It’s a public holiday, our 4th of July, if you like. When we first came to Australia, we rather nervously responded to the public invitation. There was a free barbeque on offer, and as we almost flat broke, to the point of counting slices of bread – that was an offer hard to refuse. It was, as new Aussies, still wondering if despite feeling it was wise to get out of SA, a terrible mistake to come here. The currency exchange basically halved my income, and moving is expensive, moving to a new country, doubly so.

No matter if we’d come legally, with a strong FIFO attitude, we thought we might run into problems.

Going was the best thing we could have done. Not only were the people friendly, they were pleased that we wanted to join in. My son got involved in the beach cricket, we met and formed a dozen connections — a few of whom are still friends today. There were people from half a dozen countries, several ethnicities, and far from feeling left out we were drawn in.

We went for a number of years — and while nothing will eclipse our first, they seemed to get better. We knew more people and felt we had found a home. When we finally got our citizenship, we had 10% of the island there to welcome us. Australia Day is the traditional day of welcoming new citizens, and for us and many thousands of others it will always be a very important day.

And then, of course, it suddenly became fashionable with the Australian Left to call it ‘Invasion Day’ to capitalize on it, demanding celebrations stop, the date be changed and instead of being a celebration of people carving a wonderful, livable country out of what had been inhospitable bush and desert, and uniting to form country and a people, a people who fought bravely through World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam… into one long mea culpa flagellation. Most of local governments, state governments largely folded. The free barbeque vanished, so did the various entertainments and kids’ activities. They couldn’t quite get rid of the public holiday, but you could see it was coming.

Australians still took the day as a good one to go to beach (it’s midsummer here) and have a barbie and a few beers. Very Australian. No one said much because you’d get mobbed and cancelled. The left went on aggressively vocal rants every year, their newest trick being destroying war monuments and the like. What had made it a day of national celebration and cohesion was slowly fading away.

But somehow… something changed. In 2023 (Resolve Poll) showed 47% supporting keeping the date, 39% undecided, 14% wanting it changed. The loud 14% had been winning. Except year after year since then the undecided have dropped to…16% – with 2% of them going to the ‘change mob’.

‘Keep the date’ is now 68%. With, interestingly, even higher support among the youth.

Something is changing. As a lot of literature is actually downstream of culture, and merely reflects the zeitgeist (to the horror of those who like to believe that writers lead it. Nah. A few exceptions exist, and literature can sometimes direct the zeitgeist a little, but mostly, it is a product of the time).

I am hopeful. Perhaps the time for books which celebrate the human race, admire our exploration and building… instead of cringe-fest of apology, is coming. I don’t read other languages well enough, and no non-European ones, but I do wonder if they denigrate their own cultures, and attack their history and belittle the efforts of their men, as has become common in English Trad. Pub?

Let’s hope people have had enough. I write books which are long on respect for all the things they’ve been trying to cancel, and I’d like them to get read.

Happy Australia Day.