AARON PATRICK: As the nation becomes more diverse, Australia Day is getting more popular

As an F-35 Lightning Air Force jet screamed over Sydney Harbour, where thousands had gathered to celebrate Australia Day on Monday, Apurva Jain looked up to the sky and cheered — for the new life she’s building.

Ms Jain, who lives in Western Sydney and was born in India, attended the harbour celebrations with her husband for the first time to help foster in her children, a 10-year-old daughter and a one-year-old girl, a love for their new country.

“If they connect with Australia emotionally, that’s a very good thing,” she said, while standing in the shadow of Sydney Harbour Bridge wearing a green and gold-Australian themed top. “After all, they’re the future of Australia.”

At the same time as the Jain family were enjoying the best of Australia, thousands were mourning what they consider its worst.

A few kilometres away, members of one of the world’s oldest existing civilisations assembled at Hyde Park, Australia’s oldest post-colonial parkland.

Blak Caucus

Speeches at the “Invasion Day” protest, organised by a group calling itself the “Blak Caucus”, focused on the taking of Indigenous Australians’ land.

In a reminder that the scourge of domestic violence is felt particularly hard in Indigenous families, a speaker acknowledged Sophie Quinn, the pregnant Indigenous woman allegedly shot last week by ex-partner Julian Ingram, who remains in the run.

“We will never see her hold her baby for the first time or see him wrap his little hands around his fingers,” organiser Paul Silva said.

In a procession stretching almost a kilometre, they marched out of central Sydney towards Sydney University, chanting anti-police and anti-settlement slogans.

One senior police officer present said there may have more people than last year, where police estimated there were 15,000 protesters, although it was difficult to estimate. Angry drivers stuck at intersections beeped their horns.

No one had been arrested by 2pm, the policeman said, although witnesses saw officers remove a couple of counter-protestors who separately stormed into the march wearing the Australian flag over their shoulders.

Immigration

Amid the competing national narratives – pride and shame; settlement and dispossession – a third view that has become more prominent over the few years sought attention.

At least a thousand people opposing immigration attended the March for Australia, including some who called for the release of Joel Davis, a leader in the neo-nazi National Socialist Network being held for allegedly threatening a politician online.

There were scuffles in Melbourne and Brisbane, Anthony Albanese was heckled in Canberra and a bomb scare in Perth. But on Sydney’s streets, and no doubt elsewhere, the mood was friendly, relaxed and happy.

On a train a young black boy asked his father why a woman was in a dress that served as a life-size Australian flag. The wearer, who was born in Chile and has lived in Australia over 20 years, said it was because she loved her country so much.

Support rising

Which may be one small example why support for celebrating Australia Day on January 26 — the day the first fleet arrived — has risen each year for the past three years to 68 per cent, according to Resolve Strategic, a polling firm.

Only 16 per cent want to change the date, an act that would be a repudiation of national pride. Low support for the anti-Australia Day movement suggests that new Australians want to embrace national cultural symbols – a sentiment that bodes well for Australia Day celebrations in years and decades to come.

About 30 per cent of the Australian population was born overseas, compared to about 15 per cent in the US and the UK, and more than 2 million Australians were born in China or India, according to former prime minister Tony Abbott, whose recent published history of Australia has sparked a renaissance in interest in the subject.

In an essay to mark the start of the year, Mr Abbott argued that immigrants arrive “to join us, not change us” because they are attracted to what is here. When they do well, the feeling is reciprocal, he said.

“Almost nothing engenders more pride in Australia than someone from an obvious migrant background, speaking with a broad Australian accent, succeeding in something that reflects well on our country,” he wrote.

Which may be the best argument for Australia Day: its affirms that whether your family arrived in 1788 or earlier, or you took the citizenship oath in 2026, Australia is for everyone.