Australia Day does not celebrate Captain Cook or the arrival of the First Fleet arrival. There was no invasion!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2. The so called landing of Captain Cook in Sydney Cove happened on the 28th April 1770 \u2013 not on 26th January. Captain Cook simply mapped the East Coast of Australia and collected plant samples, documenting the natural fauna and wildlife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3. The first fleet arrived in Botany Bay on 18th January, 1788 and consisted of approximately 780 prisoners that didn\u2019t want to be here and 550 crew and guards, hardly an invasion fleet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 26th was chosen as Australia Day for a very different and important reason. Australians received their independence from being subject to British Rule and having our own Australian passport and identity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Captain Cook\u2019s landing was included in Australia Day bi-centenary celebrations of 1988 when Sydney-siders decided Captain Cook\u2019s landing should become the focus of the Australia Day commemoration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Modern Australia doesn\u2019t agree or condone what was done under British governance to the Aborigines and the early settlers, including the Irish and many other cultures around the world. However, it is part of our history, and values were different then. Even with the hard rule of the British, they brought Law and Order, the foundations of a successful country, including medicines and science. However, after the horrors of WW2, we decided to try and fix it. We became our own people, with our own identity. On 26th January 1949, the Australian nationality came into existence when the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948 was enacted. That was the day we were first called Australians and allowed to travel with Australian passports as Australian citizens, NOT British subjects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before that special date, all people living in Australia, including Aborigines, were called \u2018British Subjects\u2019 and forced to travel on British passports and fight in British wars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is why the 26th of January is the day new Australians receive their citizenship. It is a day which celebrates the implementation of the Nationality of Citizenship Act of 1948 \u2013 The Act which gave freedom and protection to the first Australians and gives all Australians, old and new, the right to live under the protection of the \u201cAustralian Law\u201d, united as one people and one nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 26th was chosen as Australia Day for a very different and important reason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":170102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[273,999],"tags":[997],"class_list":["post-170540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-australia-politics","tag-australia-day"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=170540"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":170541,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170540\/revisions\/170541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/170102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=170540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=170540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=170540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}