Time to Listen: Reflections on Australia Day discussions 2021
Dr Kirstie Close
Prime Minister Scott Morrison suggested that the 26 January 1788 was not ‘particularly flash’ for the First Fleet. This flippant remark been met with frustration by large parts of the Australian community who consider this completely insensitive to the experiences of First Nations peoples across the continent, and their experience of the long colonialism and the inequality that came with it, that persists today. Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe has been very vocal in her disappointment with this statement.
This conversation was triggered by Cricket Australia’s choice to drop the term ‘Australia Day’ from the big bash competition marketing.
Morrison’s knee-jerk reaction shows he is tone deaf to the changing dynamics and awareness held by many Australians about the history of race relations in this country. As Dan Christian suggested: read the room, ScoMo.
We have new generations of Australians coming through who are aware and conscious of the inequalities that have marred our society since 1788. It is well and truly time for the leadership of our nation to reflect the values that are held by the bulk of our community.
It’s fair to refer to the date as Invasion Day, because that’s what it was. Military ships, manned by marines, delivered people to the foreshore in an act of claiming land for their own purposes. There was violence — if not on the first day, then down the track with the kidnapping of Kurringai man, Bungaree, for example. And this extended out as whites moved throughout the continent. The lines of violence have been mapped by The Guardian, with masses of massacre sites now recognised.
Though I see this date as one that marks the process of invasion, like Federal Indigenous Minister Ken Wyatt, I have hesitated to suggest that the date be abolished. There was a good argument for abolishing the public holiday altogether by a woman on NITV’s sunrise ceremony, whose name I did not catch because I was distracted by my one year old at the time, which I am frustrated about! She said that acknowledge this date was a day that promoted the importance of one particular group in our society beyond any other. She was right.
We have a long way to go before we fully articulate, accurately and honestly, how race has shaped and continues to shape our country. Morrison also famously said in 2020 that we should not import problems from the United States to our shores, in reference to the spread of the Black Lives Matter movement here. However, part of why we do this is because the US seems better equipped to eloquently and effectively air its racial politics and practices, and therefore have more open and raw discussions about it. Those are hard discussions, but they are ones that lead to swifter healing. America is not the envy of many if any countries currently, but we can want that same integrity to operate in Australia.
The language of minimizing, of dismissing, of delegitimizing and gaslighting must stop. It’s as defeating and disempowering as deficit discourse. What we look for now is authenticity, empathy, and respect. Frank Bongiorno summed this up, describing the process of deflection that the Prime Minister employed, rather subconsciously. It is a familiar technique for Australians to use, to try and minimize their own discomfort in these discussions. That’s too hard, let’s look somewhere else, sort of thing.
We need to confront the histories of the reserves run by government and Christian missions, the lasting impacts of child removal that has cut across multiple generations, and not only this, but the place that Australia has held as a colonizer across the Pacific region. It was not just on this large island that Australians asserted some control and authority over Indigenous peoples. This extended out to Papua and New Guinea, to Fiji, to Nauru, to Christmas Island, to name a few where Australians were either formally or informally operating as colonisers into the latter end of the twentieth century.
Regardless of the tropes that Morrison engages with, that institutions such as Cricket Australia are moving on and along in a process of recognition and respect shows the way in which the tide is moving. As tokenistic as this is, and that some reconciliation plans can be for example, they reflect a gradual shift that might make the denial of some parts of the community just marginally less exhausting for those who have experienced racism through so many other areas of life.
If nothing else, Morrison’s gaff has given opportunity for commentators remind us again that the Uluru Statement from the Heart is sitting idly ignored by our country’s leadership, despite the significance it carries. Let us look to the Statement, and messages from First Nations communities across the country through this time and find our way forward from there.
