Oral Speech Australia Day

Should Australia change the date of Australia Day? 

Changing the date of Australia day will not change our past.

Intro

Australia’s national holiday January 26th should remain on that day,

Changing the date of Australia Day will not change our past,

However, what does that actually mean? For most people Australia day is

 Little more than an excuse to have a beer or watch the tennis, I want everyone to

 Recollect of a time someone has toasted to cultural genocide on Australia day,

Of course, nothing comes to mind. If we step back from a cynical view we can agree

 January 26,  2017 is very different day to January 26, 1788.

1

Changing the date would provoke widespread hostility
there is no record of a consensus within Australia to change the date of Australia day.

 Kate Darian-Smith, professor of Australian Studies and History at the

 University of Melbourne, has stated, 'Any decision to change Australia Day to an

alternative date or disband it altogether would need to be made by the

 combined federal and state governments. That seems unlikely to happen.

Suggestions from time to time that Australia Day be moved to another date have

Been met with little enthusiasm.' In the absence of a clear national consensus.

it has been argued that changing the date of Australia Day would not remove ill-feeling.

 A change of date would simply shift the sense of grievance from some Indigenous

1/2

Australians and those more recently settled in Australia to the larger group of

Australians who have become used and attached to the current date. 

Indigenous spokesperson, former West Australian of the Year and former

 head of the Australia Day Council WA, Robert Isaacs, has criticised the city

 of Freemantle's attempt to shift the date of Australia Day. 
Isaacs has stated. The shire needs to retract what it's doing.

 It's not in line with community attitudes.
I strongly condemn them for this whole thing. 

2

Changing the date would be of no practical benefit to the Indigenous populations
Its been claimed that changing the date would merely be an empty

symbolic gesture which would do nothing to improve the circumstances

 of Indigenous Australians. In an opinion piece published in The Conversation

 of January 25, 2017, Anthony Dillon, a Lecturer in the Faculty of Health Sciences

 at the Australian Catholic University stated, 'In response to my words

 "Australia is a great country to live in", some will immediately retort:

 "Well, it's not so great for many Aboriginal people." I agree, and this

2/2

should never be forgotten. But how will protesting about the date

 and Australia Day help those Aboriginal people most in need?'

 Dillon continued, 'Protesting about the day, I believe, is a smokescreen