27 January

I don't engage much with the Australia Day debates, it's pretty much the same tired arguments every year. But one thing I always do remember, is that the people who arrived in 1788 mostly didn't want to be here. They were prisoners. They certainly didn't want to celebrate the British flag or the birth of the new British penal colony. And I felt that indifference growing up, as John Birmingham delightfully puts it here - Australia Day was always seen as the sort of 'last piss-up of the summer'. One of the things that I think has been uniquely Australian is the total indifference to nationalistic, flag-waving things that start wars overseas. We're a nation of survivors, dumped here by the Brits (who still hold us in contempt). A very healthy distrust of jingoism. I think that's shifting towards a more US-style patriotism now, sadly. Probably because our culture is saturated with American TV and film and social media.