The King’s birthday was first celebrated in 1788 on George III’s birthday and this long weekend is a reminder that Australian independence is unfinished business.
Charles Arthur Philip George Mountbatten-Windsor was born on 14 November 1948 but most Australians are, for the second time, enjoying a long weekend to celebrate his “birthday”.
For 70 years Charles’ mother’s pretend “birthday” marked the beginning of the Australian winter migration north of people and whales seeking warmer climes, while skiers anxiously hoped that – despite climate change – snow might still fall and the season open.
Now calendars and diaries have changed to declare it the King’s birthday and it’s time to thank Charles III for the long weekend – not that he’s picking up the bill.
The days nations choose to celebrate says a lot about their sense of themselves. Americans celebrate independence, Thanksgiving, the end of slavery, the life of a murdered civil rights leader and veterans. New Zealanders note the Waitangi Treaty, Matariki, the Māori new year, and the monarch’s birthday. Canadians have added a Truth and Reconciliation Day to days that commemorate independence, remembrance and the legacy of Queen Victoria. Ireland is replete with days for Gaelic and Catholic saints.
Australia’s public holidays send a uniquely confusing picture of a place apparently set in aspic. A place that isn’t knowledgable or proud enough of its authentic history to use its public holidays to send a clear message.
Every year Australians endure the pain caused by the refusal to resolve the heartache of the misnamed Australia Day and on Anzac Day respectfully mourn the loss of life in overseas wars, while ignoring the Indigenous and other lives lost in wars fought on this soil.
Labour Day is a holiday celebrated almost everywhere but Australia’s unique claim as the place where in 1856 the eight-hour day was first won, by striking Melbourne stonemasons, and decades of determined action for better conditions, has been lost from public memory.
There are other days we could celebrate that would paint a very different picture of the nation.
The campaign to end transportation of convicts succeeded in the eastern colonies on 9 May 1851, despite resistance from London and pastoralists, and gave birth for the first time to a flag featuring the Southern Cross. At the time its success was described as the antipodean Boston Tea Party.
The Eureka stockade on 3 December 1854 is best known as an event leading to self-government. The drive for independence, and the world-first full voting rights for all men, was mirrored in all the colonies within a decade, which some states now deem worth remembering.
On 18 December 1894 South Australia became the first place in the world to grant women the vote and the right to stand for parliament.
Australians are very familiar with the shame of the White Australia policy but less familiar with the 24 March 1966 legislation that signalled it was a thing of the past.
The overwhelming vote in support of Indigenous people on 27 May 1968 is recognised as Reconciliation Day but not a national holiday.
Jump forward to 3 March 1986 and the passage of the Australia Act made the country fully independent of Britain a mere 85 years after Federation.
We should have been able to add to this list 6 November 1999 and 14 October 2023, the dates of the failed referenda to establish a republic and meaningfully recognise the first peoples.
It took a decade of debate and two votes for the colonies to become a federation. It is impossible to know what would have happened if the second federation referenda had also been lost. Would they have persisted? If not, Australia today could be six competing nations, not one commonwealth.
Now failed referenda are dropped and forgotten, rarely discussed except to say they are too hard and won’t be revisited.
These days would tell a national story much richer and more hopeful. They send a message that, with persistence, change is possible.
For its first two decades Australia was regarded as a land of experiments people from around the world came to study as a beacon of hope. A place free of fear, fit for a new century.
The devastation of the imperial war dashed this hope. And, in a precursor of the politics we have endured ever since, skilful politicians and their friends in the press created an alternative narrative. They began the drum beat that reached a crescendo with the lavishly financed centenary celebration of the war, that the already formed nation was actually born in the killing fields of Europe.
The British sidestep this complicated stuff by calling their days off “bank holidays” – fitting given the centrality of finance to the British economy – and sports-mad Queensland moved the Kings’ birthday holiday to early October to coincide with the rugby league grand final.
So maybe it is best to just enjoy the public holiday, count the whales, dream of the snow, watch a movie and not think about what it represents.
