ANZAC Day is the only day that really has any national or cultural resonance. Australia Day, Queen's Birthday etc are becoming historically irrelevant to modern Australians.

Carmel Tebbutt made a nice gaffe for an education minister;

When asked about the meaning of Australia Day on Sydney radio station Nova, Ms Tebbutt did not appear to either. "We celebrate Australia Day because that's the day that we became a nation and the states joined together," she said.

When picked up on the blunder, she made this correction. "Sorry, you've got me too early in the morning. Well, Australia Day of course is Europeans arrival in Australia."

If three-quarters of teenage kids don't know what Australia Day commemorates, and adults such as the NSW Education Minister are getting it wrong, it is not because of a lack of teaching, it is because the holiday has no cultural relevance.

When I was a teenager I used to think of Australia Day as being the end of the Festival of Sydney; an event I loved as my family would travel in from the Western Suburbs to wander through Hyde Park and the Domain to see what was on.

I was a teen in the late 80s so many Australia Days were met with protests from Aboriginal People which meant that most kids my age knew what Australia Day was for from the news.

There will be the howls from cultural conservatives that we are losing our British heritage and consequently the culture that centres us and nurtures our nation. The fact is culture and history only survive as long as our grand-children are prepared to remember it.

The old fogey's in Canberra might be concerned and are willing to use the public purse to chase that concern, but if it is not resonating with teenagers, it isn't a failing of education, history, or culture - it means the culture has moved on to a form of Australianism which doesn't require British grounding to be complete.