Antinuclear

Acacia pycnantha, otherwise known as Golden Wattle, has earned its status as our national floral emblem: it symbolises May Gibbs’ Little Ragged Blossom; the green and gold garb of our cricket team; it signifies the golden sands of our beaches and the green of our gum trees.

This and many other reasons, is why Australia Day, our national celebration of who we are as a nation, should move from January 26 to September 1 — Wattle Day. The first of September is the first day of Spring, marking a time of birth, fresh beginnings….

Instead, we officially celebrate Australia Day on January 26. For our First Peoples, this is hardly a day to celebrate. It marks the day in 1788 that Captain Arthur Phillip invaded the Eora Nation, landing in Sydney Harbour and claiming the lands of indigenous peoples in the name of the British Empire. It marks the start of 227 years of suffering and loss, massacres of hundreds of thousands of people, and of the removal of tens of thousands of children from their mothers’ arms.
It is the height of insensitivity and hypocrisy to celebrate Australia’s nationhood on such a date, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have voiced their protest to it since the 1880s………

Wattle Day, on the other hand, acknowledges the natural beauty of this land, which, like Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, is ancient. This would be more sensitive to indigenous peoples, and it would bring unity, in celebrating the natural beauty of our lands and waters.

Changing the date of Australia Day is possible. We only have to look to the USA for inspiration, where the similarly insensitive ‘Columbus Day’ is no longer observed in Hawaii, South Dakota, Alaska and Oregon. South Dakota has actually changed the day to ‘Native American Day’ and the city of Berkeley in California, followed by a number of other cities, renamed it ‘indigenous Peoples’ Day’.

The last time changing the date was discussed on a political level was in 2009 when Mick Dodson was named Australian of the Year. He used the opportunity to urge national debate on changing the date of Australia Day, saying that the use of January 26 as Australia Day alienates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people…….
>National symbols matter, and it is time for us to celebrate as a nation in a way that unites rather than divides us, under the green and golden branches of the wattle tree.

Tammy Solonec is indigenous Peoples’ Rights Manager for Amnesty International Australia. http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/why-today-should-be-australia-day/story-fnixwvgh-1227507268253