Australia Day or Invasion Day?

Australia's national day, Australia Day 🇦🇺, is coming up on 26 January.

But not every Aussie will be celebrating. For many, it's Invasion Day.

As Aussies are taught in schools, on 26 January 1788, 11 ships full of prisoners mostly arrested on petty crimes such as stealing bread arrived at Botany Bay to form a new colony far, far, far away from Britain.

Well, actually they arrived in Botany Bay a week before that but the soil there was too sandy for agriculture, so the whole First Fleet sailed a little north into Port Jackson and set themselves up in Sydney Cove.

Fast forward 230+ years and Sydney Cove is the bustling downtown core of Sydney, Australia's largest city.

Australia Day is now celebrated with much aplomb, particularly since 2000 when Sydney hosted the Olympics. It's all green 💚 and gold ⭐ (the national colours of Australia's official floral emblem, golden wattle) or blue with some red and white (the Australian flag colours) and don't forget the fireworks displays (don't fire them yourselves though – that's illegal) and having a barbie (BBQ 🫕).

It's a far cry from the subdued nature of Australia Day pre-2000, apart from the bicentenary celebrations in 1988. Hey, before 1988 January 26 wasn't even a day off but instead the public holiday was relegated to the Monday after so as to form a long weekend.

However, overlooked for decades was that is not a day of celebration for all Australians. When the First Fleet arrived into 'Sydney Cove', they actually arrived into 'Warrane' as Australia was not the 'terra nullius' (nobody's land) used to justify European colonisation. First Nations peoples had already lived in Australia for at least 60,000 years, so for them and their sympathisers 26 January is the day of the invasion that launched the genocidal destruction of their land and civilisation.

It's not a day of celebration, it's a day of mourning.

Growing from humble beginnings in 1938 as a protest, Australia's First Nations and their supporters have since staged ever larger Day of Mourning counter-commemorations on 26 January to the point now there is increasing public support for a change of date for Australia's national day to one that represents all Australians.

Given how polarised Australians are over Australia Day/Invasion Day, before you wish your Australian clients and/or colleagues a Happy Australia Day, best check to see how they sit with the day.

This shows how important it is to have an Aussie who knows their stuff to go through your text and context to make it just right for your lucrative Australian audience. If this is what you're looking for, then drop me a line at info@nicknasev.com and let's discuss!