when was australia day first celebrated as a public holiday
Australia Day 1818 was the 30th anniversary of the founding of the colony, and Governor Lachlan Macquarie chose to acknowledge the day with the first official celebration.[18] The Governor declared that the day would be a holiday for all government workers, granting each an extra allowance of "one pound [c. 450g] of fresh meat", and ordered a 30-gun salute at Dawes Point â€“ one for each year that the colony had existed.[19] This began a tradition that was retained by the Governors that were to follow.[15]
Parliament of Australia The Commonwealth of Australia came into being on 1 January 1901 with the federation of the six Australian colonies. The inaugural election took place on 29 and 30 March and the first Australian Parliament was opened on 9 May 1901 in Melbourne by Prince George, Duke of Cornwall and York, later King George V.[9] The only building in Melbourne that was large enough to accommodate the 14,000 guests was the western annexe of the Royal Exhibition Building. After the official opening, from 1901 to 1927, the Parliament met in Parliament House, Melbourne, which it borrowed from the Parliament of Victoria (which sat, instead, in the Royal Exhibition Building until 1927). (The western annexe was demolished in the 1960s.)