For an entire nation, January 26 has many different meanings, more than backyard cricket, summer holidays and spending time with family.

“It’s probably all these things, but scratch the surface and perhaps it’s more,” mayor Neil Smith said on Tuesday.

“Perhaps it’s the gift that is this land we inhabit. And make no mistake – it is a gift and one to be valued.”

There’s a few countries in the world where the national day is often as widely celebrated without trouble or controversy.

Councillor Smith is right on one point, it’s the gift of opportunity that Australia provides all its citizens – whether born or immigrated.

Australia Day should be more than celebrating the arrival of boats and different cultures, it should be more than mourning the loss of culture and people.

As Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says, ‘there’s no better time to be an Australian’.

And since there’s no better time to be a citizen, there’s no better time than to look ahead to what our future might hold and what we want this country to be.

That discussion has to be whether Australia is strapped to an ageing monarchy on a small island, forever hoping to maintain ancestral links.

Or maybe it acknowledges this country’s first people in the founding document and allows citizens to become a head of state.