Abandoning the nation’s special day unwise and foolish, says Geoffrey Blainey

Historian Geoffrey Blainey says the nation would be ‘unwise’ if it abandoned January 26 as its ‘one special day’.

The Captain Cook statue in St Kilda yesterday. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

Historian Geoffrey Blainey has entered the Australia Day debate, saying the nation would be “unwise — and seen by later generations as foolish” if it abandoned January 26 as its “one special day” to proclaim its legitimacy.

Writing in The Australian today, the acclaimed but often controversial chronicler of Australia’s development says as a result of European settlement, most indigenous people are “better off than if they had remained, generation after generation, in their old way of life”.

Today around the country, “Invasion Day” and similar protest marches and rallies will compete with traditional citizenship ceremonies staged by councils. In Melbourne, police warned against possible violence at an expected face-off between far-right protesters and activists pushing indigenous issues at a rally in the CBD.

Anti-Australia Day vandals yesterday attacked a statue of Captain James Cook in St Kilda, covering it with pink paint and the words “No pride” written over the plaque. A monument in Melbourne’s Royal Park dedicated to colonial explorers Burke and Wills was also vandalised yesterday.

In an interview on Melbourne radio station 3AW, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs Minister Alan Tudge described the vandals as “a disgrace” who were “trashing our national heritage”.

“I am disappointed about particularly the Greens, who kicked off this campaign to change the date,” Mr Tudge said. “And I think that if you start a campaign like this, it leads to criminals like we have seen today, who start to deface statues in our communities.” Mr Tudge said 13,000 migrants would become Australian citizens today.

“It will be a day which they remember for the rest of their lives and in part because becoming a citizen of Australia, whether you were born here or you are a new migrant, is like winning the lottery of life,” he said.

Far-right activist Neil Erikson told The Australian this week he would crash a citizenship ceremony in Coburg today because the council voted to scrap Aus­tralia Day last year.

In a leaked letter to The Australian, Moreland City Council Mayor John Kavanagh told MPs attending the event that Victoria Police would join council security staff in protecting new citizens and screening everyone who tried to enter the event at the door.

Mr Erikson has also said he will be attending the mass rally in Melbourne’s CBD though his group may be outnumbered as nearly 20,000 people are expected to attend the march from state parliament to Federation Square protesting against Australia Day and colonialism.

Greens MPs will effectively use the anniversary as a campaign launch for their push to have the date changed.

Tasmanian Greens senator Nick McKim will attend the Change the Date rally and march in Hobart, while West Australian senator Jordon Steele-John will campaign at a rally in Perth.

A Greens source said: “None of our elected representatives at the federal level is celebrating Australia Day.” It is understood Greens leader Richard Di Natale, lower-house Melbourne MP Adam Bandt, Victorian state MP Lidia Thorpe and other Victorian Greens MPs will attend an event in Melbourne to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Aboriginal activist William Cooper calling for January 26 to be recognised as a day of mourning, followed by a press conference.

Labor frontbencher Richard Marles said he supported Australia Day, but it required “sensitivities” towards indigenous Australians and should be shifted towards a “celebration of immigration”.

“Migration is a huge part of who we are, and those who came to Australia on 26 January, 1788, were the first wave of migrants,” Mr Marles said in an address.

South Australian Opposition Leader Steven Marshall called on Australia Day “wreckers” to stay home today rather than destroy celebrations enjoyed by “the vast majority of Australians”.

He said if the Liberals won the March 17 state election, they would strip any councils that changed the date of their Australia Day celebrations of their powers to hold citizenship ceremonies.

The state Labor government, on its Twitter feed yesterday, ­accused Mr Marshall of “not having anything positive to say about our national day — he’d rather talk up division and ‘brawls’ ”.

SA Aboriginal activist Latoya Rule yesterday admitted her radical group Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance ruined the day last year for hundreds of newly naturalised migrants celebrating their first moments as Australians.

SA Police said yesterday there would be a “highly visible police operation” today.

In Brisbane, a push from the Greens to change the date of Australia Day celebrations failed this month, with thousands expected at ceremonies and events throughout the city. The largest celebration will be in Brisbane’s South Bank Parklands, with a free concert and fireworks over the river.

An “Invasion Day” rally organised by WAR is to go ahead, with a protest outside state parliament.

Additional reporting: Primrose Riordan, Michael Owen, Mark Schliebs