Her Majesty's Birthday. Not.

June is nearly upon us, featuring as it does Her Majesty’s Birthday’s public holiday, on the second Monday of the month. Her Majesty’s actual birthday falls – as all Australians know, of course – on the 21st April. Why Australia’s dutiful and respectful observance of its monarch’s birthday occurs on this June date is down to rather odd circumstances. Until very, very recently – 1936 – our monarchs’ birthday public holidays were celebrated on the actual day of birth, a tradition which goes back to one of the earliest tourists to this country, Governor Arthur Philip, who established the day in 1788, to mark the birthday of George III, which is – as of course we all know – the 4th June. Yet 148 years later, following His Majesty George V’s passing (20th January; His birthday was 3rd June, of course), the date was set in administrative stone, and for some strange reason those administrators chose the second Monday in June. Contrary to some popular theories held by silly old people, this second Monday in June is not the day formerly known as Empire or Commonwealth Day, which was Queen Victoria’s birthday, the 24th May. Be all that as it may, the second Monday in June is what we now have. I for one would like to see public holidays (without pay) observed for all our monarchs’ birthdays, going back to, say, 1603. It would amount to 17 public holidays a year, the majority of them falling in late May, early June, and November. Perhaps I am far too forward-thinking when it comes to recognizing these birthdays? Yet that is the bold spirit to embrace – to dare to dream of a better and more enlightened future for us all. An Australia anew.