The 26th of January ought obviously be nixed as an Australian national day of “look how wonderful we are” ala the US 4th of July. A day of mourning re the commencement of British colonisation is the most obvious thing to do with 26 Jan. In the event that both thinking conservatives and braindead bogan Aussies refuse to stomach that, here’s an alternative for 26 Jan based in historical fact. The North American east coast was full of European colonies that starved, disappeared or became unviable. The Port Jackson colony was touch & go for much of its early existence. The Aussie Thanksgiving argument goes something like this. 26 January could feasibly become an Australian Thanksgiving Day. The people being thanked are the Ngāpuhi traders who brought food and other supplies from the Northland of NZ to make the Fatal Shore of Port Jackson less fatal for the colonists. BUT FOR the provision of surplus potatoes and pork shipped over by Ngāpuhi from Kororāreka from early 1800s to mid 1840s, the Port Jackson/Sydney/NSW colony may have suffered the same fate. There is no viable NSW Colony 1800-1840 without trade and commerce driven by Ngāpuhi. Yes, I’ll flesh that out in something peer-reviewed. A growing colony can’t grow if that colony is perpetually short of food. IF there is one thing all Māori, not just Ngāpuhi, do instinctively well, it is ensuring everyone has enough kai (food). Beyond glib footnotes and bare paragraphs covering off that “food from New Zealand” was important in supporting the early Australian colonies, there’s not a lot of literature that specifically tackles this. I’ll fix that. Dependency on kai from Kororāreka/Russell also draws the modern Australian reader back to the obvious fact that possession and conquest of arable inland parcels was vigorously opposed by the First Australians. Peaceable settlement is a myth and dispossession by conquest and violence is a fact.