AUSSIE DAY BOYCOTT CALL
INDIGENOUS bowler Josh Lalor has encouraged Australians who are against the January 26 ‘celebration’ to snub the public holiday by going to work.
The Melbourne Renegades quick will proudly wear the club’s Indigenous strip against Melbourne Stars on Thursday night and hopes such acts spark conversations that lead to a better understanding of why referring to the public holiday as Australia Day causes so much pain.
“I know my team at work are not taking the public holiday,” Lalor said.
“We’re having our first big planning meeting for the year so we’ll go to the office and get that done as an internal piece for us.
“If you are not familiar with anything to do with Australia Day or why people refer to it as Invasion Day, and you’re completely oblivious and you celebrate that day because you’re led to believe that it’s a great day, then it’s not my job to judge you on that. But if you know someone like that it might be nice to enter in a conversation and do things that lead to a Google search, or try to pass on a little bit of knowledge to someone and see what their take on that is.
“It comes back to different levels of understanding. There are thousands of businesses across the country where the owners think Australia Day is a great day and don’t have an understanding of what it means to Indigenous people to refer to it as Australia Day.
“So it’s hard to say a blanket statement that all employees should still go to work on that day. But it’s pretty harmless, so I hope it’s encouraged.”