recent years to strip events and activities from 26 January as a political statement, suggesting to all of us that it’s not appropriate to celebrate our national day, are faltering.

Of course, every Australian is perfectly entitled to mark (or not mark) the day as they see fit. But it’s very clear that most people want to celebrate – and they’re particularly sick of having supermarket chains, corporate Australia and highly paid bureaucrats try to give us a moral lecture with empty virtue signalling.

When it comes to national unity and national pride, the Albanese Government has got a lot wrong. That includes the decision to move citizenship ceremonies away from Australia Day, which sent a clear message to corporate Australia about how the current Labor Government perceives our national day.

For many years, welcoming new citizens on Australia Day has been a wonderful tradition of our multicultural nation. Now, it no longer happens in many municipalities.

Even our most highly paid government appointees are distancing themselves from Australia Day. Last week, it was reported that the former Labor Minister appointed by Anthony Albanese as High Commissioner to the UK had declined to attend the annual Australia Day event in London (before backtracking after his decision caused a public backlash). What other country pays its representatives overseas hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to signal to the world that they’re ashamed to celebrate our national day?

Now more than ever, we should be doing everything we can to encourage social cohesion and national unity. But there’s nothing worse for national unity than the identity politics which recruits big corporations and the bureaucracy to try and make the majority who are proud to be Australian ashamed of our history and our national day.

Of course, there are many ways that individual Australians can interpret or feel about the arrival of the First Fleet. But it’s not healthy for Australians in 2025 to be shamed or sneered at for marking, with a day of fun and relaxation, something that by any measure is a hugely significant milestone in the history of the country that we love and are grateful for.

There’s nothing at all wrong with being proud of our country and celebrating that fact on 26 January each year. So if you want to fly the Australian flag and celebrate Australia Day with family and friends as you have done for years, go right ahead and do it with pride.