January 26 is the date that the country of Australia celebrates Australia Day. However, for the innocent Indigenous People of Australia, this day is known as the Day Of Mourning. For hundreds of years, us, the people of Australia, have celebrated the day that the suffering and murder of our land's traditional owners began.
January 26 marks the day in 1788 that Captain Arthur Phillip invaded the Eora Nation, landing in Sydney Harbour and claiming the lands of Indigenous peoples in the name of the British Empire. It marks the start of 227 years of suffering and loss, massacres of hundreds of thousands of people, and of the removal of tens of thousands of children from their mothers' arms.
This and many other reasons, is why Australia Day, our national celebration of who we are as a nation, should move from 26 January to 1 September – Wattle Day. Being an Australian is a very amazing and proud thing, but it is unfair that some people feel hurt by celebrating our pride on a day that marks more than the landing of the Europeans on our shore.
The first of September is the first day of Spring, marking a time of birth, fresh beginnings, and the start of barbecue weather. It would provide us with a day to celebrate what we really love about our beautiful country including the beaches, rivers, native flora and fauna.
It is the height of insensitivity to celebrate Australia's nationhood on such a date, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have voiced their protest to it since the 1880s.
Changing the date of Australia Day is possible. We only have to look to the USA for inspiration, where the similarly insensitive 'Columbus Day' is no longer observed in Hawaii, South Dakota, Alaska and Oregon. South Dakota has actually changed the day to 'Native American Day' and the city of Berkeley in California, followed by a number of other cities, renamed it 'Indigenous Peoples' Day'.
Thankyou so very much for making this world a more equal, fair, just and inclusive world. I hope you have a truly wonderful day!
