Protests on Australia Day
CANBERRA: Crowds brimming with Aboriginal flags hit the streets of Australia’s capital cities for Invasion Day rallies yesterday.
The annual debate over the date of Australia Day culminated yesterday as parts of the nation paused to celebrate the national public holiday, while others called for events to be moved, out of respect for Indigenous Australians.
Five people were arrested in Sydney out of a crowd of about 3000 people, who had congregated in small groups in the Domain to protest in a socially distanced and masked fashion.
Conservative lobby group Advance Australia paid for the letters ‘‘Aus Day’’ to be written in the sky above Sydney to counter the rally.
Australia Day in the city began at dawn with the Sydney Opera House sails lit with Indigenous art, with the Aboriginal flag later raised alongside the Australian flag on the Harbour Bridge.
At the protest in Melbourne, about 5000 people separated into groups of 100 to abide by coronavirus restrictions.
Victorian senator Lidia Thorpe addressed the rally, telling the crowd Indigenous people need a treaty.
‘‘No more bullshit symbolic gestures,’’ she said.
‘‘No more change the date, no more Uluru Statement, no more Constitutional recognition, no more ‘Survival Day’. This is Invasion Day and we need a treaty.’’
The city’s annual Australia Day parade was called off because of Covid restrictions.
Scores of people attended ral
lies in Brisbane, Hobart and Perth, while a huge crowd in Canberra marched from the Aboriginal Tent Embassy to Parliament House to call on Australia Day to be moved.
Nearby, Prime Minister Scott Morrison delivered a keynote address at a flagraising and citizenship ceremony attended by the governorgeneral and other dignitaries.
Morrison argued Australia Day should be on January 26 because it marked the date the nation changed forever.
‘‘There is no escaping or can
celling that fact, for better or worse,’’ he said.
Morrison said January 26, the day Captain Arthur Phillip raised the Union Jack and proclaimed British sovereignty in 1788, marked the beginning of modern Australia.
‘‘Our stories since that day have been of sorrow and of joy, of loss and redemption, of failure and of success,’’ he said.
‘‘We are now a nation of more than 25 million stories. All important, all unique, and all to be respected.’’
British colonisation led to widespread massacres, oppression and dispossession of Indigenous people from land they had inhabited for more than 60,000 years.
New Australian of the Year Grace Tame voiced her support for moving Australia Day and said Indigenous voices should be listened to on the issue.
A recent Ipsos poll for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald newspapers showed 28% of people favoured changing the date of the Australia Day holiday, while nearly 50% opposed, Reuters reported. — AAP