What does Australia Day mean to you?
Every so often we come across an open question that we think hits the spot. If you hadn’t already noticed, we have a little Answers Question of the Day spot on right hand side of the Yahoo!7 Frontpage. This is the perfect place to put these good questions and get a whole variety of answers from the Yahoo!7 network.
Today, Goldie asked the Answers community ‘What does Australia Day mean to you and how will you celebrate it?’ The question has been featured on the Yahoo!7 Frontpage with some great answers so far. Here are some of our favourites:
I am a recent migrant to Australia. To me, Australia Day means celebrating the fact that I have been embraced by the best country, and the best people in the world. Perhaps since I wasn’t lucky enough to be born here, but was lucky enough to become an Aussie by choice, it means very much to me. I will celebrate, give thanks, fly the beautiful Aussie flag, and look forward to the day in the near future when I am granted citizenship here. That will be the best day of my life. Thank you, Australia Fair!! - rose ^_^
How many people know what Australia day is all about? Australia day is about Australia becoming a nation being able to ruled by its people not a dictatorship, we are free to follow what ever religion we choose, most of us have jobs, houses, our children don’t starve, we have a welfare system, sure some times things stuff up, but where in the world could you find better. This is why I think Australia Day should be celebrated, most of all our freedom, After all why do so many people want to come to live here? I am on my own so I will celebrate by going to see the Film Australia. - Dizzyjune76
It’s a day that all Australians black or white or any colour celebrate the lovely country we live in, as the saying goes WE ARE ONE, AND WE ARE AUSTRALIANS. It is to remind us we do live in a lucky country, i am English born but have lived here most of my life. I became naturalised in 1997 after being home to Britain on holiday, and realising it was nice to visit but it was great to get back to Australia my home. I live in West Aus, we have great weather , not to cold , not too hot.lovely beaches, the people are great. i dont celebrate any way special on the day, to lazy to get up early to go to Aussie breakfast, and most of my family live 2 hours away and doing ther own thing, my son and grandkids are in Brisbane. – Suncatcher
“Australia Day” is an important reminder to me that what we fail to acknowledge on this day is that it is, in my mind, “INVASION DAY”. I would prefer that it be a day, like “Remembrance Day” when we take the time to remember the previous thousands of years of traditional aboriginal life was irreparably interrupted. I say “Sorry” for the past injustices, atrocities and crimes commited in ignorance AND in full knowledge. - weeza
Australia Day is very important to me – I will celebrate my great great grand mother who was a koori girl who actually married my great great grandfather giving me both Aboriginal and European heritage – I will celebrate the magnificent history of Australia, all 60000 plus years of it – I will celebrate with a few beers in the pub with a few mates and remember the men and women who served and died in war to give me the life style I live – I will be working on a painting of part of a series I am doing from Dorothea Mc Keller’s poem “My Country” – the stanza ” …it’s beauty…” I will be a proud Australian, as I have every right to be. - Billwilkinsoncps
I’ll be hanging the washing on the Hills’ hoist. – Jenny M
Seriously – time with good friends and family – a great BBQ and a couple of drinks on a hot day – what could be more Aussie than that? - Kylie
Too right, Kylie. Have a great Australia Day!
Caitlin
Community Manager
Subscribe
i came here by refugee visa 20+ years ago, AD always makes me remember the past hard life i had then back where i came from, and the best best life i ever have here in australia, so therefore, AD means my rebirth.
cheers!
Australia Day means FREEDOM. We are a free country – free from war, free to express an opinion, free to vote, free to wear what we want, free to go where we want, free to worship what or whom we want free to strive for what we want. Free to celebrate how we want. This is my land. I am part of it. For generations it has been mine and my forefathers’ land. I am Australian. My ancestory from overseas has no meaning after 170 years. I have never been there. This is the land they died for and worked on. I love it and dont want to be anywhere else.
I will think of my forefathers and mothers and celebrate. I have 5th great grandfathers who arrived in the second and third fleets and a step relation who arrived in the first fleet. They may have been convicts who were bought out from England and transported for petty crimes but were great pioneers of the Parramatta and Wagga Wagga areas and successful through hard work in farming and cattle. They have many things named after them and importantly they were given a fair go in this, the lucky country.
aussie aussie aussie oi oi oi!! haha
im heading to our lacal beach, the local Council is putting on a free Breaky..yahhhh
snags & onion in bread
damper
pancakes
popcorn
hot & cold drinks
some rides for the kids
and live music ♫ which i loveeeeeeee
and if ya full , a nice walk along the beach to end the morning
my son Adrian was born on Australia Day 26th Jan 1998!
He was the 1st baby born at our local hospital that day,there was also 5 girls.They were given an Autralia Day award and a comemrative spoon by the mayor.
This year my son will be 11 yrs old and we celerbarte his birthday+Australia Day at our International Regatta Centre here in Penrith(sydney).Its 13 hrs of fantastic fun,activities,bands and fireworks with our community! “Happy birthday Adrian”+”Happy Australia Day everyone”
To be honest , just another public holiday and Invasion Day.
A Day to be very proud of being Aussie.Our ancestors didn’t ask to come here. They were sent, and here we are, very proud that we ended up here.Don’t change the day, please. We have already had to change so many of our aussie ways in fear of offending others. Let’s all just live together in this beautiful country, and accept each other for who, and what we are.I miss the days when when we could be ourselves, and we all got along fine.Who got on their soap box and made this conflict? I don’t care where you came from, or what colour you are. I love you, and I’m proud to share this great country with you, so let’s all be friends.
On Australia Day I’m having a BBQ dinner and just chilling out. I live in Charters Towers so i might go and watch the Goldfield Ashes – the largest amateur cricket contest in the southern hemisphere!!
Australia Day is more than just a day to me, it’s there to remind us of the struggle and hardship that “the whites” went through to colonize this country – many dying in the process. Also the agony that must of been befallen on the Aboriginals when we “invaded”. For me it’s there to remember those who died to make Australia the great country it is today!!
i like of people this country.
A sleep in
I want to celebrate Australia Day from now on with full consideration of how our arrival in this beautiful country has affected our indigenous people. Today I spent the day reading the stories of the children from the stolen generation. To demonstrate my recognition of our past mistakes I wrote poem called Strange Spirits. You can check it out here and leave a comment http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1420202/children_of_the_stolen_generation.html
I celebrated by writing a historical poem.
how are you kylie that be fine have nice day
I celebrated in freezing cold Blighty with a mug of milo with my lovely aussie collegues and mused over when I will grant my aussie husband’s wishes and move back to sunny Oz!
Thank you for this post! =)
Crawl back under you rock Hobbit. No one wants to listen to you sook about how a land was taken by a white supremacy group.You must have exited the wrong side of the bed this morning, we don’t support what happened to the Aboriginals nor how they were treated, we are enjoying the here and now. Unfortunately we cannot travel 200 years into the past and change what happened. I think Australia Day is a thankyou for such a great country too.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
mercy