The exasperatiAustralia’s prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said last week that “a free country debates its history, it does not deny it.” He was right. But he did not appear to be listening to himself. With his next breath he sought to dismiss the growing discussions about whether Australia Day should be moved, portraying advocates as sowers of discord. Yet to ask whether the anniversary of the first fleet’s arrival in Sydney Cove in 1788 is appropriate for the national celebration is precisely to address the most consequential questions about the country’s past. The meaning of 26 January has to be part of the big, honest discussion that just might lead to a lasting reconciliation.

Mr Turnbull acknowledged that, for Indigenous Australians, European settlement has been “complex and tragic” – but …show more content…
First Dog on the Moon
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He has even tried to deny that this debate was happening in any significant way at all. He claimed that it was the preoccupation of “a tiny handful of people”. The truth is that it is happening in spite of the major parties. The discussion is playing out across news sites and radio stations and at water coolers around the country.

Despite predictable attempts to turn it into a tedious culture war by tabloid columnists and desperate attention-seeking provocateurs, this is not a new discussion, but one that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have long been seeking: “When it comes to the subject of 26 January, the overwhelming sentiment among First Nations people is an uneasy blend of melancholy approaching outright grief, of profound despair, of opposition and antipathy, and always of staunch defiance,” writes Jack Latimore, co-editor of the collaborative Twitter account IndigenousX. Protests about 26 January trace back to 1938. The national strategy that followed the 1990s’ decade-long process to achieve reconciliation also recommended the date be