Jessica Page: WA history is open to interpretation, but must not be forgotten

History is at our fingertips in 2025.

But has swapping the trusty encyclopedia for a bottomless pit of information — often biased and competing with cat videos online — resulted in important information slipping through the cracks our memories?

The journalistic temptation of gotcha questions is often more style than substance.

It’s not fair to expect our politicians to remember every detail of data every time, when the press pack has our phones handy to fact check.

Yet Basil Zempilas provided the opening, when he raised the moment the first woman settler cut down a tree to mark the foundation of the Swan River Colony.

He was accusing the Government of forsaking “history and tradition” in its quest to better align WA’s public holiday calendar with the spring sunshine by moving WA Day from June to November, but the Opposition Leader hadn’t done his homework.

Mrs Helena Dance’s symbolic tree chopping happened on August 12 1829, not June 1.

“I’m sorry Mrs Dangerfield, for not remembering what you taught me back in year six at Floreat Primary,” he said, two days later.

But. . .

“The Premier had time to brush up, he should have got it right!”

Sure enough, Roger Cook got the date wrong too. He called Mrs Dance’s pioneering moment in history a “pretty macabre” moment to celebrate.

It turns out most people I asked couldn’t immediately recall that defining day in WA history without googling it. I couldn’t, though I could picture it.

Many others had never seen George Pitt Morison’s famous oil painting from a century later that captured Mrs Dance, axe in hand, alongside Lieutenant Governor James Stirling. Right or wrong, they were pioneers who helped turn this great State into our home.

The facts of history do not change, but they are open to interpretation.

Parts of white European settlement certainly were macabre.

Not all of WA’s past deserves celebrating. But it all warrants remembering — the good, the bad and the very ugly — to ensure we learn the grave lessons of the past.

“As an art museum we think it is important to record and collect art history, which is what we do whether the subject matter is celebratory or challenging,” Art Gallery of WA director Colin Walker said.

“The artwork The Foundation of Perth by George Pitt Morison is not currently on display, but was last on display in an exhibition titled ‘Form and feeling: artists’ studies of the twentieth century’ which ran from 21 December to 4 May.

“The Foundation of Perth artwork will be on display again in December”

It will be part of a new exhibition “Attachment Styles” celebrating the State Art Collection’s most iconic works.

Art is so often in the eye of the beholder.

History can be subjective too, and should trigger discussion.

The State Government rightly argues that WA Day has evolved and is about the celebration, not the date.

I’m personally also ambivalent about Australia Day which feels like a hornet’s nest of an issue, because there’s no ready alternative to January 26 (at least, not until we become a republic — another debate, for another day).

But I don’t want to rub salt into Indigenous Australia’s wound, and hate that our national day has become divisive.

The day the first fleet arrived at Sydney Cove is not the day Australia was born.

Indigenous Australian history is much longer, while the Federation itself was formed on January 1 1901. But we’ve already got New Year’s Day off so that won’t work.

January 26 was only declared a national public holiday in 1994.

June 1 was WA’s day a lot longer, since 1832, though it used to be called Foundation Day.

Colin Barnett renamed it in 2012. Mark McGowan changed it from a fixed date to the first Monday of June.

“Obviously, history will continue to be celebrated within Western Australia,” Mr Cook said on Tuesday.

“But we need to really just take account of the fact this is a great place to live. We have a multicultural society built upon centuries of indigenous existence and traditions and cultural enrichment.

“The opportunity to now shift WA Day to spring means that we can come out when, in particularly in this part of WA, the State is at its best.”

Change the dates, if necessary, to ensure every West Australian has cause to celebrate. But don’t forget the past. We’re still learning from it.

Jessica Page is the State political editor