The January 26 national holiday is anything but a day of rest. Australians will mourn, protest, celebrate and work business as usual to mark the day 235 years ago that the British empire laid claim to Aboriginal sovereign land.
While the public is split on Australia Day, Invasion Day, a change of date, and no celebration at all, Crikey takes a look at what’s on tomorrow around the country.
In major capital cities, tens of thousands are expected to march in Invasion Day rallies that will double as a platform to campaign against a Voice to Parliament. Organisers will call for treaty and sovereignty rather than constitutional recognition, with the latter coined a product of colonisation.
On Gadigal land in Sydney, the annual Yabun Festival will be in full swing. Meaning “music to a beat”, the gathering will take place under the banner of “celebrate survival… resist invasion… continue culture” and features a mix of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander performances, panel discussions, arts, crafts and other community-based activities. Koori radio will broadcast the event.
In years past, Triple J has hosted its Hottest 100 countdown on January 26, but since 2017 this moved to “the fourth weekend of January”. This year, that means January 28.
Heading to the bush capital, and the government recently made moves to reduce the fanfare around Australia Day by reversing a Morrison-era edict that all public servants must take the day off. Now there is a choice to respect the public holiday or work and bank the leave. But despite the changing state of January 26, large swathes of the population — political and public — are still signed up for Australia Day things.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese kickstarted his Australia Day duties this morning with a reception for finalists of the Australian of the Year Awards. This evening he will address the official awards ceremony. Tomorrow he will be in Canberra for the national citizenship and flag-raising ceremony, which includes a Welcome to Country.
His office would not comment on whether he would attend any Invasion Day rallies, but he is expected to make a series of speeches over the coming days. Hark back to last year, when former prime minister Scott Morrison declared Australians had “risen above our brutal beginnings” to survive and thrive as a nation. January 26, he said, was the moment where “the journey to our modern Australia began”.
The Australian Defence Force is pushing full steam ahead as a “proud” participant in Australia Day festivities with fast and furious Sydney Harbour fly-bys and “aerobatic” displays, plus a formal salute to the tune of the national anthem. A helicopter is also set to parade down the coastline underslung with the Australian national flag.
These performances are designed as an addendum to the Australia Day Live concert at the Sydney Opera House, part of wider celebrations organised in collaboration with the City of Sydney and NSW government.
In Queensland, the government has partnered with local councils to deliver an assortment of activities, including Great Australian Bites — an opportunity to eat many a delectable treat.
Not quite, James Cook claimed the eastern portion of the Australian continent for the British Crown in August 1770, naming it New South Wales, the January 26 1788 occurred some 18 years later.
should read ... the January 26 landing occurred some 18 years later.
Is it possible to edit a comment once posted?
Change the date but you can still call it Australia day
What a refreshing change this article is from the usual. Thank-you Julia 🙂
I’m working tomorrow and will have Friday off.
If only they’d kept better records, the Irish would know when in the 12thC to celebrate Strongbow bringing civiliation & enlightenment.
Let us see the Anzac Mythology from a different perspective.
“The Russian education system and popular culture are dominated by a cult extolling military glory and selfless devotion to the defence of the motherland. Pre-war opinion polls recorded an upsurge in militarist sentiment: The share of those who believe army service is one’s obligatory duty has risen to more than 80 percent while two-thirds of polled males declared their readiness to sacrifice their lives for the country.” – “The Russian Army Is Preparing for a Fresh Attack”, Maxim Samorukov, “Foreign Policy”, December 15, 2022
While here the many decades of media/political/community promos are more folksy in style, and the aim given our geostrategic situation is more focussed on support for the military, we have an equivalent in our Anzac Mythology directed very much to the same end.
Here, just as in Russia, public support for the casual use of State-sponsored violence without publicity let alone accountability, is taken for granted. As is parliamentary support for Australia’s participation in any undeclared wars that involve Five Eyes members. United States’, Britain’s, Australia’s and Poland’s criminal and illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 was followed by the automatic parliamentary support only after the decision had already been made, never followed by any examination of the causes and results. Likewise Australia’s participation in what is now openly described as the West’s war against Russia occurred with automatic parliamentary support even though it guarantees a larger, wider war in which ordinary Ukrainians will be the primary sufferers.
Contempt for diplomacy led to the Great War. Ironic that Australia’s losses from that needless conflict were perverted to promote war as the preferred option.