25-01-2025: In the approach to the coming Australian federal election, Opposition leader Peter Dutton has promised to reverse the current policy of allowing local councils to either cancel citizenship ceremonies on January 26, or hold them within three days of that date.[1] Four local councils boycotted January 26 in 2023, and 81 councils refused to host official “Australia Day” events on January 26 in 2024. If elected, the Liberal Party of Australia/National Party of Australia Coalition will effectively mandate January 26 as Australia’s national day. Reflecting the changing directions over January 26, the New South Wales capital of Sydney will host a dawn to dusk program of “celebrations” with somewhat token projections of Aboriginal images onto the Sydney Opera House amongst free concerts, a ferry race, a 21 gun salute and a flyover by Royal Australian Navy (RAN) Seahawk helicopters draping national flags underneath.[2] The military showboating is probably intentional, as it was RAN Seahawks which deliberately breached the People’s Republic of China’s Exclusive Economic Zone on May 6 this year, as part of US led war provocations against the Asian superpower.[3]
What happened?
What has brought about this change in direction? For the last two decades, protests led by the Aboriginal people have drawn in thousands of supporters, and for the last ten years the rallies and demonstrations highlighting the offence of Australia’s national day marking the beginning of colonisation of the continent and the subsequent war of subjugation against the Indigenous people. The “Invasion Day” rallies on January 26 drew in so many people in the major cities, they dwarfed the risible size of official Australia Day activities. It should be noted that January 26, 1788, was not the first day the First Fleet arrived in Australia, but was rather the day that the British colonialists first raised the Union Jack in Sydney Cove.[4] In addition, January 26 has only been marked with a public holiday since 1994, but Aboriginal people and their supporters have been protesting on January 26 since the 1930s.
Australia’s Indigenous people have called Australia home for 60 000 years and are custodians of the world’s oldest living culture. When the First Fleet arrived, there were approximately 750 000 people thriving on the land, but by the 1900s their population was estimated to have been reduced by 90%.[5] In view of this and other stark reminders of ongoing disadvantage for the majority of Aboriginal people, it is an affront that Australia’s national day marks the beginning of its colonisation. Over time, the vast majority of Australia’s people have come to recognise the historical injustices imposed on Aboriginal people, and now support, at the least, equal treatment and access to employment, housing, healthcare and other services for indigenous people that are supplied to non-indigenous people as a matter of course. This was the basis for the increasing numbers of people flocking to Invasion Day protests every year on January 26, putting the official Australia Day celebrations in the shade.
By the mid-2010s, sentiment in favour of moving Australia’s national day to any other date apart from January 26 was accelerating. In 2017, youth radio network Triple J announced that it would no longer hold its “Hottest 100” countdown on January 26, in response to a poll which found that 60% of its listeners favoured moving it to another date.[6] The Invasion Day rallies of 2018 had the central demand of “Change the Date”, which reflected the growing opinion towards moving Australia’s national day AND the huge increase in support for the rights of indigenous people. The demonstrations were huge, with hundreds of thousands mobilising. From there, the momentum for the “Change the Date” snowballed, and it began to have a real impact even amongst government circles.
“Abolish”
Unfortunately, by 2019 some leaders of the Aboriginal rights movement and their left supporters reacted to this by rejecting “Change the Date” for supposedly not being radical enough, to move to the central demand of “Abolish Australia Day” or even “Abolish Australia”. While perhaps sounding more militant, this had a deadening effect on the groundswell of support behind “Change the Date”. Many thousands of supporters were repelled and turned away, dismayed at the direction of what appeared to them to be a nihilist demand. While it is true that changing the date of Australia’s national day would not end the disadvantages Indigenous people still endure, it would have been a progressive step forward which could only have been of benefit to the movement for Aboriginal rights. The Australian nation state, and the capitalism it upholds, is the ultimate source of disadvantage and discrimination against Indigenous people. But at present, working people in Australia are not at the stage of replacing this capitalist state with a superseding revolutionary socialist state – which will have no need for the suppression of the working class, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike.
Many thousands of supporters of Indigenous rights saw the demand “Abolish Australia Day” as an attempt to take something important away from them. Many non-Indigenous people in Australia only have the identity of their nation, insofar as the development of class consciousness is not high enough to supplant it. While many were more than happy to march and demonstrate and do much more to “Change the Date”, they were understandably not prepared to sacrifice what they understood as their own identity to help some indigenous activists and their “left” supporters “Abolish Australia”. It was a heavy casualty of what became woke identity politics – the elevation of racial, cultural and sexual identity above all other factors to the point of absurdity. Many so-called left parties who became part of the woke left aided this by standing by while a few Indigenous activists used liberal panthering to intimidate supporters away from questioning their errant political direction.
The woke agenda in general is now so politically toxic, very few admit to being its advocate. But for the indigenous rights movement in Australia, the damage has been done. From 2020, the nonsensical “Covid pandemic” divided the Indigenous community in a similar way in which it divided the non-Indigenous community. The woke left parties backed the mind-bending capitalist state repression of working people in the form of scientifically unjustifiable lockdowns, facemask and vaccine mandates. In fact, for a brief period, vaccinated Aboriginal people were spared the usual racial bigotry they endure at other times, as the intense class pressure was then meted out to unvaccinated Australians – both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. In fact, the woke left, which prides itself on defending Aboriginal people, did not lift a finger when the Australian Army was mobilised in the Northern Territory to enforce “Covid” lockdowns in remote Indigenous communities.[7] So much for its “anti-racism” !!
Voice defeat
In 2023, the Aboriginal Voice to Parliament (the “Voice”) referendum was heavily defeated.[8] The woke left and their constituency were the main backers of a “yes” vote. The vote against the Voice was not about racism, as many who campaigned for a “no” vote did so on the basis that the Voice would not improve the lives of Indigenous people. Others saw the Voice itself as a woke distraction from other hugely pressing problems such as the onerous cost of living – which disproportionately affects most Aboriginal people. Others saw the Voice as divisive, and some saw it as a continuation of the politics that produced the political repression experience with the excuse of “Covid”. Whatever the case, the Voice referendum defeat was yet another blow to woke identity politics. It was not a setback for Indigenous people per se, as the most that was lost was a committee which had the right to send a report to some politicians – who had the option of ignoring them anyway. Again, as with the Covid operation, the Voice referendum divided the Indigenous community down the middle.
Now, Aboriginal identity politics – backed by many so-called left parties, trade union officials and some government bodies – has repelled so many that they are now returning to “normal” Australia Day celebrations. Flag waving nationalism is now being upheld by many as “saving Australia” or “defending the nation” against divisive “progressive” activists. In short, the “Abolish Australia Day” slogan and the push behind it has produced more Australian nationalism than there was previously. It has rehabilitated the Australian flag, and even supermarket giant Woolworths has pledged to again stock Australian flag merchandise after calls for a boycott emerged last year following a decision not to sell Australia day fare.[9] “Abolish Australia” together with woke faux activism has had exactly the opposite outcome to its intention – it has fuelled “Australian pride” instead of diminishing it.
The changing of the date of Australia’s national day could have been won, as the support for it was there in spades. It may still be possible even at this late stage, but the leading Aboriginal activists and the “left” parties which back them would have to switch to the demand “Change the Date” AND reject all forms of identity politics. Doing so would open a real discussion and debate about the way forward for Indigenous people, and for society as a whole. It should also lead to a real left linking the issue of Aboriginal disadvantage to issues like the outrageous cost of living burden facing working people, falling real wages, the housing and healthcare crises – and the drive to war. The fate of Aboriginal people and the welfare of the working class are bound up together. Rather than pandering to liberals or leaving identity politics unchallenged, what is required is the revolutionary integration of the best and most class aware Indigenous and non-Indigenous fighters into a single multi-racial and multi-ethnic Marxist vanguard party. Such a party would resolutely stand for a workers’ republic. No longer divided by racial or cultural norms, a united working class pushing forward against an aging and decrepit capitalism has the potential to open the road to a revolution which is way overdue.
Workers League
E: workersleague@protonmail.com
[1] www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/opposition-leader-peter-dutton-promises-to-reinstate-citizenship-ceremonies-on-australia-day-amid-local-councils-boycott/news-story/9599783be3a19ec78d8be88dd798b354 (22-01-2025)
[2] www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/a-huge-range-of-free-events-will-take-place-around-sydney-harbour-from-dawn-and-into-the-night-on-january-26/news-story/e4c3faed38003cf9be94aeaa9c013b1b (22-01-2025)
[3] www.redfireonline.com/2024/05/20/adf-chopper-breaches-chinas-exclusive-economic-zone/ (22-01-2025)
[4] www.salaaminstitute.com.au/news-centre/muslim-community/why-we-should-change-the-date-of-australia-day (22-01-2025)
[5] www.australianethical.com.au/blog/australia-day-why-we-need-to-change-the-date/ (22-01-2025)
[6] www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-27/hottest-100-wont-be-held-on-australia-day-triple-j-says/9197014 (22-01-2025)
[7] www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/we-need-extra-people-army-heads-to-nt-communities-amid-new-covid-restrictions/mpc9p3vx0 (22-01-2025)
[8] www.insidestory.org.au/why-did-australia-reject-the-voice/ (22-01-2025)
[9] www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-01/australia-day-merchandise-woolworths-coles-aldi/104776504 (22-01-2025)
Image: http://www.news.com.au
Red Fire 