Melbourne councils are overwhelmingly backing Australia Day this year, ignoring the Prime Minister’s call allowing them to scrap citizenship ceremonies on January 26. Of the 31 councils in metropolitan Melbourne, 28 have chosen to mark the national day and swear in new Australians, ignoring trendy inner-north areas such as Darebin, Merri-bek and Yarra which scrapped January 26 events as a protest over the treatment of Indigenous Australians. The resistance by councils in the nation’s most progressive city to dumping Australia Day comes as some Indigenous activists push back against a long-running focus on changing the date seeing it as a distraction from priorities such as the upcoming referendum for a constitutional voice to Parliament.
Source: Compiled by APN from media reports
Print This Post
Comments are closed