We won’t ditch the January 26 Australia Day date because extremists say so

For most of the past 15 years I have attended the Australian Day celebrations on the Anglesea River. This year the crowd doubled, but the celebration took a twist which had never happened before.

Let me share with you what took place beside Anglesea River, because it goes to the heart of the Aboriginal difficulties in Australia and may be of use to companies like Qantas and Woolworths that have become ensnared by what is happening in our nation.

The Surf Coast Shire last year pulled out of the Anglesea Australia Day celebration, but it went ahead bigger and better. This year, while officially they were still absent (with some councillors clearly nervous about the voice referendum result and the latest Morgan opinion polls), councillors either attended or sent apologies.

The Woolworths and Qantas actions were inspirations. Suddenly the local baker, butcher, bank (Bendigo Community), environmental group and life saving club supported the celebration.

At the 2024 celebration of the nation, the life saving club explained its history, poems from Banjo Patterson were read, a local author described his novels, the scouts raised the flag and the Bill Tea bush band played. This was to be truly a celebration of what it is to be an Australian, encompassing all parts of our society.

Similar celebrations are held in other parts of the country and maybe Woolworths and Qantas should begin the process of reconnecting with the majority of Australians by sponsoring these events one by one in 2025.

But what happened next turned the event from a celebration into the mire of Aboriginal politics – but in the process, perhaps showed us a way forward.

The Lions invited professor Andrew Gunstone, who is assistant deputy vice-chancellor of reconciliation at Federation University, Ballarat. No one in the audience had any idea of what he would say (although he came with a voice T-shirt, which gave a clue).

The opening part of his address recognised the validity of the democratic process in defeating the voice referendum. He then gave the reasons he believed Australians had rejected the voice.

I am sure the events he described took place but, in my view, he clearly did not realise why the voice was so convincingly defeated.

I found it sad he genuinely thought Australians were voting on a simple change to the Constitution.

A vast number of Australians, including myself, would have been happy to vote for an Aboriginal voice to parliament if the proposal was a straightforward brief limiting powers to matters which solely concerned Aboriginal people.

Instead the extremists in the Aboriginal movement worded the voice so it could be interpreted to included all matters – not just Aboriginal matters.

Even more seriously, the Aboriginal extremists insisted this voice have the power to make representations to the public service in full knowledge that if the power was interpreted widely (as they expected it to be) it would clog up the process of government by making it impossible for the public service to operate.

And when you connected this power with the extreme demands made in the Uluru Statement it was a very dangerous situation for the nation.

And from there it became possible to speculate on lots of conclusions as to what would happen if the referendum was passed.

The first step to any meaningful reconciliation between the 60 per cent of Australians who voted No and the Aboriginal community is for people like Gunstone to fully appreciate what happened on October 14. Back to his address. To his great credit, the professor began a very rational, non-emotional discussion on the date of a national day, which certainly captured my attention, because he was putting a point of view I had never previously explored.

He described how many other countries selected their national celebration dates. I emphasise he was talking about the subject in a non-emotional and rational way.

But then suddenly he became emotional again and described Australia Day as “Invasion Day”, with hands flying in the air to stir up the audience.

The people who came to celebrate the nation of Australia started to loudly boo him and officials removed him from the stage. Freedom of speech is important. This was a mistake. Some people left. Enter the next speaker.

It was none other than Anglesea resident, former “Millionaire Factory” (Macquarie Bank) executive and former CEO of Kerry Packer’s media empire, Peter Yates.

Yates skilfully calmed the situation by immediately inviting everyone to shake hands with the person next to them and invited Gunstone to come forward to shake hands with him. And after repeating the invitation several times the two shook hands, with applause from the audience.

Yates came to Australia as part of a “10-pound Pom” migration and described the great strengths of the nation, including our parliament, judiciary and democracy, as the reason why so many people had decided to migrate here.

But, then he turned to the raw nerve – the date.

He first tackled the controversy with humour, saying the Australia Day date was probably set on January 26 for the same reasons Sydney refused to join the federation unless the Australian capital was close to Sydney.

Yates said there was no particular reason why Australia Day should be on the same day British settlers came here. He suggested the January 26 date may have been chosen so Sydney Cove, rather than Melbourne, could be the centre of Australian celebrations.

Leaving aside the humour, what Yates emphasised was if we have a discussion about the date, it must be a rational discussion where everyone respects everyone’s point of view.

Maybe the celebration should be tied to the federation date, he pointed out. He said we don’t necessarily have to have the celebration date on the same day as the event.

For example, the King’s birthday celebration in June is not the actual birthday of King Charles or late the Queen Elizabeth. There is no reason why federation should not be celebrated on January 22 or January 24 rather than the actual date in the first week of January.

And so I left the Anglesea River celebration realising Australians want to celebrate their nation and they are not interested in changing the date in an emotionally charged atmosphere.

Accordingly, rational discussion will be very difficult while the extremists in the Aboriginal community are defacing statues.

The violence is causing an increasing number of Australians to say “No, we won’t change our celebration date because that is only the start of a lot more to come”.

If the violence continues, so too will the desire to not change the date.

Reconciliation can’t start until people like Gunstone understand and explain to the Aboriginal community all the reasons why 60 per cent of Australians voted No.

Happy Australia Day.