Australia Day date
Australia Day should be about what we celebrate, not what date we do it on.
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A lot of people think that the 26 of January is an important date, but in reality it is fairly unimportant.
Firstly Captain cook did not "discover" Australia on this date. Australia was "discovered" by the Dutch in 1606.
Cook set out from England under direction from King George III, and was given instructions that "with the consent of the natives to take possession of convenient situations in the country". If he found it to be uninhabited (terra nullius), he was simply to "take possession for His Majesty by setting up proper marks and inscriptions as first discoverers and possessors".
The first fleet arrived in Botany Bay over three days from 18-20 January.
Obviously the land was inhabited but on 26 January 1788 Cook claimed possession and marked the proclamation of British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of Australia, then known as New Holland.
After Federation in 1901, a national day of unity and celebration was looked for. It was not until 1935 that all Australian states and territories adopted use of the term "Australia Day" to mark the date, and not until 1994 that the date was marked by a public holiday on that day by all states and territories.
When we think about what we want to actually celebrate as our national day, there are lots more interesting options such as Federation of Australia, 1 January, Australia Acts commencement, 3 March or Opening of the first Federal Parliament, 9 May.
If we want to move forward and include our First Nations people in the celebration though, perhaps the 27 of May would be a more appropriate date. This was the date when the European settlement officially recognised the country's First People.
I think the discussion should be framed around what it is that we actually want to celebrate and not about what day we celebrate it on. We are a young nation, so we still have time to get it right.
Nigel Ayling, Merimbula
Scheme stinks
Since late November 2017, each and every carton of soft drink and beer sold locally is priced from $3.60 to $5 more than in the ACT. Why? The culprit is “Return and Earn” the container deposit scheme – sold to us as the way to reduce litter in the state. But which remarkably does not accept containers that are broken or do not have their original label attached!
This state government initiative has told us we can claim 10 cent refunds from December 1 for all eligible containers returned.
In the whole of the Bega Valley we have only two collection points, one at Bega and the other at Bermagui. During our Christmas shopping, the only reason for us to be in Bega, we tried out the container collection set up – massive reverse vending machines, paid for by you know who!
Success, a bottle went through the glass machine and we received a 10 cent credit to our PayPal account! Then to the next machine for all our plastic bottles – hold on what’s this: “Assistance Required – Please wait or contact customer hotline. We apologise for the inconvenience”.
The federal government is happy – it receives an extra 36 cents to 50 cents GST for every drink carton sold. The state government pockets the rest to the tune of at least $600million per year.
Victoria has reduced litter by almost 60 per cent over the past eight years. Victoria’s approach combines public awareness with convenient infrastructure, identifying litter hot spots and installing appropriate bins to create social norms.
Together with skyrocketing power bills, why is our state government increasing our taxes and cost of living through this container deposit scheme? Surely the government has more important things to manage!
Our Premier Gladys Berejiklian needs to do another “back flip” to cancel this ill considered scheme which taxes us all.
Chris Young, Tura Beach