Time to change the date where all can celebrate

Invasion Day/Survival Day events will be held around the country this weekend as organisers have urged Australians to show solidarity to justice for First Nations peoples.

More than 30,000 people have signed a #ChangeTheDate petition started by the Clothing the Gaps company in Melbourne calling for “urgent recognition that January 26 is not a date for national celebration”.

The petition calls on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to reconsider his opposition to changing the date, and “to demonstrate true commitment to the values of inclusion and respect”.

“Acknowledging the pain associated with January 26 is not about division – it’s about healing,” the petition says.

Dr Jill Gallagher, the chief executive of the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, is supporting the petition and told croakey.org that January 26 was not the right date.

“We should be recognising “the rich and vibrant Aboriginal culture and history that existed and thrived long before the First Fleet ever arrived upon these shores,” she said.

The NSW Aboriginal Land Council has also called for a change of date.
“We’re sick of the disrespectful cheap shots about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags, and the Welcome to Country ceremonies,” NSWALC Chairman Councillor Raymond Kelly said in a statement.

“We’re over the divisive Australia Day debate and politicians trying to use our people as punching bags to win votes.”

In Sydney A statue of Captain Cook was splashed with red paint and had its hand and nose knocked off this week, the second time it has been vandalised in 12 months.

The statue was also defaced in 2020, with black spray paint used to write “no pride in genocide” and draw the outline of an Aboriginal flag on the monument.

Karen Mundine, the chief executive officer of Reconciliation Australia, has welcomed the increasing number of mourning events around the day.

“A lot of our research says the more people understand the history of this country and how things happened, not just back in 1788, but how they continue to play out today, [the more] it makes them understand the concept of reconciliation and spurs them to want a different date,” she told the Guardian.

In 1938 – the 150th anniversary of Phillip’s arrival in Sydney Cove – a group of Aboriginal people declared the first “Day of Mourning”.

“We, representing the Aborigines of Australia, assembled in conference at the Australian Hall, Sydney, on the 26th day of January, 1938, this being the 150th anniversary of the whiteman’s seizure of our country, hereby make protest against the callous treatment of our people by the whitemen during the past 150 years, and we appeal to the Australian nation of today to make new laws for the education and care of Aborigines, we ask for a new policy which will raise our people to full citizen status and equality within the community.”

Australia Day only became a pubic holiday in 1994, before then it was only a NSW-specific date.

Reconciliation Victoria this week condemned actions “by political figures, local councils, and sporting clubs that undermine the status of First Peoples”.

They also included “downgrading the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags, limiting welcome to country ceremonies, and efforts to diminish public awareness of the significance of 26 January for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples”.