Australia Day must not suffer death by 1000 cuts

By allowing local councils to stop holding citizenship ceremonies on January 26, Anthony Albanese is risking our national day suffering the death of 1000 cuts. That is despite the fact the Prime Minister is at pains to insist he and his government support Australia Day and that the rule change is designed to make it easier for people to become Australian citizens. “We think that councils should conduct citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day,’’ the Prime Minister said on Sunday. “That’s what my local council will be doing.’’ Good for them. But in an era of cancel culture when umbrage takers’ sensibilities are on high alert, purportedly in the interests of Indigenous Australians, whose opinions on the matter vary like those of non-Indigenous people, reheating the controversy that rears its head every few years is counter-productive. Mr Albanese’s move won instant backing from Greens senator Nick McKim, who said it was “great to see’’ the policy change. “The Liberals forcing councils to hold citizenship ceremonies on Invasion Day was deeply disrespectful to First Nations people and it belongs exactly where it’s ended up – in the bin,’’ Senator McKim seethed.

The nation we love, one of the freest, fairest and most successful on Earth, deserves better than attempts to snipe at its identity and chip away at the national day to the point it would become no more than just a meaningless day off, observed by different people on different days. Political leaders with patriotism and national pride must nip the trend in the bud. It is taking hold. As reported on Monday, the Ten Network’s chief content officer, Beverley McGarvey, has panned Australia Day as “not a day of celebration’’ for “our First Nations people’’. The network was receptive, she said, to employees “who do not feel comfortable taking this day as a public holiday’’. Major companies including Telstra and Woodside Energy and consulting giants Deloitte, KPMG and EY are also meandering down the same dead-end track, introducing new policies allowing staff to work on January 26 and take off another day of their choosing. Transferring the holiday to another day of individuals’ choosing would fracture Australia Day, rendering it meaningless.

Indigenous leader Noel Pearson put forward a more thoughtful approach when he proposed in 2018, in this newspaper, that Australia Day be spread over January 25 and 26. “This would straddle two sovereignties: the sovereignty of the First Nations that possessed this continent since time immemorial, and the Crown’s sovereignty that commenced when the British flag was raised at Sydney Cove on January 26, 1788,’’ he wrote. “Linking January 25 and 26 would be a noble compromise between the old and the new. It would bring together honour and empathy, remembrance and celebration.’’

The Australian of the Year was already announced on the evening of January 25, Mr Pearson noted. Trying to erase January 26 is “denying the very history we want Australians to face up to. There is no other relevant time or date other than those 24-48 hours when ancient Australia passed into the New Australia”. Changing the date would be preposterous. Anzac Day, also a vital national day, serves a different purpose. Yet it was also under fire a few decades ago. As Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said on Australia Day this year: “Like the rest of the world, our history is complex – and never as black and white as is portrayed by those who cherry-pick to push an ideological agenda. Yes, we have to learn more about our country’s history; not to create resentment, but to understand its complexities and what’s been achieved in one of the world’s most successful multicultural liberal democracies. We celebrate on January 26 because it marks the beginning of what we now call Australia.’’