Why some Australians don’t want a date change

Garry Thomas reckons Indigenous Australians face racism all the time.

The 66-year-old retiree from Melton West says ‘‘regardless of all our so-called racism laws, they are still being picked on today, even our federal government is doing it’’.

Mr Thomas cites the cashless welfare cards, which have been trialled largely in low socioeconomic Indigenous populations, that limit what people can buy with welfare payments. ‘‘They are discriminating against people with this Indue card,’’ he says.

But he opposes the push to change the date of Australia Day from January 26, a date many Indigenous people see as a mourning or invasion day.

On January 26, 1788, Arthur Phillip came ashore at Sydney Cove and proclaimed British sovereignty, marking the beginning of a long history of dispossession and trauma for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. In recent years there has been growing debate whether the date should be changed to be more inclusive.

So far, that campaign has minority support. Only 28 per cent of those polled supported the date change while a quarter did not have a view. Mr Thomas was among 48 per cent of respondents in an Ipsos poll, commissioned by The Age who disagreed with the campaign to change the date.

The reasons of those who are sceptical of the campaign to reassess the day are varied, and don’t mean people are blind to Australia’s past or to Indigenous history or disadvantage.

It’s just that many are perplexed as to what a date change would really achieve and hope, at least, for a united Australia in all its complexity.

‘‘I really don’t see the need for it and I don’t think it’s going to solve anything,’’ Mr Thomas says. ‘‘It’s not going to do anything for the racism. So I really don’t understand why.’’

The national online poll canvassed the views of 1222 Australians between January 19 and January 22 on their views on changing the Australia Day date, its importance to improving the lives of Indigenous Australians and to what extent they think Indigenous Australians face racism in Australia today.

Mr Thomas, a former transport worker with Australia Post, was born in Portland, south-west Victoria. He has Irish ancestry on his mother’s side and Welsh on his father’s.

‘‘The British have got a lot to answer for. They’ve tried to colonise a country, put them to their way of thinking and if they haven’t they’ve tried to wipe them out. But this invasion day happened so long ago. We are all supposedly part of Australia, so why don’t we all just move forward instead of dwelling on things that have happened in the past.’’

The Ipsos poll found a generational divide when it came to support for moving the Australia Day date.

Forty-seven per cent of people aged 19-24 were in favour of a shift from January 26, compared to just 19 per cent in Mr Thomas’ cohort of people aged older than 55.

‘‘I think people are happy with where it is,’’ said Mr Thomas, who has no plans to celebrate the day this year. ‘‘I’m sort of old-school and I don’t see why people complain. And I think even if they do pick another day, no one is going to be happy with it anyway.’’

The only thing that would persuade him to change his mind would be if a census of Indigenous people showed overwhelming support for a change. ‘‘I’m just wondering if this so-called movement is the Aboriginal people doing it, or people thinking that’s what they should be doing for the Aboriginal people.’’

Storm Mackenzie, a 23-year-old school course designer from the Perth suburb of Armadale, was among the 24 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds who told the Ipsos poll she opposed a shift.

Ms Mackenzie believes Australia Day should still be celebrated as well as NAIDOC Week, a celebration of Indigenous culture that was born out of the Day of Mourning protest against Australia Day.

Racism against Indigenous Australians varies depending on the location. ‘‘But at the same time I feel especially the older generations make these subconscious racist comments that they don’t even notice.’’

She worries changing the date would be divisive and inflame those with strong views.

‘‘Moving a date would not address all the problems, we need to go a lot deeper than that,’’ Ms Mackenzie says. ‘‘I feel like it’s just going to cause more tension and we need to focus on better ways to all be Australian.’’

Despite less than 30 per cent of respondents supporting the campaign to change the date, half of those polled believe a shift will happen in the next 10 years.

‘‘They will get away with it,’’ predicts Robyn Muir, a 60-year-old Woolworths worker from the suburb of Cornubia in Logan, Queensland. ‘‘The older generation don’t protest and we don’t dig our heels in.“

She and her husband Michael see a divide between the generations. ‘‘The older generation love Australia Day the way it is because it’s our history and the younger generations think it should be changed,’’ Mr Muir said.

But some Australians are becoming more aware of the Indigenous perspective.

Dean Attard, a 30-year-old pharmacy manager from Newcastle, was never someone to plaster himself in Australian flags, but for years he and his friends congregated on Australia Day to listen to the Hottest 100 countdown.

Mr Attard says it was the debate on Triple J over whether the Hottest 100 should be held on Australia Day that first alerted him to the issue.

‘‘To be honest I’ve only really heard of this in the last five years,’’ says Mr Attard, who told the Ipsos poll he agreed with changing the date.

In 2017 Triple J announced the Hottest 100 would no longer be held on Australia Day.

‘‘It was changing the date of the Hottest 100 that first got me thinking about it. I’m not completely versed on Indigenous rights but when I think about it, the day it is currently on does irk me a bit. I do find it a bit unusual that we celebrate the history of Australia on quite a sad day for the First Australians.’’