Updated January 13, 2019 16:24:22

The Federal Government has ramped up its efforts to force local councils to hold citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day.

Debate about the appropriateness of January 26 being Australia Day is ongoing. Here are some alternative dates that could work.

Immigration Minister David Coleman has announced he will update the code that governs how citizenship ceremonies are conducted, to ensure they are held on January 26.

Several councils around the country — including Melbourne's Yarra and Darebin — have already been stripped of their power to host citizenship events after voting to move the ceremonies to a less contentious day.

Yarra City Council replaced its citizenship ceremony with an event "marking the loss of Indigenous culture".

The Government said any breaches to the new code would see more councils lose the ability to host the ceremonies throughout the year.

"At the moment there is no requirement for councils to hold citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day," Mr Coleman said.

"There's no positive requirement for them to do that and what we're saying is we're going to create that requirement."

Prime Minister Scott Morrison denied it was an issue most people did not care about, saying he was making his views about how Australia Day should be respected clear.

"Are these issues supposed to be taboo, are they? We're not supposed to talk about them?" Mr Morrison said.

"We're always told by people you can't talk about this, you can't talk about this. I'm talking about it.

The date of all public holidays are decided at the state level — so how would we go about changing the date of Australia Day?

"I think people want Australia Day to be Australia Day, it's for all Australians."

Mr Morrison also called on people to respect the dress code at citizenship ceremonies, saying it was fine to "put on the boardies and thongs afterwards at the BBQ" but to come appropriately dressed for the formalities.

Councils will have the opportunity to provide feedback on the proposed changes to the code.

Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said the motive behind announcing such a proposal was clear.

"The Government's trying to play a bit of politics," he said.

"It's what the conservatives do to keep their base happy, talking about this.

"There are 537 councils in Australia, about 530 of them already have citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day."

But Mr Shorten said his party would consider the details of the proposal.

Topics: government-and-politics, local-government, community-and-society, australia-day, australia

First posted January 13, 2019 00:07:21