australia day only became a national holiday in 1994, primarily for promoting multiculturalism and national identity, so a top-down government propaganda move, but for most people it was just another day off. a small number of people started claiming it for their own as a pro-nationalist day, at the same time, the left-leaning milieu started calling it "invasion day", the day the aborigines had their land stolen. you must realise, australia isn't nationalistic culture like the usa, people don't normally put the australian flag on everything, like in their front yard. people who bought australian flags for australia day were probably immigrants who didn't have a clue about australian culture and wanted to fit in. there's no tradition about it, it's literally three decades old. yes, there are a few weirdos who make a big deal about it and want to celebrate australia day and australian values (whatever they are) and all that but the average person doesn't care. so then you have supermarkets trying to turn into into another commercialised holiday like christmas or whatever, so they're selling crappy plastic flags and hats with the flag on it and so on, but they probably didn't sell that much so then they said they wouldn't be selling it; then right wing idiots who commentate on this shit came out and said the supermarkets were caving to aborigines, or to multinational agendas or whatever, so they're just bitching and moaning about it. then you get certain politicians catering to it and saying it's un-australian and so on. anyway, bottom line, if you are a real australian, australia day is just another day off to do whatever the fuck you want and you don't waste you hard earned money buying lame plastic shit from the supermarket and you don't have an "australia day bbq" (usually only recent immigrants do this shit to try and act australian), you just do whatever the fuck you want on your day off.
Australia