Remembering the Battle for Australia

Abstract

For the last two years, Australia has commemorated, on the first Wednesday in September, the ‘Battle for Australia Day’, to mark the role of Australian forces fighting the Japanese in the Pacific in WWII. The aim of this article is to identify the agents involved in the campaign for the gazetting of this day and the justifications advanced; to trace the conflicting narratives and political and historical controversies surrounding the notion of a ‘Battle for Australia’; and to outline the shifts in domestic and international politics and generational change that provide the context for the inauguration of this day.