My world on the web
You cannot say that Australia day embraces all Australians while simultaneously saying that people who think the date should change are unpatriotic by “turning their backs on Australian values”. That rhetoric sends a very clear message that diversity of opinion is not an important Australian value, and it is further problematic when Aboriginal people are seen as synonymous with the Change The Date movement. It further reinforces the increasingly common observation that the ideal of free speech is only invoked to defend racialised hate speech, and only in one direction.
And just as nobody should give you a Gold medal for Weightlifting just for joining the gym, we can’t just use changing the date of Australia to pretend we have fixed racism and then throw a party to celebrate how harmonious we already are.
In an extract from Truth-Telling, Henry Reynolds unpacks some of the context and concerns associated with Australia Day.