Australia Day ‘not a time for protests’: Immigration Minister Alex Hawke

Immigration Minister Alex Hawke has warned councils against refusing to hold Australia Day celebrations.

Alex Hawke says it is ‘very sad to see some councils continue to politicise Australia Day this year’.

Immigration Minister Alex Hawke has warned councils against refusing to hold Australia Day celebrations, saying the national day should not be ­defined by “past mistakes”.

With Australia Day events to be modified to limit the spread of Covid-19, he said councils should not be using the day to launch protests.

“There remains a small handful of Greens-dominated councils from which we continue to withhold authority to oversee citizenship ceremonies because of their blatant politicisation of Australia Day,” he said.

“It is also very sad to see some councils continue to politicise Australia Day this year, in a range of increasingly ridiculous ways, totally out of step with an overwhelming majority of people and the Australian community generally. Councils should stick to their own role and not waste ratepayers’ time or money entertaining extreme views.”

Alex Hawke. Picture: Martin Ollman

In 2017, the Turnbull government stripped Melbourne’s Yarra City and Darebin councils of the right to hold citizenship ceremonies after they refused to hold the events on Australia Day. Other councils – including Moreland in Melbourne, Inner West in Sydney and Fremantle in Perth – subsequently cancelled Australia Day celebrations on January 26.

Victoria has cancelled Melbourne’s Australia Day parade for the second consecutive year, although the Andrews government is denying the move was a protest.

Byron Bay councillor Sarah Ndiaye said its Australia Day award ceremony would be an online event due to Covid-19. She would not comment on the reasons as to why the ceremony had been moved to January 25.

Other councils contacted, including Sydney’s Inner West council, said all events except the citizenship ceremony were cancelled.

Invasion Day rallies are scheduled in all the major capital cities except Melbourne.

“It would be careless to hold an event in the height of a pandemic,” protest organisers, the Warriors of the ­Aboriginal Resistance, said.

Greens leader Adam Bandt will on Monday launch a pre-Australia Day policy that would see $250m spent to establish a truth and justice commission to investigate human rights abuses against Aboriginal Australians.

Mr Bandt said Australia was founded on “violence and dispossession”.

“Until we tell the truth about our past and strike a treaty with First Nations owners that recognises their sovereignty, there will be a painful hole in the centre of our democracy,” he said.

While there is support within Labor’s caucus for changing the date of Australia Day, opposition Indigenous affairs spokes­woman Linda Burney said the proposal would not be adopted by an Albanese government.

“We have made it very clear in Labor that we are not advocating a date change but we are ­advocating a different way to spend the day,” she said.

“Part of that should be exploring and ­reflecting on the true history of Australia. “(Australia Day) marks the beginning of dispossession and usurping of the rights of First Nations people.”

Ms Burney said she would spend Australia Day attending citizenship ceremonies and events that pay respect to Aboriginal culture and history.

National Australia Day Council chief executive Karlie Brand said commemorations would go ahead despite Covid-19. “Events across the country are taking place in a Covid-safe manner,” she said.

“We have over 534 (events funded by) community grants happening across the country and a number of them have had to pivot either to outdoor, online or smaller capacity. Some have had to cancel but the key ones we have been involved with are changing scope or proceeding.”

A YouGov poll published by News Corp at the weekend showed 56 per cent of respondents wanted to keep Australia Day on January 26, compared to 35 per cent who wanted to change the date.

Mr Hawke said the federal government rejected “disingenuous and ahistorical views from fringe councillors designed to undermine what is in reality the luckiest country on earth”.

Additional reporting: Liam Mendes