This is the copy of a letter sent to Dr Richard Di Natali when he suggested the date of Australia Day be changed to some other date. In his opinion the First Fleet settlers had little to do with the celebrations of Australia Day.

Dear Sir,

I find your attitude to Australia Day hurtful and offensive and not based on the knowledge of what really happened.

Quoting Stan Grant ABC presenter of Aboriginal descent. “Knowledge means more than opinion”.

Also quoting Jacinda Price “Bring together the descendants of the people involved and have a conversation. Look forward not backwards”.

“Australia” began in 1788 as NSW. Prior to this there was no such place. The Aboriginal people did not have a name for the whole continent. Individual clans named themselves not their particular area.

Names on maps were the invention of map makers and their political masters.

History tells us that NSW started as a penal settlement. This is fact. However most of the convicts were victims of the British political and social class system. Class distinction was promoted by the officers of the NSW Corp.

The convicts did not ask to come here. Most, having served their sentence worked hard to establish some sort of life for themselves. They had no money to pay for a return trip to Britain. The women convicts, in the most part were married off to fellow convicts or made servants to the above mentioned officers. My husband’s forebears were married in 1788 by the Rev. Johnson as were many others. In 1988 the family registered over 6000 descendants. By now there would be close to 10,000.

This was just one couple. There were 900 male convicts and 100 female convicts. I haven’t researched who were able to marry at this point in time but by 1805 more women arrived

The first two years the little colony was at starvation point. The wrong tools, poor soil and the lack of farming knowledge took its toll, but in spite of this they survived.

The descendants of the First Fleet gave us the ANZACS and fought and died in WW2. There was a loyalty to Britain because their cultural roots were there; England, Scotland and Ireland.

Many aboriginals today share these roots.

Denying the achievements of the First Fleet, their overcoming of the lack of understanding of the country, their preparedness for the climate, the lack of understanding of the Flora and fauna and mostly how to understand the Aboriginal people and what was happening to them makes one wonder how they survived at all.

Australia came into being, the good, the bad and the ugly on the 26% January l788. A misogynistic beginning, no doubt, as the women were not allowed to set foot ashore (in their bare feet) until the 6th February. Phillip was not declared Governor until the 7th February.

To deny their arrival as being of little or no significance to the development of this country is hurtful and offensive to the thousands of their descendants.

Australia Day should stay 26th January. ,