On Friday, the City of Freemantle announced that all Australia day celebrations city-wide would be moved to January 28th in 2017. At the time Mayor Brad Pettitt was quoted saying the decision came from the “loud and clear” attitudes of Aboriginal elders, but instantly met backlash because no Aboriginals were immediately involved in the first announcement.
Since then an apparent media silence from these elders has followed as news sources scrambled instead to attack Pettitt, accusing him of grandstanding or being overly politically correct for the sake of it. Here’s the thing – the elders weren’t being silent at all. Nobody even asked them what they thought.
After media backlash against the City of Fremantle’s decision to move Australia Day celebrations, a group of grassroots Aboriginal elders have been forced to quell some vicious rumours.
A local grassroots activist named Robert Eggington took to Facebook on Monday to post a series of photos depicting a large group of elders meeting with the Fremantle council on the subject of Australia Day celebrations. See his post below:
If anything, the reactions from Australia and it’s mass media just reinforces how progressive Fremantle’s decision is. Instead of reaching out to the local elders largely responsible for the change, reporters were approaching the Fremantle council, Pettitt and Aboriginal politicians who represent zones on the wrong side of the country.
Worse still is the assumption that Pettitt was lying about working with these elders, which isn’t too tough a fact to check.
Whatever your stance on the matter, it’s clear that a large portion of Australia is still far from ready for this change. When a progressive politician makes an historic decision they should be applauded, not lampooned.
With Australia Day still two months away, expect much more chatter yet.
