A nation with boundless plains to share

By The Canberra Times
Updated April 23 2018 - 8:31pm, first published January 25 2015 - 6:30pm

The Australia of Australia Day is a place, a nation, a people, and an idea. Australia Day is not a political occasion. Nor is celebration of the nation and its people an occasion for dividing the population according to whether they are in or outside some definition of "Australianness". Nor is it about exceptionalism -- a notion, in some other countries, by which people imagine that their land has been blessed or chosen, above other nations, with some consequent right or duty to lord it over others. What is being celebrated here is what we are, and have been and could be. It might be natural for some sense of triumph, togetherness and optimism, but it is not an occasion for abandoning truth, self-criticism or some hope that we can do better.

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