AUSTRALIA Day celebrations will remain in place in the Hawkesbury, as there is a push at a national level by the Greens and others to change the date of Australia Day.
Hawkesbury Mayor Mary Lyons-Buckett confirmed to the Gazette that no request had been made to change Australia Day celebrations in the Hawkesbury, either by local Aboriginal people or the Greens.
She pointed out that Council had in fact added a family event to its Australia Day schedule.
However, federally, Greens leader Senator Richard di Natale has declared changing the date of Australia Day will be one of his top priorities in 2018.
"All Australians want a day on which we can come together and to celebrate our wonderfully diverse, open and free society - but January 26 is not that day," Senator Di Natale told Fairfax Media – the publisher of the Gazette - on Sunday.
"It's time that we stop papering over an issue that for 200 years has been so divisive and painful for so many of our citizens."
A handful of Melbourne councils scrapped celebrations on Australia Day, for the same reasons Senator Di Natale expressed, moving them to a different day.
Closer to home, Blue Mountains City Council eventually decided to keep Australia Day celebrations on January 26 last year, despite a push for change.
In the Hawkesbury, Greens councillor Danielle Wheeler said she fully supported Senator Di Natale’s views, however, would not push to scrap Council’s Australia Day celebrations anytime soon.
“We need to remember that celebrating Australia Day on 26th January is a relatively recent thing across the country,” she said.
“Australia Day needs to be held on a date that the whole nation is comfortable with, not a date that marks the invasion of the Continent by Britain, the beginning of the Frontier Wars, failed attempts to destroy the oldest living culture on the planet, and ongoing discrimination.
“Even John Howard and Malcolm Turnbull have stated that they support Australians questioning the date.”
Cr Wheeler said she would only push for changes if local Aboriginal people asked her to, as did the Mayor.
“I would be happy to bring a proposal to Council but at the end of the day, I’m a whitefellla,” Cr Wheeler said.
“I’m in a position to act as a conduit, but the local Aboriginal Community are the best people to lead this discussion. We need to spend more time listening to what they want and acting on it.”
Cr Wheeler said there should be a civil debate around the issue, which she said could be divisive.
"It is up to us, as Australians who prize fairness and equality, to start having a civilised, grown-up conversation about how we reconcile our past treatment of Indigenous Australians with our future as a country we can be proud of,” she said.
