DEAR News Of The Area,

IF there is anything in this world that is certain, it is change (Cancellation of Australia Day citizenship ceremony is un-Australian, NOTA January 12).

Only a few years ago Australia Day was a full-on knees up, with cars decorated with the Australian flag carrying excited young people to their various barbecues while shorts, hats, thongs, towels, tablecloths, faces etc bore the same decoration.

Celebrations are much more muted and less colourful now.

As we become more educated in our history it is hard for ordinary Australians to rejoice when for some of our number January 26 spelled unparalleled disaster.

While acknowledging my British heritage I am immensely proud of being Australian, not least because I tread the same soil as a people with thousands of years of unbroken society behind them and whose resilience and generosity have bred leaders today who carry those qualities into public life.

I love to contemplate the delegation of Aboriginals led by William Cooper who walked into Melbourne to the German embassy in 1938 to protest that country’s treatment of the Jews, while the rest of the world stood helplessly by.
I suspect Council is responding to a general feeling in the public by changing (not cancelling) the day for citizenship ceremonies, while Woolworths and Aldi are making business decisions not to stock additional Australia Day products.

For them it’s all about supply and demand.

I really want to celebrate being Australian and I know one day it will be possible to have a proper knees up all together.

Regards,
Margaret ENGLAND,
Toormina.