Mr Mundine, who has previously voiced his support for changing the date from January 26 but also called for a stop to the annual debate, said the biggest problem with shifting Australia Day was what date to choose.

"I thought, well, like Independence Day in the United States, what was our Independence Day for Australia? And of course we all know that's the 1st of January in 1901," he said.

"Now being a good dinky-di Aussie, I wasn't going to give up a public holiday."

Former PM Tony Abbott's former Indigenous adviser said he had actually "swung back a bit the other way".

"Australia Day is always going to important. Why? Because that was the day that Arthur Phillip came into Sydney, brought all those convicts out here and everything who probably didn't want to be here in the first place," he said.

"And there's a lot of Australians who are descendants from that and so that's an important date for us as a nation to look at that because it did change Australia."

In response to Prime Minister Scott Morrison's suggestion of a new national day to celebrate Indigenous people, Mr Mundine, a former Labor Party president, said the country already had NAIDOC Week.

"I know the Prime Minister's looking at trying to resolve an issue and trying to put to bed before an election because he's got to deal with more important issues," he said.

"Let's be honest, changing Australia Day, doing a lot of this other symbolic stuff, is not going to create economic benefits for Aboriginal people, it's not going to get them out of poverty, it's not going to get the kids educated, it's not going to get health improved."

Mr Mundine was speaking at LibertyFest in Brisbane, promoted as a libertarian conference of "dangerous and disruptive ideas".

Others due to speak at the conference were One Nation Senate candidate Malcolm Roberts and LNP senator Amanda Stoker and George Christensen.