Colonial statues vandalised ahead of contentious Australia Day holiday

When the colonials arrived , the local did not understand the meaning of sovereignty or the locals would have mounted a challenge of some type. Unlike the Palestinians did in 1948 when Palestine was invaded by the colonist they mounted resistance. The locals Aboriginals were impressed by this new tribe the colonist and their tools etc and wanted to exchange knowledge and hardware and experience their social order.

It's probably the same people who support Palestine and want to accept millions of Middle Eastern refugees. I'm surprised they haven't stormed the Australian Open yet.

contentious Australia Day holiday

It's only "contentious" to those perpetually aggrieved.

It's only "contentious" to those who thrive on engineering more socially dividing clap-trap.

It's only "contentious" to those who want to make 80% of the population feel ashamed of being caucasian, ashamed of being born in Australia or ashamed of what may or may not have happened in our country 200 years prior to our birth.

To everyone else, who are thankful for what we have and grateful to be from what has become one of the best countries on Earth... Happy Australia Day.

"This sort of vandalism really has no place in our community," 

Agreed. Despicable acts of ignorance by the woke left.

Unlike the Palestinians did in 1948 when Palestine was invaded by the colonist they mounted resistance.

True Israel (known as the Palestinians at that time) was invaded by 5 colonial Arab countries.

Ah, the statue-defacing activist. Defeating their own cause one hair-brain action after another. We really should thank them for showing us how ridiculously low they will go. Vandalizing a statue says it all. Why not mob up and try and take the whole thing down during the daylight? See how that works out for yaz!

Happy Australia Day! Don't like it? I am happy to show you the door to the way out.

Australian cricket captain Pat Cummins, one of the country's most popular sportsmen, has led calls to change the date of Australia Day

Most popular sportsmen?! Ha. No-one likes Captain Woke. He's a mediocre player who'll never be a Steve Waugh, Mark Taylor, or even a Ricky Ponting. They were all captains who actually loved their country. Cummins on the other hand is a cringey self-appointed social justice warrior and climate catastrophist clown.

Very selective outrage regarding when it is acceptable to cause damage and disruption if things don’t go your way…

Very selective outrage regarding when it is acceptable to cause damage and disruption if things don’t go your way…

We celebrate Australia day to celebrate our achievements in building this nation.

Before the first fleet and colonisation, the land of what is now Australia was sparsely populated with very loosely organized indigenous tribes. Nobody is 'celebrating genocide' as the article seems to suggest.

What eventuated was a sad but inevitable consequence of contact between an advanced industrial civilisation and isolated tribal cultures. Those in the vocal minority seem unable to accept that it would have happened no matter what choices were made.

Again, January 26th is a day for all Australians to celebrate the nation we've become. Happy Australia Day to all (and to you too Jimizo)!

To displace Indigenous peoples from their lands is a grievous sin against them, their lands, their ancestors, and God (Proverbs 22:28; 23:10-11)

Very christian of them.

January 26 is really "discovery day".

Land discovered by the British, and the realization that another culture had discovered the land tens of thousands of years earlier. So the British were pretty late to the party.

Australia became a nation on 1 January 1901 when six British colonies—New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania—united to form the Commonwealth of Australia. This process is known as Federation.

So the actual Australia day is January 1, or new years day.

Perhaps the best day to call Australia day was the day everyone was able to vote in Australian elections.

The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1962 received assent on 21 May 1962. It granted all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people the option to enrol and vote in federal elections.

Discovery day is a sad day for indigenous people, so trying to get everyone happy on that day will never occur. To enact a truly national day that everyone can get behind, should be the goal for governments to make happen.

The divisiveness is only growing around Jan 26, which is really a day for UK to celebrate, not Australia.

Perhaps one day this can be amicably resolved. For now we must live in a state of disharmony on Australia day. Such a shame.

Fly in ointment comments to follow.

In 1915, July 30 became the first official "Australia Day ", to raise money for WW1 .

26 of January was called Anniversary Day in NSW in early days.

By 1935, all states celebrated 26/1 although many states called it "Foundation Day " and NSW called it "Anniversary Day ".

In 1994 Australia Day became a national day with a public holiday to occur on the closest Monday to the 26 of January.

Get a long weekend, but actual date itself not sacrosanct.

Aboriginal groups called the celebration of this date a ""day of mourning" as early as 1935.

Captain Cook did not discover Australia as some European sailors had discovered at least the West coast.

Aborigines in North Queensland traded with Macasans {spelling } from modern day Indonesia a hundred years before Cook. Traded sea products and similar.

England's claim to the east coast as based on the legal assumption of "terra nulias "", a concept disputed by Australia''s High Court in the famed "Mabo " decision.

I've read Cook's ship logs from this voyage and over to New Zealand. Very fascinating , least not for the description of cedar forest running down to the coastal edge of eastern Australia.{ He named the "Solitary Islands " just offshore from my abode in Australia}.... .Forests now gone . Deforestation of the "red gold ".

Cook as a brilliant sailor, his maps are super accurate and I believe he as a good leader of men.

Destroying statues of him are ignorant acts....

Happy Day

I respect changing the date of Australia Day out of respect to the Indigenous people, if that is truly what they wish.

Changing the date of Australia Day will do absolutely nothing to improve the lives of Aboriginal women and children living in fear of domestic violence and sexual abuse, or for the communities plagued by assaults, drug and alcohol abuse and rampant theft.

I do not support doing anything these anti-Australian weaklings from Melbourne want. They make me sick. If you question anything they have to say, they'll go after your job, family, anything else you've got going on. The so-called "woke mind virus" is absolutely festering in Melbourne.

100%. Melbourne needs a wall built around it to keep the lunatics in. It's a shame the rest of Victoria and indeed, the country, have to be lumped together with a city of militant, unhinged snowflakes.

Cancel Culture won't ruin the day though. Happy Australia Day.

Very selective outrage regarding when it is acceptable to cause damage and disruption if things don’t go your way…

We celebrate Australia day to celebrate our achievements in building this nation.

Before the first fleet and colonisation, the land of what is now Australia was sparsely populated with very loosely organized indigenous tribes. Nobody is 'celebrating genocide' as the article seems to suggest. 

What eventuated was a sad but inevitable consequence of contact between an advanced industrial civilisation and isolated tribal cultures. Those in the vocal minority seem unable to accept that it would have happened no matter what choices were made. 

Again, January 26th is a day for all Australians to celebrate the nation we've become. Happy Australia Day to all (and to you too Jimizo

Fair points.

I don’t know what that has to do with selective outrage regarding the use of vandalism and disruption when you don’t get your own way though.

But still, thanks.

This is why we can't have nice things.

The indigenous people were very badly treated for many decades including the removal of their children. Shameful.

"Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were subjected to a range of injustices, including mass killings or being displaced from their traditional lands and relocated on missions and reserves in the name of protection. Cultural practices were denied, and subsequently many were lost."

https://vpsc.vic.gov.au/workforce-programs/aboriginal-cultural-capability-toolkit/aboriginal-culture-and-history/#:~:text=Aboriginal%20and%20Torres%20Strait%20Islander%20people%20were%20subjected%20to%20a,and%20subsequently%20many%20were%20lost.

What does Australia Day mean to the indigenous?

Again, January 26th is a day for all Australians to celebrate the nation we've become. Happy Australia Day to all (and to you too Jimizo

But is isn't a day for all Australian's and thats the point you ignore. The date it is held, holds negative emotions for the first Australians, which you and many others are content to completely sweep under the rug and ignore.

January 26 is a day for most white and immigrant Australians to celebrate the nation Australia has become, but leaves the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders angry and bitter that their feelings are ignored or seen as unimportant when it comes to having a national day. Imagine if that were reversed and every white and immigrants feelings were ignored in the selection of a national day. Would you be happy to be ignored and proud on the day chosen in total disregard for you and your family? I am very sure you would have much to say about it then, as First nations people do now regarding Jan 26.

A little empathy and compromise goes a long way, and the world needs that more today than it has for a long time. Australia could lead the way, or it can just fire up the barby and have some lamb chops and a few tinnies, and ignore an important element of the nation and their opinions.

Vandalism is never the answer or the way forward. Yobbos like that deserve a visit from the constabulary, and to pay reparations. But the national day needs to be nationally loved.

I don’t know what that has to do with selective outrage regarding the use of vandalism and disruption when you don’t get your own way though.

Yes, remember all the vandalism and desecrating from conservatives when "progressive" movements such as gay marriage were legalized in Australia?

Oh that's right, it didn't happen.

Kevin Rudd's apology was a good start back in the day:

https://www.aph.gov.au/Visit_Parliament/Art/Icons/Apology_to_Australias_Indigenous_Peoples

I studied it as part of a post-grad course I did so I know that it's latter half suggests everyone should get over the years of abuse people suffered.

I don't pretend to know what my Australian family makes of the situation because it is none of my business and irrelevant

I do know that I agree with Mr wallace's comment above and that I might respectfully add that the holiday "Australia Day" should be scrapped.

Try to find comedian Austen Tayshus ""Australiana " for a good laugh and play on words.

Eg..."I said Lord Howe, how much can a koala bear "

Does anyone seriously doubt that the lives of indigenous Australians improved after "colonization"?

They just want special privilege.

This is not a funny topic, but describing Australia as an 'island' certainly makes me laugh. It's continent! Or at least it was when I was in school far too many years ago.

led calls to change the date of Australia Day

Sorry as a non-Aussie I don’t get it - change the date why?

Australia Day is marked annually on 26 January, commemorating the day that Britain established the state of New South Wales in the east as a penal colony in 1788.

So there you go… history happened.

It’s not like anyone wants to change Christmas Day - what would changing the day do for anyone?

Abolishing the day would make sense if some people feel that way, we have to be considerate, but just changing the date seems like nonsense.

People who do this to statues should be made to clean them with a toothbrush

The message of colonizers and imperialists for centuries. Somehow it's comforting to know that it still gets used from time to time.

Does anyone seriously doubt that the lives of indigenous Australians improved after "colonization"?

That was the day of "Genocide" the aboriginal people on the continent of Australia's is, they has lost their lands, dignity and lives!

That was the day of "Genocide" the aboriginal people on the continent of Australia's is, they has lost their lands, dignity and lives!

To you, Peter14 and others making arguments for a date change premised on the questionable claim that Aboriginal Australians would somehow be better off, I ask, how?

Just like the proposed "Voice to Parliament", we’re not told how a date change is actually better for Aboriginal people. We’re just told it is better, or told that the date is "hurtful" for Aboriginal people and so needs to be changed, and that a change will make things better.

Again, changing the date from January 26 would be like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It looks good, but we know the outcome.

January 26 is a day for most white and immigrant Australians to celebrate the nation Australia has become, but leaves the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders angry and bitter that their feelings are ignored or seen as unimportant when it comes to having a national day. 

More than slightly insulting to suggest Aboriginal people’s emotional wellbeing is under the control of a date. It sends the ridiculous message to Aboriginal people that if the date remains unchanged, they are in ‘pain’ on that day. If the date is changed, then they are somehow relieved of pain.

This is not a celebration of a supposed 'genocide.' This is a celebration of the great nation of Australia, for ALL of its inhabitants. Happy Australia Day today, January 26th.

@ Very christian of them.

Christianists and their other extreme right wing kin are not very Christian, nor religious in any positive way, it's just a tag used to separate themselves from those they deem 'others', while they sing their "...onward, Marching off to war..." hymn.

I have no problem with a different day of National celebration if it means that everybody can celebrate being Australian together. In harmony, in unison.

Here's a hard truth, though, a reality based on having spent several years in very close contact working with members of the Indigenous community.

I did not meet many people at all who genuinely wanted to be part of the broader Australian community. Many despised the general community of Australians and were perfectly happy to call them all manner of foul and racist names and insults, and cause violence and crime. Their hatred was deeply ingrained.

My feeling is generally that the broader Australian community very much want Indigenous people to be healthy, prosperous, successful members of the community because it's good for everybody and works beautifully within the multi cultural fabric of the country. I very distinctly felt as though that feeling is not mutual though.

Also, the idea of Indigenous Australians being a sovereign nation at any point of their history is a complete myth. Even today, feuds between families in localised language groups are rife and out of control. Rivalry and traditional enmity between neighbouring 'tribes' or language groups even worse. There is no cohesive sense of unity in the broader Indigenous community at all.

So, sure, if the date needs to be changed, I honestly don't care, it's kind of arbitrary anyway, in that the act of celebrating as a group is more important that when it actually happens. But the big question to me is: will it really change things that much?

Sadly, I suspect not, but I'm happy for Australia to try.