Today is Australia Day. 

On January 26 1788, Englishman Governor Arthur Phillip raised the Union Jack at Sydney Cove, in New South Wales, and claimed the vast continent as a colony of Britain.

There were an estimated 350,000 indigenous Australians living in the so-called ‘terra nullius’ (no one’s land), where they survived and flourished. On that day their land, with which they held a deep spiritual connection, was wrenched away from them. 

Fifty years after Governor Arthur Phillip raised the British flag at Sydney Cove, Australia Day was officially proclaimed a public holiday. Prior to that, only society’s elite – wealthy colonists and those in government – were at liberty to celebrate.  

In 1838, with the rising prosperity of emancipated convicts, January 26 was proclaimed a day of celebration for all.

But on that day, those who had occupied the country for more than 65,000 years before white settlement, mourned their loss.

Introduced diseases killed Aboriginal people in their thousands; forced re-settlement marginalised hundreds. The removal of generations of children from their families denied them love as well as their Aboriginality.

Now known as the ‘Stolen Generations’, some of their harrowing and deeply disturbing stories can be read in ‘Bringing Them Home’, a report by the Australian Human Rights Commission.

 

 

Professor Mick Dodson, Australian of the Year, thinks we should hold a ‘national conversation’ about the possibility of changing the date of Australia Day to a date that’s less flagrantly offensive to indigenous Australians. I agree.

Since the first Walk for Reconciliation in 2000, hundreds of thousands of people have walked through Australian cities and towns on National Sorry Day. This annual walk has become a symbolic gesture of the deep regret and profound sorrow which most non-indigenous Australians feel for the wrongs inflicted upon indigenous Australians.

After Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s moving apology to the Stolen Generations, many in the Australian community feel that the time has come to do much more than walk, much more than talk.

Today, as you gather with your family, friends and community for Australia Day festivities, perhaps you could start the ball rolling by asking: ‘What do you think about moving Australia Day to a date that’s less offensive to indigenous Australians?’

A tiny step, perhaps, but maybe an important move towards ‘walking the talk’.

Photos by John Mayger