Eating a vegemite and cheese on hot buttered toast right now :) Happy Australia Day everyone :)

What is Australia day?

Our national holiday. Anniversary of the day Australia was colonised in 1788.

Australian equivalent of the pilgrims arriving at Plymouth.

Does Australia have something analogous to the american "independence day"? I am assuming they do but, assumptions are not true....

No. Australia never really had an independence day as such. Rather control gradually passed from Britain to Australia. The closest we have would be be Federation in January 1, 1901, but we were not truly independent at that time.
Australia was effectively independent from the 1930s onwards but we only became "officially" independent in 1986.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/we-only-became-independent-of-britain-on-this-day-in-1986/story-e6frg6zo-1226014945554

wow; so there are people alive in Australia who lived under and grew up under british rule? is there a big difference between being semi-autonomous and independent? Like anyone from Australia who remembers, has anything significantly changed or felt different? or is it all superficial?

Most of my father's generation don't even know the words to our national anthem!

Also include:
New Coinage (Pounds to Dollars)
New Measurements (imperial to decimal)
Indigenous land rights
Never ending referendums about actually becoming a republic...

Anything else?

"wow; so there are people alive in Australia who lived under and grew up under british rule? "

No one really perceived themselves to be living under British rule. In reality we made our own rules for the entire 20th century, with only foreign policy officially managed by the British until the 1930s. We're really just talking about the rubber stamping of laws.

The main difference in recent times is that Australia has become more much more multicultural, starting with Greek and Italian immigration after WW2, and then more Asian immigration from the 1980s onwards. Before the 80s Australia was a very Anglo society. Independent but at the same time very much part of the British Empire. Indeed when we had a referendum a few years ago about severing ties with the crown and becoming a republic the motion was defeated (however I suspect that next time it will pass).

But that has been gradually changing for a long time. The first big change is that after WW2 Australia looked more and more to the USA for our defense policy. Australia, being an Island, with small population and an enormous coastline, needs a strong maritime power as an ally. Before WW2 Britain was that power, but by the end of WW2 it was clear that the USA had taken control of the worlds seas. Hence we shifted our allegiances in that direction.

Fun fact: Australia's national anthem was the same as Britain's, 'God Save the Queen' until 1984, when it was replaced by 'Advance Australia Fair', a song the practically no one knows all the word too.

I'd agree that no-one knows the second verse onwards, but everyone I've encountered where it would be relevant is pretty decent at the first verse.

More common is not knowing what half the words actually mean (seriously, though, 'girt' is pretty self explanatory in the given context) or horribly mangling the pronunciation of "advance".

Are you an Aussie, Mouse? Where do you live, if you don't mind me asking? I am in Melbourne.

Where is everyone else based?

Much rather prefer "Waltzing Matlida" as a national anthem. More catchy tune. As all Aussies know its actually a song about a bushie stealing some guys sheep, then committing suicide by jumping into a lake. But other country's have a worse premise for a national anthem.

@spyman - I take and understand the legal premise of 1986 as around the same time the right for British citizens living in Australia (who weren't Australian citizens) to vote was taken away and likewise the right of judicial appeal to the privvy council.

But the real change happened when in WW2 we gave up on the British protecting us and instead looked to America who we've been militarily joined to the hip ever since.

The Queen is still the head of state and we are part of the Commonwealth. I think the queen has more right to "power" In Australia than in uk in political circles but as with uk it is unlikely to be exercised.

spyman: same, Melbourne.

Strider: as I understand it, the Governor General effectively acts as the Queen - confirms that a functioning government exists after an election, then buggers off to engage in ceremonial duties 'til the next election :p

Yes but the Governor general (GG) can refer any bill to the queen for approval. Also no bill of parliament can be ratified with out the royal seal, by the GG or the queen.
If the ruling party or PM is in sufficient trouble, strife or disaray it can be dismissed by the queen. See Gough Whitlam

FYI I'm Sydney based

I did note 'functioning' government, to cover the event of a double dissolution. And was still the GG who did it, though they used the Queen's power.

Better that we have someone to do that, than have to put up with a government not capable of doing anything for the duration of their term...

I live in Brisvegas.

I always thought that Australians viewed your boys being used a meat shields against in place Turkish machine guns in Thrace by Churchill as the beginning of national consciousness.

I remember as a child watching the Aussie Open in which they played Waltzing Matilda with the crowd singing along and which ever Aussie player from the 1960s doing the voice over explained to us in America that the song everyone was singing was not in fact the national anthem which was something else that he did not both to name. He expressed some belief in the silliness of Australia's national anthem selection.

@Amby....The landing at Plymouth was the colonizing of Massachusetts but was more than a decade after Jamestown in Virginia. John Smith of Jamestown mapped the coastline of and named "New England" sailing north from Virginia, and the Plymouth Company effectively bought the colonization rights from the Virginia Company that was busy with Jamestown. There also was the "lost colony" at Roanoke that disappeared more than 30 years before Plymouth. The company responsible for Jamestown also founded a short lived settlement in Maine before Plymouth. But Americans tend to think in terms of Independence and not a lot else. Texans probably know more about Moses Austin and his son Stephen than most Americans know about Myles Standish.

Jesus...since when do we have so many Aussies here?

@mouse....is it the purpose of governments to always be "doing things"? The entire American system of government is predicated on the idea of preventing governments from "doing things".

When governments (read the leaderships of political parties) get to decide when elections are they have the power to obstruct outsiders from interfering. You can't have open primaries without firmly scheduled elections, and without open primaries, you end up with a central party office assigning candidates to regional districts. That is not a system likely to produce responsive government. I wonder whether Tony Benn did not just want to mount a Trotskyite takeover of the British Labour Party, but he could have achieved his publicly stated goals by simply fixing the election calender and then forcing the scheduling of open party primaries. The American South actually had more electoral competition (elected officials were defeated more often) under single party Democrat rule than in the supposedly competitive two party system since 1960.

@GOD...there used to be a lot more.

@mouse the queen is consulted by GG and can direct the GG to act, any action wiuld need to be lawful according to Australian laws and constitution of the land. Same said for Canada and other members of the commonwealth.

AKeeFa - Brissie too.

@gopher - I keep forgetting the Brits had all sorts of issues getting colonies up and running in America. Australia though, bang, colony up and running well from the get-go (mind you 100 years of perfecting the practice in between probably helped!)

And I tend to share your view of what government is for, rather than the prevailing nanny state view of government in Australia.

"New Measurements (imperial to decimal)"

What is decimal measurement? Do you mean metric?