Hobart Invasion Day rally: Organisers make a ‘powerful’ change at 2025 event
Those who attended the Invasion Day rally in Hobart on Sunday would have noticed a key difference compared to the events of previous years.
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The defiant sound of stomping feet echoed across Hobart’s waterfront on Sunday as hundreds rallied for the date of Australia Day to be changed.
Meanwhile, the roar of guns could be heard from the Cenotaph as part of official Australia Day celebrations, mingled with shouts of protest from those gathered on Parliament Lawns.
People held signs emblazoned with messages such as ‘No pride in genocide’, while others wore T-shirts proclaiming ‘Always was, always will be’.
The annual ‘Invasion Day’ rally is organised by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC). It begins with a march from the TAC office on Elizabeth St, proceeding down to the waterfront.
TAC campaign co-ordinator Nala Mansell said this year’s event had attracted the biggest turnout ever.
“We gather to mourn, to remember, and to remind this country that January 26 is not, and will never be, a day to celebrate, but will always be a day of mourning, a day of grief, of survival and resistance,” she told the crowd.
Ms Mansell said “one or two white fellas” had shouted racist comments at the protesters as they marched through the city, but “there used to be hundreds”.
Pakana people recounted stories of massacres in the colonial era, such as the murder of forty Aboriginal men, women, and children at East Bay Neck in 1826 and the killing of a 70-strong tribe near Campbell Town in 1828.
Instead of a minute’s silence for the Aboriginal people who died violent deaths at the hands of white colonists, the rally participated in a “minute of power”, during which protesters stomped and clapped in unison.
Pakana man Thomas Riley, addressing the rally, said he respected the community’s many social differences of “ethnicity, culture, language, and upbringing” – but he said the existence of Aboriginal people was not “subject to the feelings of others”.
“I believe the only way forward if we are to have an accepting country, is to not force celebration in the face of those who have lost so much on the day that the loss began,” he said.
“To change the date is to acknowledge the past and allow celebration that [is] accepting of everybody. It doesn’t rewrite history. It allows the respectful writing of our combined future.”
Hobart Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds was introduced by Ms Mansell as being a “key” figure in bringing about the removal of the “dirty, terrible” statue of former premier William Crowther from Franklin Square.
Dr Crowther mutilated the corpse of Aboriginal man William Lanne and sent his skull to the Royal College of Surgeons in London.
“I’m confident that the Hobart community will continue to stand with Aboriginal people in … this important campaign to change the date,” Ms Reynolds said.
“In the face of ongoing denial about the truth of our history and a conservative backlash against established rights, we will stand with you.”
More than 100 people also gathered at a TAC-organised rally in Devonport on Sunday.
The record crowd heard from speakers including Palawa elder Jim Everett and independent Braddon MP Craig Garland, who was introduced as a “protector of country in his own right” for his work to protect Pilitika / Robbins Island.
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Originally published as Hobart Invasion Day rally: Organisers make a ‘powerful’ change at 2025 event
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