Blog
Thanks City News for the column in this week’s edition! And Happy Australia Day
January 26, 2020
Australia Day is our time to sit and reflect and consider who we are as individuals, who we are as a nation and where we sit as a citizen in this global village called Earth, and how our continent (the size of the USA) sits. It shouldn’t be a one day conversation, as we need to learn about our history for longer than 24 hours.
Everyone has a different interpretation of Australia Day, but from what Canberra’s own John Paul Janke from NITV said on ABC Radio with Adrienne Francis on Saturday 25th, many of our indigenous friends can feel excluded on the day. As Nova Peris Kneebone OAM has said, by embracing our First Nation friends, we don’t lose anything – we actually gain so much. So much knowledge, so much exposure to a different way of thinking, stretching our brains. It’s what brings us together, not divides us – and aren’t we the luckiest country to have the freedom of having the conversation. In a practical sense, we have all witnessed that our indigenous friends have had a bushfire strategy for tens of thousands of years, that in recent months has value-added to policy as well as operational aspects on the national stage.
On Sunday 26th January, at 6am, we watched NITV’s Sunrise Ceremony from Sydney, a collaboration with NITV and SBS – and this year Annabelle Herd and her team at Network 10/WIN are to be applauded for joining the simulcast, understanding the national importance of spreading the message to a wider audience. Wouldn’t it be brilliant if this starts a trend that NITV is not just seen as a channel for our indigenous friends to watch – we should all be tuning into to NITV to educate ourselves (we white fellas need a lot of that education). Do you know our indigenous friends were the first map makers on this planet? They were the first astronomers on this planet?
For 2021, wouldn’t it be great to have a gathering place in Canberra on a big screen to watch the Sunrise Ceremony at 6am next year? Dan Bourchier is supportive of anything that helps us to have a place and conversation where we can come together as a nation. So let’s see who we can lobby to get this happening.
It doesn’t matter where you sit in the political spectrum, there is a positive future for Australia with so many Greta Thunbergs out there and young indigenous leaders who are waiting in the wings, ready to vote and eager to shape our country. Can’t wait for them to turn 18 and start helping us shape the next decade.
In closing: for businesses out there please start to think about having an Acknowledgement of Country in your corporate literature and running the text past the elders. Not as a tokenistic tick-a- box, but as a genuine acknowledgement. After all, it is about paying respect – and isn’t that just basic courtesy?