Rangi Hirini: Why May 27 could be the solution to the Australia Day ‘change the date’ debate

As the annual week of the “change the date” debate nears an end, you may be wondering what date could we change it to? I’m here with a solution that is the glass slipper for this scenario — the perfect fit. To recap, many First Nations people don’t celebrate Australia Day because to some it’s the beginning of colonisation — and there has been a lot of bad things done to First Nations people including massacres of Aboriginal groups, segregation policies and laws and the theft of land, children, culture, and identity, just to name a few. The conversation around changing the date of our national holiday has been around for decades but many who support the change say moving the public holiday to another date is just one step in the campaign. January 26 marks the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove. Celebrations on this day tend to be about acknowledging and celebrating the contribution of Australians. The themes tend to focus on unity and diversity. There’s been a lot of discussion about moving Australia Day to NAIDOC Week or even Mabo Day (the day Eddie Koiki Mabo overturned the fiction of terra nullius) but I think there’s a better day which reflects both Blak and white Australia coming together. On May 27, 1967 the nation voted in a referendum to change the Constitution to allow Aboriginal people to be counted in the country’s population. The turnout for the referendum was almost 94 per cent, and the result was a strong “Yes” vote, with a significant majority in all six States and an overall majority of almost 91 per cent. There is a belief among First Nations people that we previously were not even considered “human” but instead we came under the Flora and Fauna Act — but this has been debunked. Even so, there is no denying that excluding the whole population of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from 1788 until 1967 was part of the division of this country. By moving Australia Day to May 27, Australians would need to confront the past and have a better understanding about policies that divided us but also moments that brought us together. I know the reality is that we most likely won’t hear a discussion by the Federal Government about changing the date until the republic referendum occurs and a new Australia Day date will most likely be found in that process. Until then, it’ll be up to local governments, such as the City of Fremantle, to change their celebrations and change history.