Braddon Liberal MP Felix Ellis calls for dual date celebration of Australia Day on January 25-26
A Tassie MP says Australia Day should be celebrated on both the 25th and 26th of January – but a leading Aboriginal activist has dismissed the plan. THE AUS DAY IDEA >>
Tasmania
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Tasmanian Liberal MP Felix Ellis has called for a dual date celebration of Australia Day, believing January 26 tells “only half the story” of the nation.
However, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre says the proposal “completely misses the point” of why many Aboriginal people objected to the national day falling where it did on the calendar.
Mr Ellis, a Braddon MHA, says he subscribes to Aboriginal community leader Noel Pearson’s idea of celebrating the country’s Indigenous history on January 25, while continuing to mark the arrival of the First Fleet on Australian shores on the following day.
It comes after Premier Peter Gutwein urged a national conversation about changing the date.
“Like many Australians I come from stockmen, settlers, and refugees, and had the privilege of growing up in Aboriginal communities,” the government backbencher wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday.
“On 25 January we should celebrate all that came before the landing of the First Fleet in Sydney Cove in 1788. The oldest living culture on earth. The resilience of a people surviving and thriving on this remote continent. The Dreaming and the hunter/gatherer day-to-day (life). It would be our first public holiday specifically to celebrate Indigenous cultures.
“And then on the 26th we should celebrate all (that) came after that. The rugged frontier of convicts and settlers. The sacrifices made in the cause of freedom. A place of mateship, egalitarianism and tolerance.
“One of the world’s oldest continuous democracies, providing hope and shelter and human flourishing for migrants from all the four corners of the earth.”
Mr Ellis said he believed changing the date entirely would merely “airbrush history”.
“We should add a date to round it out,” he said. “Tell our full story on 25 and 26 January so that we can, as a people, finally reflect, respect, and celebrate.”
Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre campaign manager Nala Mansell said while January 25 would be a “great day to talk about doing something different”, the 26th would always be a divisive national day.
“I still feel like the whole purpose of the protests (against) January 26 is the fact that January 26 is a day of celebration – and it marks the day that white people arrived on our shores and started the invasion of our country,” she said. “So I think (the proposal) completely misses the point.”
Ms Mansell commended Mr Gutwein for being “willing to stand up and show leadership” regarding the date of Australia Day.
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