In a sign of how divisive Australia Day has become, this is as close as you’ll get to an acknowledgement of 26 January in our major supermarkets, and editor Lyndon Keane says it adds to the case to change the date – once some more urgent, everyday First Nations problems are solved, that is. Photo: Cape York Weekly.
Australia Day has come and gone, which means it’s time to reflect on the incredible achievements individuals and groups in our communities have recorded over the past 12 months, and the positive effect their efforts have had in our own backyard and beyond.
It’s also the time of year that brings out the worst in humanity as advocates for and against changing 26 January as the date we celebrate our nation lock horns in a vile battle of divergent opinions, cringeworthy slogans and a tsunami of online vitriol. The annual onslaught of name calling, dog whistling and shaming from both camps has become a national disgrace, and the main reason it is now the most hated of public holidays for a growing number of Australians, this frustrated scribe included.
There is no doubt the date has genuinely traumatic associations for generations of Indigenous Australians. That in itself is enough to warrant shifting it to an arbitrary spot on the calendar that provides for a long weekend in summer for us to celebrate what, if we’re honest, are the key elements of a true Australia Day celebration – mateship, community spirit, a sense of unity, and the opportunity to burn a few snags on a barbecue at the beach while wondering how the hell we got so lucky to live here. Oh, and the perennial Australia Day lamb ad campaign.
Calls to change the date have become a flaming political football, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese rejecting calls to do so while clumsily avoiding having any real skin in the debate, ostensibly as to not disenfranchise more moderately-leaning voters with a federal election on the periphery. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, on the other hand, says we should be “ashamed” of those who don’t want to celebrate Australia Day on 26 January in an iron-fisted, blinkered political flex that not only offers authentic insight into the man’s personal views, but is also designed to garner support from the punters with a penchant for sharing jingoistic memes on social media and wearing our flag as a cape.
The most vocal push to separate Australia Day and 26 January is coming from Indigenous leaders who are so far removed from everyday Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as they spit bile and rhetoric from their multimillion-dollar homes in some of the best postcodes in the country, and metropolitan lefties with form for championing the cause of whatever the internet has told them is trending that week, and whose sole exposure to Indigenous Australians has been watching the first season of Redfern Now, or that one time they sat across from a blackfella on a bus from Fitzroy into the city.
The problem is that so many of us are banging on about changing the date at the top of our voices without acknowledging doing so will do nothing to solve the more pressing problems crippling everyday Indigenous Australians in spots like Cape York and the Torres Strait. You know, shameful gaps in health, education and welfare outcomes, overcrowding that makes you ask if it’s physically possible to fit that many people into one house, horrific rates of domestic violence, racism and appalling stereotypes that cause many to be looked down upon as a lesser class of human by their fellow Australians. Those things cause more grief to Indigenous Australians on a daily basis than spending countless time and resources arguing what date we fire up the barbecue and wave Chinese-made national flags in a poor attempt at unified patriotism.
As one Cape York Traditional Owner observed when I spoke to him recently – “That day (26 January) has some bad memories, yes, it does, but us mob have enough problems every day of the week to worry about when people in the city wanna celebrate together”.
Is there a case to change the date? The smart money is on absolutely yes, but only after we work together to find a solution to the embarrassing disparities impacting Indigenous Australians 365 days each year. That way, when a new date is chosen, all of us can passionately celebrate everything that’s great about our communities and this country we call home.
