Hello all.
I intended to add a comment to the topic of discussion "Happy Australia Day", but have been very busy.

To avoid having my comments lost in that post, which is now old, I am posting it here as I believe that it will dispell some of the
anti-European propaganda that is fed to us everyAustralia Day, just like clockwork.

I spent Australia Day at Glenbrook Park, in the township of Glenbrook, as I have done for six of the last seven years.

There, myself and many others celebrated the day by listening to, and watching, entertainers dancing, singing and in one case playing the Didgeridoo.

Unfortunately each year at this time, a loud minority strive to diminish and criticise the great achievements made by those who settled this continent.

One derogatory and divisive term used by the the loud minority is “Invasion Day”

I feel this is slanderous to the memory of those who came here, “not of their own free will”.
My, Great, Great, Great, Great, Grand Father, came to Australia in 1790 as a Private in the
102nd Regiment of Foot. He had no say as to not leaving his Family, for ever! To refuse to obey orders would have meant certain execution.

Likewise, I am certain that those convicted for what we now consider minor crimes, like stealing food to feed the family, did not want to be sent away from their families, never to see their spouse and or children again.

No. I do not call them Invaders. If anything, they are the true Stolen Generations.

Wayne.

That is the strange thing about 'Invasion Day' - the officers and sailors of the Royal Navy represent the minority in the group that sailed on the First Fleet. The rest were a mix of private sailors (nine of the ships were chartered vessels), criminals and free settlers. So most of those who completed the journey set foot on Terra Australis without a gun, without a cutlass, without a sword.

Not much of an invasion, is it...

To me, it'll always be Australia Day.