Mitcham Council Australia Day celebrations ‘blatantly disrespectful’ to its Aboriginal residents, artist says
UPDATED: MITCHAM Council has distanced itself from a controversial debate over Australia Day, dumping a push to reform its annual ceremony.
MITCHAM Council has distanced itself from a controversial debate over Australia Day, dumping a push to reform its annual ceremony.
Councillors instead agreed to begin an open discussion with the Aboriginal community about how to Mitcham can generally better support indigenous culture.
Cr David Munro headed the alternative push because he believed it was less divisive.
“It will remove the association of Australia Day,” Cr Munro told Tuesday night’s meeting.
He said “softer words” would be better received by the broader community.
Cr Tim Hein agreed, adding: “Australia Day will come up in the midst of it”.
Cr Karen Hockley, who raised the original suggestion to make Mitcham’s Australia Day event more inclusive for indigenous communities, said the alternative push missed the point.
“This is now looking tokenistic ... and a little bit insulting,” Cr Hockley said.
She was the only councillor to vote against Cr Munro’s plan.
The council was earlier accused of being “blatantly disrespectful” to its Aboriginal residents by allowing its Australia Day celebrations to continue in their present form, a local indigenous artist said.
Elizabeth Close last week wrote a scathing email to Mitcham councillors following comments by Mayor Glenn Spear that Australia Day should not be politicised.
“Mitcham Council is not just made up of middle-aged, wealthy, white men like you,” Ms Close’s email read.
“I wonder if your view of what local government should concern itself with would change if it were your community of rich white men that were affected?”
Ms Close told the HillsValley Weekly the council needed to “really take a good hard look at themselves”.
“It is blatantly disrespectful to disregard us … even if we are a minority,” Ms Close, of Blackwood, said.
“The community has been saying this for decades. We’ve been saying this date causes us harm.”
She said the council was “celebrating the end of Aboriginal Australia as we know it and celebrating all the atrocities that occurred” by holding its annual Australia Day celebration.
The Australia Day debate started when Cr Karen Hockley announced she would ask her colleagues to investigate ways to make the council’s Australia Day events “more inclusive”.
She will bring a motion to tonight’s council meeting asking for a report into ways to make Australia Day commemorations “more respectful of the Aboriginal perspective, more inclusive of Aboriginal culture and more progressive in seeking true reconciliation”.
Mitcham Council this year held its Australia Day ceremony at the historic Carrick Hill mansion in Springfield.
Ms Close said any opposition to Cr Hockley’s push would be viewed poorly by the indigenous community.
“Unfortunately, this nation is built on a foundation of systematic white supremacy and people find it very difficult to look at the perspective of others, particularly the perspective of people who are marginalised.”
Mr Spear said he was “deeply offended” by Ms Close’s comments.
“I am confused and somewhat angry that a person who is in the position of being able to further her cause chooses such derogatory language,” Mr Spear said.
“It’s unfair, it’s unreasonably and it’s not supported by fact.”
He said the idea that opposition to the motion was racist was a “ridiculous assertion”, and that he supported the principle of more Aboriginal involvement in the council’s ceremonies.
According to latest Census data, there are more than 350 Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people living in the Mitcham district.