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[Reelya]

idk, indigenous Australians tend to associate the date / holiday with genocide. So, it's not as neutral as saying e.g. that Christmas doesn't cater to "non Christians". It's more akin to imagining if Germany had a public holiday celebrating the opening of the concentration camp at Auswitz, and then said "well it's only offensive to Jews, who are a tiny minority of the population". Or having a Turkish holiday celebrating the Armenian genocide, and then saying it's only offensive to the small minority of Turkish citizens with Armenian ancestry.

I mean, that's the date we formally set about invading the country. Imagine how we'd feel if the Japanese had the bombing of Darwin as a yearly national celebration. Point being: it really doesn't matter that there are more Japanese than Australians so they out-vote us on whether that's offensive or not. It's just grossly offensive in and of itself. "We outnumber you so your feelings don't count" isn't a valid argument against something being unacceptably offensive.

[Yoink]

Gosh this probably isn't the best topic of conversation to weigh in on on a left-leaning forum whilst tipsy. Hrmmm.

Oh well, let's just crucify this Latham dude for glorifying the consumption of meat to begin with, that's the bigger issue here anyway.

[smjjames]

The description of Australia Day on wikipedia sounds almost exactly like Thanksgiving. It doesn't celebrate the landing itself, but it does honor in a way the first settlers.

Thanksgiving does have it's criticism saying that it's offensive to Native Americans, but it's not universial. We're so used to celebrating it in a variety of ways that we don't really care if it's meatless or not.

Instead of 'war on thanksgiving', it's 'war on christmas' over here.

[feelotraveller]

C'mon you Turkeys, get with the program!

[Reudh]

Gosh this probably isn't the best topic of conversation to weigh in on on a left-leaning forum whilst tipsy. Hrmmm.

Oh well, let's just crucify this Latham dude for glorifying the consumption of meat to begin with, that's the bigger issue here anyway.

You don't know Latham if you're defending him, haha. Even the right wing folks usually keep well clear of him, he's a fucking lunatic.

[scriver]

Is the date they are moving it to of some other historical importance or just a random date? Asking because if I were Australian I'd want it to still be a date that matters. Like say, when you received independence from Britain or something.

@smjjames - my immediate thought was that it was more like Columbus Day.

[Reudh]

Is the date they are moving it to of some other historical importance or just a random date? Asking because if I were Australian I'd want it to still be a date that matters. Like say, when you received independence from Britain or something.

@smjjames - my immediate thought was that it was more like Columbus Day.

There's no federal movement, so far as I know. Most movements to change the date are at council level, and generally only in Greens areas (read: inner melbourne seats like Yarra or areas like Melbourne Ports.)

Australians as a whole are somewhat against changing it. According to a Guardian Essential poll:

26% were for changing the date
54% were opposed, including 38% strongly opposed to overhauling the day at all to include something like remembrance.

70% of respondents stated that they "believed everyone could celebrate on that day"
and 18% stating that not everyone is likely to celebrate (eg, anglo-australians and migrants celebrating the nation's birth and growth, vs aboriginals who see 26/01 as the date they lost their land.)

Those most concerned with leaving Australia Day on 26th or not, were Greens voters (40% of respondents) or university-educated (25% of respondents.)

29% of respondents approved of editing inscriptions on public statues and memorials to incorporate the split in history; while it is a happy day for the majority of the country, it is a mournful day for aboriginals.
42% disapproved.

Respondents most likely to approve of "updating the historical record" were Greens voters (43%), Labor voters (39%), and voters aged 18-34 (39%.)

Those respondents most likely to disapprove of any changes were, surprise surprise, Liberal National voters, "people intending to vote for groups other than the major parties" (ie. those voting for Pauline Hanson or other lunatic fringe parties), and older voters.


In my opinion, there are few candidate days to move it to. I'd be perfectly happy with incorporating changes to the historical record or public memorials in remembrance of past atrocities, and the fact that it wasn't terra nullius when it was settled by Europeans. I don't think it should be moved, but it's entirely possible to have a day with both a celebration and a memorial.
Something like what we do on Remembrance Day could be entirely viable, a minute's silence and reflection. (Disclosure: I am generally a Labor voter, am university educated, and am aged 18-34 (25).)

[scriver]

Remembrance Day is your veteran's/WWII day, right?

[smjjames]

Is the date they are moving it to of some other historical importance or just a random date? Asking because if I were Australian I'd want it to still be a date that matters. Like say, when you received independence from Britain or something.

@smjjames - my immediate thought was that it was more like Columbus Day.

Not really, 'more like Columbus Day' would be celebrating when Captian Cook first sighted and landed on the continent as the first European to set foot on it.

I know it's not exactly like Thanksgiving, but it does share a similar historical basis.

[Reelya]

Remembrance Day is your veteran's/WWII day, right?

Not really, Anzac Day is the main veteran's day. That "celebrates" our involvement in WWI at Gallipoli. Remember, the Americans largely sat that war out, so you focus on WWII.

For an idea of the scale, back then we had a total population of 5 million, out of which over 400,000 men enlisted for the war. We incurred 60,000 deaths and 156,000 injured. The deaths alone were 2.5% of the total male population, so it was sort of a big deal. For comparison, that's about 4 times what the USA lost in WWII on per-capita terms.

[smjjames]

WWII does get a bit more attention on Veteran's Day due to historical reasons, but that's not the focus of Veteran's Day as it's not focused on any specific war.

[Reudh]

ANZAC Day is about commemorating veterans, most notably Gallipolli. It was our first great war as an actual nation (we had fought in the Boer War as a colony), and like Reelya said we sent huge numbers of fighting men and had ridiculous casualties because the Brits were happy to let their colonies meatshield for them. 8% of our entire population, so assuming a relatively normal 50:50 split, 16% of the male population, went to war. 2.5% died. That's a fuckload.

ANZAC Day is best described as a day commemorating all Australian and NZ soldiers who've served. Originally, it was just about the Gallipolli campaign, but was expanded to include all servicemen. It is also observed as a holiday in the Cook Islands, Niue (both free associations of NZ), Pitcairn Islands (British, but related to the Norfolk Islanders who are descended from them, an Australian island), and Tonga. Some Dawn Services also occur around the world, most notably in Ypres, a few towns in France, and ANZAC Cove in Gallipolli, Turkey. It occurs on April 25th, the day of the Gallipolli landing in 1915.

Remembrance Day is similar, though it commemorates all Commonwealth nation soldiers. It occurs on 11th of November, the date of armistice in WWII, in 1918. Remembrance Day is considered significantly more solemn than ANZAC Day.

[Jimmy]

So how 'bout that Barny, eh? Seems these days you can't even get your mistress preggers in your free rent apartment without someone kicking up a stink.

[Reudh]

So how 'bout that Barny, eh? Seems these days you can't even get your mistress preggers in your free rent apartment without someone kicking up a stink.

Barnabeetroot? Barnababy? Yeah, sucks to be him. Especially with that roving eye of his. Have they given Michael McCormack his National Party mitre yet, ie. the akubra? I dunno, it's a funny day when Ian McDonald (ie. that nationals member who walked into parliament wearing a highvis shirt showing just who was funding him) pointed out that loopholes allowed mistresses and uh, misters? to be given priority where it was banned from employing your spouse in a similar position.

[Yoink]

I am legally required to vote today. Lawd, what a waste of time.
Looking through this list of candidates (at least it's just a local election) is pretty bleak. There's the Animal Justice Party, which I am unsurprisingly putting at number one (I can't be arsed explaining our strange voting system, to put it simply you number all candidates 1-10), but all of the other options fail to align with my own values very much at all from what I'm reading - and as far as I can gather from what I've read in the past about this arcane voting system, the weight of your vote basically goes to the first candidate in your preferences that would end up with enough votes to win overall.

At least there's this one weird party which somehow manages to be rather conservative yet liberal at the same time - they wanna tax the shit out of foreign nationals whilst legalising recreational marijuana, scrapping road tolls and offering free aged care, dentistry and education. Most of those issues aren't really ones I care about, but their policies are weird enough overall that I might as well vote for them.    

There are also a couple of morons who are expecting votes without even having a website outlining their position or policies as far as I can see, but then one of them is pretty much actually certifiably insane so I suppose that shouldn't come as a surprise. Fukken independents, cluttering up my ballot and causing more meaningless decisions for me.


Ugh! This is a serious nuisance. At least I don't have to walk as far to reach a voting station as I did from where I lived before.
I'm supposed to be getting ready to go see bands tonight, instead I'm wasting time with this. Also I'm writing this post to procrastinate, so I should probably post it already and get on with the task at hand with less distractions...

So, could someone more in-the-know give me the skinny on this Teresa Lieshout person?
As if her surname wasn't amusing enough, she seems to be utterly batshit. There's not really a wealth of concise information to be had on her antics online, though. I saw something about her wild claims of the government trying to assassinate her landing her in psychiatric care? How did she even wind up on the bill??? I'm guessing they needed someone to make up the numbers for this Batman by-election?

Oh yeah, and some info on this Adrian Whitehead person would probably be helpful, too. Although I don't think he deserves a vote considering how piss-poor a job he's done in getting his name and policies out there.