Why I don't support changing the date of Amnesia Day

On the significance of the Mabo ruling, and who Eddie Mabo was, I wonder why no movie has ever been made about him and his achievements? If 'Hoges' and Molly Meldrum are worthy candidates, why not Mabo? What could be achieved by making such a movie, in terms of white Australia coming to terms with it's past?

Great article Celeste, or should I say deadly?

Thanks Celeste for reminding of the need for more work on reconciliation and justice. For some time now I don't 'celebrate' this day but attend Mass instead to pray for change - true reconciliation not just the cardboard cut out kind. I read recently in regular press about changing the nature of the day by having silence at some point to give scope to reflection and not to forget the darker chapters of our founding path to becoming a modern democratic nation. It needs to be recognised there was complex lore in place in this land when the Brits landed but the colonial mindset at the time could have meant any nation at the forefront could have colonised and given the disparity between ways of interacting, been as brutal or worse. In addition to lamenting what has been lost there needs to be recognition of the contribution made of bringing Australia into alignment with the rest of the world as a nation state and instances where settlers and indigenous worked together as in Alan Tucker's 'Too Many Captain Cooks' Trilogy or how Patyegarang and a young soldier worked together which may enable the salvaging of language from the Eora nation as celebrated in dance by Bangarra. A way forward may involve using the date to finalise Treaties since this was missed at the founding as a way to recognise the survival and reclamation of indigenous culture.

Hi @Matt, just thought I'd share, the ABC co-produced and screen a biopic on Mabo a few years ago. It starred Jimi Bani and Deborah Mailman, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabo_(film) In Victoria, it's on the list of films schools can chose from, for students to study/analyse for Yr 12/VCE English. While it doesn't represent a huge slice of the general population, many students have been/will be exposed to the story via that channel. There's also a doco "Mabo: life of an island man", though I think that's a little older, probably has less exposure. Cheers

Celeste, thanks. I can tell you how I, as a non-Indigenous Australian, feel about a change of date for Australia Day. It would mean that the government is making an acknowledgement of the seriousness of the concerns of Indigenous people about this particular day. It would be a start. A long way to go but a start.

In the UK the 1066 invasion is called the Norman Conquest. It was planned as an invasion. I don't think 1788 was planned as an invasion: more a tentative attempt at prison reform. Certainly, when I was growing up in Melbourne in the 1960s there was little mention of Australia's long ATSI past. I can understand ATSI people being ambiguous about celebrating the arrival of the First Fleet and what followed. I tend not to worry about things such as the lamb commercial you refer to. I think it was crass but much advertising is. I think we still have a way to go before we reach the sort of society you want. I think people like you need to state their case with calm and dignity, as you have. There are now many Aboriginal and Islander people, such as Kathy Freeman and Stan Grant, who are a real example for all Australians. Hopefully this will continue. ATSI people and culture need to be seen as normal and mainstream. I think this is beginning to happen.

A good article and a good point Celeste. Don't change the date, but change everything else about it. The date is significant to all, but let us embrace an honest theme that is more soberside and is significant to all.

Thanks for a great article, Celeste. My reaction is: why do we need a national day at all? How can any one historical event - tragic or triumphal - encapsulate our complex history?

Thank you Celeste. I have recently visited Germany, and have been struck by how they have acknowledged and accepted responsibility for the genocide they conducted against the Jewish people in WWII, and I believe they are about to acknowledge that they conducted a genocide in Namibia in 1904-1908. I don't understand why we in Australia can't also acknowledge what is the Original Sin of white settlement of Australia. We are all suffering from our inability to do so.

I agree with Celeste that Australia/Invasion/Survival Day or Amnesia Day is not a good time to celebrate the coming of the Australian nation. That is why I support having another day to celebrate our national day. This should be a day that Australia's first people should be happy to accept. After all, their links with this land goes back 60,000 years, while British and Celtic occupation is a little more than 200 years. I come from a British/Scottish background, but I think if we want true reconciliation, we have to admit that the invasion of this country was very brutal and too much Aboriginal blood has stained the wattle and we have to acknowledge our indigenous people. This should be recognised on our flag as well. I think that replacing the Union Jack which really only celebrates British imperial wars with an Aboriginal symbol is the way to go. And we need to reinstate the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Island Commission to enable our indigenous people to have a more meaningful say in national affairs. The abolition of this body in 2005 was another act which undervalued Aboriginal influence in national affairs.

Australia Day for me has never had much of Australia in it. I have seen it more as a New South Wales eastern states celebration. So South Austalians and Western Australians may see it differently. Speaking as a South Australian we have our own version of "Invasion Day", Dec 28th Proclamation Day, which celebrates the arrival of free settlers, not convicts, from Great Britain to this colony of South Australia in 1836. The Colonial authorities recognised the original inhabitants in the Letters Patent, establishing the province and issued by King William IV which included the statement "Provided Always that nothing in those our Letters Patent contained shall affect or be construed to affect the rights of any Aboriginal Natives of the said Province to the actual occupation or enjoyment in their own Persons or in the Persons of their Descendants of any Lands therein now actually occupied or enjoyed by such Natives". This was intended to establish and protect the rights of Aboriginal people. Unfortunately it was not enforced. So change the date to celebrate the actual foundation of the Commonwealth, when we became Australians rather than just Victorians or Queenslanders ........

My father lost his farm and went broke in the '29 depression. We, the family of 11 children suffered for years. It was a survival story and we all came out stronger in the final event. I sometimes wonder if this attitude still exists today.

Thanks Celeste, for yet another reminder to us of the settler society that Australia Day has at least an ambiguous meaning, and for many, a very negative meaning for Indigenous Australians. While John Whitehead says, "Don't change the date, but change everything else about it", I recommend 2 January, as the date to celebrate the 1 January 1901 federation of the six British colonies into the one Commonwealth of Australia; held over 1 day for the obvious reason that many are not in a frame of mind to attend marches and other formal events after celebrating New Years Eve till after midnight.

damn fine summary of the current shape of things

I am of Irish ancestry. My Great, great grandfather was transported to Australia in the 1850's for 'sedition against the Crown'. I can understand the response of our indigenous people to the 'celebration' of Australia Day ..I cringe each year! I v9isited Ireland . I am impressed by the way the Irish people have put the abuses of their English colonisers behind them-the exception remains Northern Ireland As a former teacher of history I always explained to my students the reality of our history. They were told of what actually happened. I am grateful to my Lecturers at the UNE History Faculty who taught me. More recently I visited New Zealand and was lucky to speak with some Maori elders .. I was struck by their drive and enthusiasm to make the most of their opportunities .The advice given was to encourage our Indigenous people to get off their backsides and develop ,their own unique cultures as his people have done .He thought a Treaty would be a healing process but not the answer to the massive problems confronting our indigenous people. Many former colonies of Britain have this problem in their history, we are not alone.

I vote for Peter's idea.

How about Australia learns the full history, that white Australia is celebrating the tearing apart of their ancestors history too! They weren't free settlers on that first fleet! Maybe then they might think and remember!

One needs only to look at those of our neighbours who are run by their indigenes to know that if white colonisation had not come to 'Australia', this continent today would not be bountiful enough to be a member of the First World. Ill fortune for some but good fortune for many more came on January 26 and that date should be remembered in all of its ambiguity, not merely because that was the day when the First Fleet arrived, but, more so, the day when the theological mystery of why good can be allowed to be a consequence of evil became a practical rather than an academic question for the multitudes who have since benefited from the original dispossession. The success of the First Fleet experiment came about because of God's permissive will. It could not have come from his active will unless he had something against the native people. But, why was he permissive? Why did he not make the experiment fail? If one is to think about these things, the day to do so would seem to be January 26.

I am pleased Celeste Liddle mentioned the massacres of Aborigines. When I was young an elderly retired commonwealth policeman told me he had seen a large mass of human bones in far western Queensland - the site of a massacre. We know there were many others. They definitely should not be forgotten. Warren Mundine in a feature in the Courier-Mail, Brisbane, (24/1/17) writes, "Indigenous people overwhelmingly feel anger, sadness and grief about the chain of events beginning on January 26, 1788." Under a heading, " We do not reject Australia" and another, "We can't celebrate unity on a day representing conflict and conquest,". January 1, 1901, should be the date celebrated because Australia came into being then and it's a day everyone can unite behind. Mundine suggests the last Friday in January be the public holiday. A letter writer in The Australian (same day) says the celebration of January 26 as Australia Day is ludicrous.She gives her reasons and says the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act was passed on July 5 1900. In her opinion that should be the date celebrated. It would not be difficult to decide on a celebratory Federation date. .

It is important that we keep learning, making sure history is known and we all keep communicating in an intelligent way.

A solution - a treaty as in NZ which gives the Aboriginal people sovereignty. The Anglo-Saxon descendants in this country can continue to celebrate their Invasion Day and the Aboriginal people can celebrate their own Invasion Day of 50,000 years ago when they invaded this continent from the north and displaced the earlier indigenous population.

When the First fleet arrived,Captain Arthur Phillip, the Governor issued a proclamation ordering the settlers (convicts and military)to respect the local indigenous people .Sadly conflict soon erupted. We must acknowledge the lack of knowledge of the convicts and the precedence set up in other parts of the British Empire regarding the treatment of native peoples by colonizers, both British and other European powers. There were far worse excesses in other colonies, particularly in Africa, including slavery. I suspect many indigenous people were killed by the early settlers for violating 'English Law' , of which they had no knowledge(stealing/killing livestock) .From my Uni studies there were no sanctioned massacres. However sadly nothing was done by the authorities to punish the perpetrators, except the Myall Creek Massacre where they were tried and hung. When in Munich, Germany, having just visited Dachau , we were deeply affected by a lady who must have been born post Holocaust, apologizing to us for the atrocious committed by her forebears. Can she or we, be held responsible for the sins of our forebears who had very different social values to our selves? Do change the date!

Had Britain not lost its North American colonies it would have had no need to transport convicts anywhere else - so 4 July is as good an Australia day as 26 January. Had Phillip found potable water in the waterways around Botany Bay - where his orders told him to establish the penal settlement - the date might have been the arrival in Botany Bay (I think 24 January) instead of the 26 January date on which Phillip's reconnaissance of Port Jackson found the Tank Stream. Given that white Australia has been mucking up Australia's fresh water resources ever since, 26 January remains appropriate for remorseful remembrance - hardly a celebration.

Jingoism has long seemed to me, a white, Anglo Aussie, to be a problematic part and parcel of Australia Day. Which is why I rather enjoyed the piss-taking Lamb ads. Clearly however I was blind to their racist flaws. Invasion Day is certainly a more accurate descriptor but I'm not sure how constructive it would be in the longer term as the primary one. Survival Day seems to me to have far more potential. First and foremost it should focus on the survival of Indigenous Australians and culture in the face of violent invasion. But from there discussion could extend to the very real survival of others, such as some of the Irish, or some British poor, forcibly sent to Australia and survived the rough end of British justice. There are migrants and refugees who made it to these shores after difficult and even perilous journeys having survived the ravages of wars and/or heinous regimes. And there are stories of individual Australians and Australian communities who survived natural or human-created disasters. Thus while the travesty of Invasion Day ought never be underplayed, Survival Day opens up an additional possibility for a multi-stranded narrative with common historical truth-telling and respectful listening.

Gavin refers to far worse excesses in colonialiism and mentions slavery. but if you call up Britain's Colonial Shame, Slave Owners Huge Payouts, you may wonder if Britain's huge colonial slave industry could have worked in far- away Australia it may well have been introduced. Although the Mansfield declaration preceded the first fleet, Britain was (or a British elite was) still waxing rich from its slave empire in the West Indies Indies and elsewhere. When the British-owned slaves were eventually released the huge compensation went not to the slaves but to the already-rich and powerful owners. Current Aborigines and South Sea Islanders claim huge sums of money remain unpaid for the hard toil done in an earlier Australia. Many Islanders, strapping young men, died early when working in the canefields of Queensland, their somewhat meagre earnings unpaid. Aboriginal slavery claims are worth a look. Our great colonial governor Lachlan Macquarie brought two slaves to Australia with him but he later turned against slavery. His slaves had been purchased in India by his first wife (he looked after them). I write great, but it is now claimed he sanctioned an Aboriginal massacre south west of Sydney.

I agree that we need to find an alternate date to celebrate as a united and inclusive people. Perhaps the referendum date in 1967 or another in consultation with indigenous folk.

We Brits have a lot to answer for; I would like to apologise on our behalf.