For a national day of celebration, Australia Day has had a varied, higgledy-piggledy and divisive history. In this, it echoes Australia itself and so provides a useful lens for reflecting on our national life. The recent defeat of the Referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament adds yet another discordant string to its history and underlines the unfinished business entailed in it.
January 26 marks the arrival of the First Fleet in Sydney Harbour in 1788 to establish the English penal colony there. It also marks the beginning of the dispossession of the First Peoples and the destruction of their culture. First known as Foundation Day, its significance changed over time. Thirty years later, a boisterous celebration on the eve was followed on the next day by the Rum Rebellion in which soldiers arrested Governor Bligh. January 26 was then only one of the different Foundation Days celebrated by the different Colonies. Australia Day was instituted during the First Word War on another date to support the Australian troops, but by the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first Fleet it was celebrated on January 26. By this time, too, Indigenous Australian groups called it a Day of Mourning for the alienation of their land that began with colonisation.
After the introduction of Australian citizenship in 1948 those awarded citizenship attended ceremonies by local councils including on Australia Day. The date of these ceremonies has in recent years been successively politicised, made exclusive, and relaxed, in response to the disputes about its suitability of the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet as a national day. It has increasingly become a day of national division and not one of unity.
This messy background perhaps makes Australia Day a suitable occasion for recalling the destruction as well as the construction involved in colonisation and its legacy for all Australians. It evokes the loss of the First Australians as they endured despoliation, infection and discrimination, and encourages wonder at their resilience. It also recognises how the initial anxiety and hostility of the encounters of Indigenous Australians and the new arrivals have shaped the subsequent institutional and personal relationships between Indigenous and other Australians.
The impact of being driven off their tribal lands on the Indigenous Australians and their descendants continues to find expression in the higher level of discrimination and imprisonment and the lower life expectancy, health, access to education and work, and ability to participate in the decisions that impact on their lives than those experienced by other Australians. Australia Day does not commemorate triumphant achievement but unfinished business.
'Australia Day reminds us that the effects of colonial settlement need to be acknowledged, the harm suffered by Indigenous Australians to be owned, and a reconciliation sought that enshrines in culture, law and administration their unique status in Australia.'
The decisive vote against the Voice to Parliament has not changed this reality. Indeed it has highlighted the incoherence involved in declaring January 26 a day that will gather all Australians in celebration. It intensifies their divisions. Certainly, Australians who voted no in the Referendum may have had many reasons for doing so, including a general suspicion of government initiatives, a lack of understanding of what it involved, reluctance to alter the Constitution, and resentment at economic hardships faced by Australians. The defeat of the Referendum, however, also left untouched the challenge that it was designed to address: the injustice, violence, suffering and cultural loss involved in colonisation in Australia and its abiding legacy in discriminatory attitudes embodied in the institutional treatment of their descendants. The response to these evils, proposed by Indigenous representatives, was to enshrine a voice in the Constitution as an expression of reconciliation. With that proposal rejected, the reality of a long history of discrimination and abiding differences in health, education and other areas remains unaddressed.
The proper observance of Australia Day should perhaps be messy. It includes the freedom to enjoy the sunshine that is given to the just and unjust, to Indigenous and other Australians alike. It should also include recognition of the history in which the first inhabitants were dispossessed and marginalised with consequences that continue to be experienced by their descendants. Australia Day reminds us that the effects of colonial settlement need to be acknowledged, the harm suffered by Indigenous Australians to be owned, and a reconciliation sought that enshrines in culture, law and administration their unique status in Australia.
Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street, and writer at Jesuit Social Services.