It is important that a national and local conversation continues around how and when it is respectful and appropriate to celebrate our nation. Australia Day should be a day which brings people together – not a day that causes pain to any sector of the community.
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Progressing reconciliation between non-Aboriginal Australians and Aboriginal Australians calls for consideration as to whether 26 January is an appropriate date to celebrate Australia Day. It is time to look seriously and sensitively at how the celebration of Australia Day on 26 January tends to divide Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia, contributing to a denial of Australia’s true history.
We do not accept the attitudes represented by some people who inadvertently or deliberately speak to belittle and diminish the feelings of Aboriginal people and their supporters around the history of white settlement, dispossession and the resulting trauma and loss of culture suffered by Indigenous Australians. Our nation needs to be inclusive and respectful of its traditional owners at all levels of government and community.
It is 26 years since Australia formally recognised, through the High Court Mabo decisions, that Australia was occupied prior to the arrival of Governor Phillip and British convicts who landed in Australia around 26 January 1788. Not only was it occupied, it was and is home to the world’s longest surviving culture; a culture that deserves and needs to be recognised and celebrated.
Since the Mabo decision, slow progress has been made in recognising Australia’s First Peoples, and in attempting to rectify the wrongs that were inflicted upon them.
In the last decade a number of Aboriginal groups have sought land rights. One of the most significant land rights agreements in Victoria was the recognition and settlement agreement between the State of Victoria and the Dja Dja Wurung, traditional owners of the area covered by 11 municipalities in Central Victoria of which Hepburn Shire is one, under the Traditional Owners Settlement Act 2010 (Vic). Dja Dja Wurung land rights commenced on 24 October 2013.
In July 2015, coinciding with NAIDOC Week, Hepburn Shire Council first flew the Aboriginal flag permanently over the Daylesford Town Hall. In the same year Council resolved to negotiate a Reconciliation Action Plan with the Dja Dja Wurung. The draft Reconciliation Plan has been prepared and we hope, will soon be available for public comment.
This will provide an opportunity for the Hepburn Shire communities to express their view on a number of matters concerned with reconciliation, including the question of establishing an Australia Day inclusive enough for all to celebrate.
It is significant that some municipal Councils have already shown leadership and have decided not to host Australia Day activities in their municipalities on 26 January but to do so at another time.
We believe that Hepburn Shire and other municipalities in Central Victoria should follow this lead. We hereby add our support to the Change the Date Campaign. It is a proposition that deserves careful thought and action now. Growing support in the media and many public forums gives testament to that.
Signed by: Kate Redwood, Eddie Beacham, Jennie Beacham, Sebastian Klein, Robyne Lawrence, Gina Lyons, Warren Maloney, Kathleen Murray, Neville Oddie, Marion Oke, John O’Shea, Patrice O’Shea, Peter Sago, Margie Thomas and Mitch Watson.
