Australia Day: Mick Dodson Calls for Change

by Jordan Yerman | January 25, 2009 at 10:28 am

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Upon accepting the award for Australian of the Year, aboriginal activist Mick Dodson called for Australia Day to be changed. For years, Dodson called for a formal apology from the Australian government, a call that was ignored until Paul Rudd became Prime Minister.

Australia Day is observed on January 26, comemmorating the British First Fleet's arrival in New South Wales, a day that also spelled the dawn of the subjugation of the aboriginal people of Australia.

A Yawuru man, he said he felt so strongly the current Australia Day excluded indigenous people that he considered refusing the nomination for the award but decided to accept it after listening to his family. Australians were "mature enough about it now" to consider moving the date, which currently commemorates the First Fleet's arrival in Sydney - "the day on which our world came crashing down".

Professor Dodson suggested February 13, the date the Rudd Government last year formally apologised to stolen generations.

"Many of our people call it invasion day."

Like the USA and Canada, modern-day Australia has an uneasy relationship with its colonial past.

For many Australians, though, it's just a day to hang out with family and friends to barbecue and watch fireworks, the political element being removed from most celebrations, at least for the most part. My own experience with Australia Day (several years ago) involved just that: I hung out with istalvies and his mates, and, being the foreigner, I was keen to get into the history of the event. Some wanted to get into the history and ramifications of it, but some did not.