Timed to Perfection
A couple of minor historic delays pushed our day of civic celebration into the most appropriately languid part of the year, says Fred Pawle
The controversy and increasing busyness of Australia Day, with its photo opportunities for politicians and protests for virtue-signalling apologists, has obscured every good citizen’s key duty on this, our only mass day of civil celebration, which is to do as little as possible.
The day itself is perfectly placed for such inactivity. The relatives have left after the annual Christmas reunion. The Test series, which needs to be followed at least casually if one is to participate in half the conversations in the nation during December and early January, is over, and has been replaced by the Big Bash and one-day series, which can be ignored without compromising one’s patriotism. Likewise, the forced activity of backyard cricket has been abandoned. The kids have not yet returned to school or university. The shock of the early hot days of summer has given way to a languid, familiar affection for hot mornings and balmy nights, just as the skin of even the most sun-shy person has acquired an attractive tanned glow. Most of those who have returned to work have done so without fully shaking off the torpor of the season.
Australia Day, for most of us, is the last chance to embrace this national period of glorious downtime before the new working year begins.
The date, of course, commemorates the raising of the flag by Captain Arthur Phillip in 1788, which was delayed by a few days while he waited at Botany Bay for the slower ships in the fleet to arrive, then worked out that a more suitable place on which to found what would become the most prosperous, freest penal colony in history was the natural harbour a few miles north, later to be called Sydney Cove.
These few historical accidents conspired to push the date that marks the end of our holiday season out to the end of January, and for this we should all be eternally grateful. Can you imagine the confusion it would cause if Phillip had raised the flag on, say, January 4, forcing us to celebrate the national day before the Sydney Test has even begun and some people are still scooping empties from the pool after the new year’s eve party? It would be conspicuously inappropriate, not to mention too hectic. Had Phillip raised the flag three weeks earlier, I suspect most of us would by now have abandoned it and perhaps settled on Anzac Day as a better, albeit more solemn, choice for collective contemplation.
Unlike the politicians and protesters who compete to mark the day as ostentatiously as possible, the civic duty of ordinary citizens is to celebrate Australia Day with friends, occasionally pausing while turning the snags or taking another stubbie from the esky to appreciate our good fortune. Thanks to Phillip’s exquisite timing, Australia Day also gives us the opportunity to idly reflect on the challenges of the year ahead. Writers and philosophers have for centuries espoused the productive insights achieved when the ephemeral stresses of life are stripped away. Australia Day could not be more perfectly timed for this.
This year’s Day will be even better than usual for another reason. Thanks to Triple J shifting its annual Hottest 100 broadcast away from what what it calls “Invasion Day”, older Australians no longer need to pretend they are down with the kids by following the increasingly torturous countdown of the most unlistenable international hits of the previous 12 months, and can settle back with a private selection of Australian classics instead.
Much to the irritation of people like Jimmy Barnes, Khe Sanh will resume its rightful place at the top of most barbecue playlists tomorrow. There is no better way to commemorate the arrival of the First Fleet in Sydney Cove, and the birth of a happy, prosperous and outgoing nation, than by singing “the last plane out of Sydney’s almost gone” with your mates.