Amanda Vanstone | Now is the time to change the date of Australia Day

It is not the date that is important. It's what has been achieved. Celebrating an achievement is sensible and unifying. Celebrating a date in itself is not. Particularly when that date has negative connotations for First Australians.

We should all be able to agree that where we are now is something worth celebrating. Whether you were born here or migrated here you live in a country that is safe, stable and free. The opportunities exceed the imagination of those born and living elsewhere in much more impecunious circumstances. Starting from that point of agreement how would we, starting with a clean slate, pick a date.

The current one would be no good. It clearly aggravates a vocal section of our Indigenous community and is seen as offensive in various degrees by others. There's no escaping that what irks some Indigenous Australians is choosing a date to celebrate our nation that focuses on the arrival of the British. It is seen as "invasion" day. Some may disagree with that interpretation. Understandably some see it as an overly aggressive depiction of what actually happened. But if you're Indigenous that event, the British settling, whatever the date, has a particular potency.

Some who are either disingenuous or ill-informed say we should stick with the date because it was never about Governor Phillip but about the enactment of the Nationality and Citizenship Act on that day in 1949. That is not true. Arthur Calwell told our Parliament the act would be proclaimed on January 26 because that was Australia Day.

So we should just ditch the date. Find a new one. Celebrate the achievement.

One option would be to choose January 1. It is after all when we became a nation. We could shift the New Year's Day holiday to a New Year's Eve holiday and follow that with our new Australia Day date. It sounds a good idea but it might not be good and sound. The public holiday pay rates knock small hospitality establishments around badly. Many shut. Having shut around Christmas, to shut an additional day, leaving three public holidays in the space of a week or so might be just too hard on the cash flow. A biggish business might have the cash flow but smaller operators are often hand to mouth and this might be difficult. It's worth investigating.

There are other dates - some of which only highlight the "Britishness" and may be just as bad as January 26. Sadly I've mislaid, temporarily I hope, a letter from a listener to the program I do on ABC RN called Counterpoint. He had an idea for a new date that related to Flinders and Bungaree circumnavigating Australia. It's been years but I live in hope that it will one day just drop out of a book where I must have put it for safekeeping.

It is worth mentioning that whilst I see the need to find common ground in a date for Australia Day, I wish some Indigenous activists sought a similar place. The constant denial of anything good coming from white settlement is unhelpful, divisive and stupid. Ditto the non-Indigenous Australians who seem indifferent to the terrible things that were done both by the British and some colonists.

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We are all here together now. We need to move forward together. We are no longer a British colony or outpost, despite our history. We have citizens from over 200 ethnic groups around the world. Whatever has happened in the past that's where we are now. The non-Indigenous Australians today are not responsible for what others did hundreds of years ago. Why should a young boy or girl who comes here from India or Ukraine full of hope for a brighter future be made to bear the burden of the wrongs of others. It is crazy. Frankly it is also cruel. Additionally, those activists who present nothing but an angry face do their cause little good. Seriously, no one wants to sit next to the angry grump. It just doesn't work.

At the same time, we need to recognise all the good things that happened post-white settlement. Europeans brought with them access to the store houses of knowledge across Europe. We are all better off for that.

Indigenous Australians are called First Australians for good reason. But they've been joined here by people from near and far. What should bind us all together is the hope of a better future and the determination to build it, together. We are one of the very few nations on Earth who decided peacefully to form a nation. We have stable government, tremendous wealth and above all, freedom. What more can you want? Personally, I like the New Year's Eve, New Year's Day celebration