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Many supporters of keeping Australia Day on January 26 cite tradition as a reason to maintain the status quo.
But as historian Benjamin T. Jones from Central Queensland University writes today, Australia Day hasn’t always been marked on January 26.
For example, Australia Day was marked on July 30 in 1915 as a fundraising effort for the first world war, and was celebrated in late July every year for the rest of the war.
In fact, Australia Day only officially became a public holiday on January 26 across the nation in 1994.
Protests on January 26 are also not new. In 1938, First Nations people declared January 26 a “day of mourning”. And on that day in 1988, over 40,000 people marched in Sydney calling for Indigenous land rights - the largest protests since the Vietnam Moratorium demonstrations in the early 1970s.
As we head into another year of debate and division over the date of our national holiday, Jones writes that “it’s important to recognise Australia Day has not always been celebrated on January 26, and the meaning of the date has long been contested”.
And Professor of Indigenous Studies Bronwyn Carlson writes today she’s tired of the same old debate that rears its head in January every year.
She says the conflict over a date obscures the discussions we should be having: about truth, about treaty, and about the ongoing suffering many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples still endure.
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Liam Petterson
Deputy Politics Editor
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Benjamin T. Jones, CQUniversity Australia
Australia Day has not always been celebrated on January 26, and the meaning of the date has been contested historically and today.
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Bronwyn Carlson, Macquarie University
January 26 brings debate about whether the day of invasion should be celebrated. People seem to ignore it was just the beginning of the oppression of Indigenous peoples.
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Thalia Anthony, University of Technology Sydney; Vanessa Napaltjari Davis, Australian National University
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