Greens spread First Fleet fake news as senator argues Phillip docked at Port Hedland
A letter from Greens senator Rachel Siewert to local councils across Western Australia, yesterday:
January 26 reflects a day of mourning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. On this day in 1788, the First Fleet arrived in Port Hedland ...
Port What-now? The Australian Dictionary of Biography’s account of Captain Arthur Phillip’s landing in Australia:
Phillip discovered an appropriate spot at Port Jackson and on 26 January landing operations began there.
It’s a pretty famous spot, old Port Jackson. Every tourist in the world knows it. Maybe Siewert and her team need to book a nice boat ride around there? Captain Cook Cruises website:
Australia’s best known city is spread around the bays and inlets of Port Jackson. Sydney’s most famous landmarks the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge are in the heart of the city.
Port Jackson really is a fair voyage from Port Hedland. The City of Port Hedland’s website:
Port Hedland is a dynamic town in Western Australia’s beautiful North West located approximately 1800km north of Perth.
And it was founded nearly a century after Phillip docked at Port Jackson. Port Hedland Visitors Centre website:
In 1863, Captain Peter Hedland this time ran his ship, the Mystery, aground as he searched for a suitable location for a port for the Pilbara’s expanding pastoral industry. Shortly after naming this area “Mangrove Harbour” the site became a pastoral and pearling lugger frontier town. Supporting the inland goldmining, Port Hedland was gazetted and named a town in 1896.
If you’re going to promote the black-armband view of history. Siewert’s letter to WA councils, continued:
Unless we stop celebrating a day of mourning for many, we can never truly have an inclusive day to celebrate our diverse country. Many local government authorities are having conversations with their communities over the future of Australia Day, I urge you to do the same.
You should probably get just the basic facts right first. The Western Australian Museum’s online account of the state’s colonisation:
Albany was the first European settlement established in Western Australia. It was settled three years before the Swan River Colony — now known as Western Australia — was claimed in 1829. (And 38 years after Captain Phillip landed in NSW.)
But does this debate even matter? Alice Springs councillor Jacinta Price speaking to Sky News, yesterday:
There are far more important issues such as saving lives and lowering family violence for Aboriginal people than changing the date ...
According to one Melbourne “Invasion Day” protest organiser, there is no point in changing the date. Aboriginal activist Celeste Liddle on her Facebook page, yesterday:
... we ARE NOT MARCHING TO CHANGE THE DATE of Australia Day. While some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people may support these campaigns ... others strongly believe that changing the date amounts to little more than celebrating colonisation and genocide on an alternate day ...
Why march in the heat if the organisers don’t want to change anything? Bureau of Meteorology, yesterday:
Melbourne forecast, Friday 29C.