Survival Day march in Mackay to take over Forgan Bridge on January 26

The organisers of Mackay’s Survival Day rally believe their numbers are set to triple as the January 26 march mourning the arrival of the British enters its third run.

Mackay. The Survival Day Working Group gather at Blue Water Quay for Survival Day preparations. Picture: Survival Day Poster on table

Organisers expect numbers could triple for this year’s Survival Day march in Mackay as plans are underway to pave the January 26 message across the Forgan bridge.

Organised by Cyclic Konnectionz, this will be its third year in Mackay and one of at least 10 planned marches across the state.

Members of Mackay’s Survival Day Working Group say they hope this year’s march can demonstrate what they have noticed is a recent rise in community support for the changing of the date.

“This recognition isn’t just something in the wind. It’s really us, we’re real people in this country,” Auntie Zelda Quakawoot, a Bailai woman, said.

Manager of Cyclic Konnectionz and proud Darumbal woman, Auntie Fiona Mann-Bobongie said as a grassroots movement the march is running on zero budget with donations coming off the backs of members of the community.

Joshua Yow Yehs will be performing as part of the Tchundal Malar dance group.

“A lot of our people are starting to stand up. And we feel ok standing up and speaking strong. Whereas once upon a time, we would’ve been locked up,” she said.

“We also have government departments who are actually saying ‘you will not participate in these walks’.

“So, that’s hard to swallow.”

Mackay’s Mayor Greg Williamson says he understands First Nations’ perspectives and that reconciliation has a long way to go, though he doesn’t want it to become a divisive issue on the national holiday.

“Australia to me is the day we as Australians, all Australians should celebrate the fact that we live in one of the best nations in the world,” he said.

But for Mann-Bobongie, she says while Indigenous people continue to be the most disadvantaged in all social areas, she won’t celebrate the removal of her people.

Mackay was home to several massacres in its history as Aboriginal people were cleared off their land to make way for agriculturalists during Queensland’s pastoral expansion in the early 1860s.

Diary extracts of Bowen’s first mayor, and later mayor of Mackay, Korah Halcomb Wills, show how early settlers, like himself, would conduct punitive expeditions which resulted in massacres against First Nations people.

Auntie Deb Clark, Auntie Fiona Mann-Bobongie and Auntie Zelda Quakawoot from the Survival Day Working Group

As a direct descendant of the sole survivor of a massacre at what’s known as The Leap, north-west of Mackay, proud Yuwi woman, Auntie Deb Clark not only carries a deep sense of sorrow during Australia Day, but a personal responsibility to get up and march.

“If we can pave a way that’s a bit easier for them, to be able to keep taking up the cause, to be strong and supporting mob, then that’s our role to do.

“As much as it’s heavy, it’s about healing,” she said.

Local organisations such as Marabisda, a foster care service centre, and the ATSICHS Indigenous health service group have backed the campaign with the march kicking off at the Bluewater Quay, Sunday morning.

Local Aboriginal dance troupe, Tchundal Malar, is expected to perform along with a welcome to country.

“All are welcome to come, we don’t hold anyone back from it,” says Clark.

“This is put on for our community, for our people and our allies to come support.”

First marked in 1938 as a Day of Mourning for Indigenous Australians, Survival Day is also known as Invasion Day, marking the raising of the Union Flag at Sydney Cove and the start of the dispossession of First Nations peoples in the continent.

Australia Day was made an official public holiday nationally in 1994.