Big Bash’s muted Australia Day is mere tokenism

You hear the word “safe” used gratingly often by Australians these days. The land of the larrikin, a place at perpetual risk of any amount of venomous fauna, has such a safety-first approach to Covid-19 that hard borders are erected if there is so much as a single case in a next-door state. The philosophy is filtering through to sport, with Cricket Australia’s revelation that Tuesday’s Big Bash matches will avoid any reference to Australia Day, so as to be “culturally safe”.

The intention is worthy enough: the celebration on Jan 26 marks the anniversary of Britain’s First Fleet landing in Sydney in 1788, a moment that for indigenous Australians is anything but a cause for joy, evoking the beginning of colonisation and the widespread destruction of a way of life. As such, cricket’s authorities believe they can avoid antagonism by refusing to mention Australia Day at all.

It is symbolism at its most tokenistic. It will do nothing to alleviate problems of alcoholism and welfare dependency in remote indigenous communities. There are already 11 days a year dedicated to official recognition of Aboriginal Australians, but none of these have redressed the social polarities. The rejection in cricket of Australia Day is window-dressing, a superficial means of assuaging a deeper guilt.