Don't let Australia Day debate fade away for another year

It's worth continuing this debate beyond the lead-up to January 26 each year.

There has long been disquiet about tying Australia Day to the raising of the British flag at Sydney Cove, particularly because of the consequences for Aboriginal Australians. There are at least two more attractive dates, September 1 and May 9.

September 1 has been celebrated since 1992 as national Wattle Day, although it is not a public holiday. Although wattle days were originally celebrated on different dates around Australia when different species flowered, September 1 is now widely accepted - and it is the golden wattle that has official status as Australia's floral emblem.

The wattle has a long history as an emblem of Australia, beautifully written up by Libby Robin in Symbols of Australia. It was a symbol used in the campaign for Federation, but became more omnipresent afterwards. It has been part of the coat of arms since 1912, and pressed wattle flowers were sent to soldiers at Gallipoli and on the Western Front.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has one version of the famous portrait of Queen Elizabeth wearing her yellow wattle dress hanging in his office, and Australia's sporting colours of green and gold also celebrate it.

So, the wattle has long been part of the cultivation of an all-Australian sentiment. It also celebrates the Australian environment and is less implicated in the history of one colony than the current Australia Day.

However, there are other alternatives. Before Gallipoli, Australia's identity was linked to its role as a pioneering democracy - introducing manhood suffrage and the secret ballot, and voting itself into existence through popular referenda. Being leaders of the first country in the world where women gained the right both to vote and to stand for parliament, prime ministers also extolled the benefits of this democratic innovation.

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There is a good case for making Australia's national day one that celebrates democracy. The date that springs most readily to mind is May 9. This is the date when Australia's first national parliament was opened, in Melbourne in 1901, the date when the provisional parliament house was opened in Canberra in 1927, and the date when our current Parliament House was opened in 1988.

The main drawback might be its closeness to ANZAC Day. It could also be argued it is inappropriate as a national day, given that these parliamentary openings were all performed by a representative of the British crown - the Duke of Cornwall and York in 1901 (later George V), the Duke of York in 1927 (later George VI), and Queen Elizabeth herself in 1988. However, the royal connection does not really negate the unique democratic significance of the then-new Australian parliament - where there were no property votes or property qualifications and the upper house was popularly elected, unlike anywhere else in 1901.

It could be said that the suffrage for that parliament was not really universal, in that Indigenous Australians, even those with the vote at the state level, were soon deprived of federal voting rights. This is true, but the Federal Parliament was also the source of gradual remediation of these wrongs, and also of other historic milestones such as the 1967 referendum. Jimmy Clements, a Wiradjuri elder, walked from near Tumut to attend the opening of the 1927 parliament house, and despite not having an official invitation, did manage to meet with the Duke of York.

In 1988 there was an Aboriginal protest while the Queen was opening the new Parliament House. Don Chipp, the first leader of the Australian Democrats, said: "In a rather strange way, this outside phenomenon seemed to give real meaning to the many references being made to democracy in the speeches being delivered inside." Many have said something similar about the presence of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy outside what is now Old Parliament House.

Either September 1 for national sentiment or May 9 for democracy would be less divisive than January 26. In a world where authoritarian nationalism is eroding democracy in too many places, let's exchange a sprig of wattle or a democracy sausage for flag-waving on our national day.