Australia Day, Belonging, and the Future We Choose

A reflection on history, stewardship, democracy, and shared nationhood

By Mark Neugebauer

17 January 2026

I love this country.

Not in a slogan sense, but in the way a person loves the only place that has ever held their story. The land where their parents are buried. Where their children learned to walk. Where their grandchildren now laugh in the same sun that once warmed their own childhood.

I am a first-generation Australian. My family arrived long after 1788. I do not claim ancient ancestry in this land. Yet Australia, is the only home I know. It is where my life has unfolded, where responsibility, work, faith, and family have shaped who I am.

While I am a first-generation Australian myself, my wife’s family ties in this country stretch back to the 1800s. Our children and grandchildren now carry multiple generations of connection, memory, and responsibility bound up in this place. I mention this not to make a claim of superiority or to compete with Aboriginal connection to Country, but to name a reality: for millions of Australians, this land has become the only home their families have ever known across many generations. Belonging, for them, is not abstract, it is lived, inherited, and deeply personal.

As a Christian, I do not believe that any person or group truly owns the land. I believe the earth is not ours to possess absolutely, but to steward responsibly. Nations are not built on ownership alone, but on shared values, mutual obligation, and a commitment to the common good of all who call that place home.

It is also worth being honest about how Australia Day came to be.

The date of 26 January traces back to 1788, when the British First Fleet began colonisation at Sydney Cove. In the early years, it was marked in New South Wales as “Foundation” or “Anniversary Day,” while other colonies observed different dates for many years.

It was not until 1935 that Australian governments agreed to adopt 26 January as “Australia Day” nationwide, and not until 1994 that governments again acted to fix the celebration on that date each year rather than the nearest Monday. These were decisions made through law and intergovernmental agreement, not through a popular vote, but with broad public acceptance over time.

I note this not to diminish the day, but to clarify something important. Acknowledging how the day was established does not diminish what it has become, nor does it require surrendering it to those who would reduce Australia to a story of shame.

Australia Day matters to me because shared civic moments matter. Without them, we slowly fracture, not into justice and injustice, but into parallel moral communities that no longer recognise one another as equally belonging.

Truth matters. History should be told honestly.

Australia’s past includes dispossession, violence, and injustice toward Aboriginal peoples. That reality should neither be denied nor softened. Silence does not heal; it hardens.

But truth-telling must be guided by moral humility. As a Christian, I believe no generation inherits moral innocence, or moral guilt, by birth alone. Responsibility is real, but it is not transferable across time as a permanent moral status.

Truth should lead to reconciliation, not to the creation of enduring moral hierarchies. When historical suffering becomes the basis for present-day moral ranking, truth risks becoming a tool of division rather than understanding.

We can acknowledge what was done wrong without deciding that some Australians stand in a permanently different moral relationship to the nation than others.

Many Aboriginal Australians speak not of owning the land, but of belonging to it, of custodianship rather than possession. I respect that deeply.

As a Christian, I recognise a parallel belief: that land is entrusted to us, not owned by us in an absolute sense. Stewardship implies care, restraint, accountability, and responsibility to those who come after us, not domination.

Stewardship, however, is not only spiritual or symbolic it has also been costly.Across two world wars and other conflicts closer to home, Australians gave their lives defending the nation as it existed at the time, often far from its shores and sometimes on its own soil. Those who served and died came from colonial families, Aboriginal families, and migrant families alike.

I do not raise this as a claim of ownership, but as a reminder of responsibility. Blood was spilled not to possess the land, but to protect the people who lived upon it and the values they held in that moment of history. That sacrifice, too, forms part of the moral inheritance we carry forward together.

Where I become concerned is when stewardship language is translated into exclusive authority, legal ownership, or governance arrangements that privilege one group over others based on ancestry.

True stewardship does not exclude. It does not displace shared belonging. It does not turn moral responsibility into political hierarchy.

A nation is healthiest when stewardship is joint, shared across peoples, generations, and communities, each bringing their history, values, and obligations into a common civic life.

Belonging must not become conditional.

South Australia is now well advanced in implementing elements of the Uluru Statement at a state level, including a First Nations Voice, truth-telling processes, and plans for treaty negotiations.

These developments deserve careful scrutiny, not reflexive rejection or uncritical celebration.

Our history already teaches us that ancestry-based power structures, even when introduced with good intentions, erode equality before the law. From the White Australia Policy to the exclusion of Aboriginal Australians from full citizenship, inequality has always produced injustice.

As a Christian, my concern for equality before the law is not merely legal, but moral. I see it as a safeguard against domination, resentment, and permanent division.

Temporary injustices should be addressed directly and proportionately. They should not be met with permanent alterations to the structure of democratic representation based on descent.

Over 64% of South Australians voted “No” in the 2023 federal Voice referendum. That vote was widely misunderstood. It was not a rejection of Aboriginal dignity or reconciliation. It was a rejection of ancestry-based governance.

Yet South Australia proceeded to establish a state-level Voice through parliamentary action alone, without a referendum. Subsequent elections attracted very low participation.

Democracy depends not only on legal authority, but on consent. When foundational changes are made without broad public endorsement, trust erodes, even among those who support reconciliation in principle.

Reconciliation imposed without consent is fragile. Reconciliation built on shared agreement endures.

Australia Day does not need to carry moral perfection to retain civic value.

It can hold grief and gratitude together. It can acknowledge historical wrongs without dissolving into self-negation. It can remind us not of superiority, but of responsibility, to one another and to future generations.

Citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day, particularly here in South Australia, reflect something precious: people from many backgrounds committing themselves to a shared civic future.

A nation without shared civic anchors loses its centre. If every symbol must first be purified of complexity before it can be held in common, eventually nothing remains to hold together.

My support for Australia Day as a unifying national celebration does not mean I believe the date itself is beyond question.

In a democracy, no civic tradition is immutable. If a clear and enduring majority of Australians come to believe that the national day should be observed on a different date, that view deserves to be heard, and acted upon, through proper democratic channels.

It is worth being honest about the process. The Australian Government has the legal authority to change the date of Australia Day without a referendum or plebiscite. The date is not constitutionally fixed.

Governments have also already invested significant public resources in reviews, consultations, and studies examining Australia Day and its meaning. Public spending carries with it an obligation to democratic order. Reviews can inform debate, but they cannot substitute for public consent, nor should they be used to steer outcomes in advance of it.

But legitimacy is not only a legal question, it is a democratic one.

Changes of this symbolic magnitude should not occur by administrative drift, institutional pressure, or cultural coercion. They should follow clear public consent, expressed transparently, whether through a petition to government, parliamentary action grounded in an explicit electoral mandate, or another open democratic process.

If Australians wish to change the date, the responsible path is not to hollow out the day by stealth, relocate celebrations without consultation, or frame dissent as moral failure. It is to persuade fellow citizens, make the case openly, and allow the democratic process to do its work.

Unity cannot be imposed. It can only be chosen.And chosen unity is always stronger than unity enforced by silence or fear.

The question before us is not whether history matters. It does.

The question is whether the future will be shaped by shared stewardship or segmented ownership, by a nation moving forward together, or by one quietly reorganised around permanent categories of descent.

My hope is not for erasure, but for maturity:

Truth without permanent moral inheritance

Justice without hierarchy

Stewardship without exclusion

Belonging without condition

I want my grandchildren to grow up knowing the full story of this land, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal alike, and to feel, without hesitation:

This is my home.

I belong here.

And I share responsibility for its future.

That is a vision of Australia, and South Australia, worth protecting.

Further reading - South Australia’s Uluru Statement: Recognising History Without Redefining Equality -

https://www.australiansforbetter.com/articles/sa-uluru-statement