The City of Darebin, a council in the inner north east of Melbourne, voted this week to dump Australia Day as a national day of celebration.
Darebin council will drop all references to Australia Day, including renaming its Australia Day Awards the “Darebin Community Awards”. The council’s Mayor, Cr Kim Le Cerf, said, if Australians were better educated they would “feel ashamed to be celebrating on January 26”. She went on to add that “it cannot truly be a national day when the oldest part of our nation cannot own it equally with the rest of us”.
Responding to the outrage, Cr Le Cerf, appearing on Channel Seven’s Sunrise, attempted to defend the decision, however was overshadowed when she stood by her comments that Australians were largely uneducated about Australia Day.
The Premier of Victoria, the Hon Daniel Andrews MP, joined the chorus of condemnation of the council, saying “I think you can have a celebration on the 26th of January of the things that are quintessentially Australian, our values, the things that we hold dear, and you can do that in a respectful way acknowledging and honouring the contribution and heritage of our nation and its first peoples. I think it’s a great shame that others are not prepared to do the hard work to get that balance right”.
Responding on behalf of the federal Government, the Assistant Minister for Immigration, the Hon Alex Hawke MP, fresh from banning the City of Yarra under similar circumstances last week, said the council had been warned “that politicising citizenship ceremonies would not be tolerated.”
Meanwhile, a Wurundjeri elder, Uncle Ian Hunter, who performs indigenous ceremonies for Darebin Council, said he was not consulted over the move to dump Australia Day. Mr Hunter, describing the move as “a few individuals saying, ‘we know best’” said he proudly took part in Australia Day festivities as someone of Aboriginal and Scottish background. “Who did they consult? We are all Australians. We put our differences aside and go forward as one” he said.
