January 26 celebrates our nation – and nothing else

AUSTRALIA Day was first celebrated in 1935.

No other national day celebrating that we were one country existed before that date.

Now, every year we have to endure the complaints and attacks about that date and that day and I think it’s time it stopped.

Is anyone still alive from when the First Fleet arrived?

Do you know if your family committed any atrocities? Of course you don’t and neither do I.

My family arrived at the turn of the last century, they were simple people and made a life in a new country which has grown and we now enjoy.

On January 26, 1788 the free settlers stepped ashore in Australia after sitting for three days at Botany Bay and deciding it was not the best place to start an English colony.

Was it an invasion? No. Was there bloodshed in a war as the Aboriginal inhabitants defended their land? No.

In 1901 we became a country, self-governing, no separate colonies but a nation, Australia.

Was there a protest by the Aborigines? No.

In 1918 the Great War ended where people from this country – Aboriginal and white, new settlers from England and Germany shed their blood in a common belief that they were of one country, Australia.

On January 26, 1935 we as a nation – Aboriginal, natural-born and immigrant – celebrated that we were one nation.

There were no protests or cries of land ownership.

We celebrated our nation built by the hands of our own sweat and blood and determination.

The day was chosen by all and celebrated by all and is now close to being 100 years old.

The day celebrates us as one nation, our achievements and nothing else.

If those who complain or say it is a “sorry day” because the date was chosen by their forefathers, then they are nothing but spoilt brats who complain and stamp their feet in a tantrum.

The kind of children I dare to say their fathers would have sent to bed and lectured as to what it means to be a proper Australian.