'A reckoning' Debate over colonisation dominates national day

'We need to stop the lying," Prof Marcia Langton, a Yiman and Bidjara woman, said last Thursday, as tens of thousands of people attended protest rallies in cities across the country, amid a rising political and social reckoning with the country's colonial history.

- Ben Doherty SYDNEY

"The biggest lie, of course, is Australia Day." The day - 26 January - commemorates the landing of the first British fleet of convicts at Sydney Cove in 1788, the beginning of the settlement that entrenched European colonisation of the Australian continent.

But Langton argues that Australia's national day should not be one that commemorates colonisation: "I think we can find an inclusive date and I think we can start to tell the truth about Australia's history and show some respect for all the survivors of the frontier wars." While the date has been acknowledged since the 19th century, Australia Day has been a national public holiday only since 1994, and has grown increasingly divisive with a broadening public awareness of the systematic dispossession of Indigenous Australians, the genocidal violence that marked British settlement and the persistent disadvantage and oppression faced by Indigenous people.

Last Thursday, rallies were held to mark "Invasion Day", "Survival Day" and "Sovereignty Day", in a public sign that activities on 26 January are moving away from fireworks, festivals and flag-waving to become marked by reflection, protest or disengagement.