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Darren Chester honours Australian history, embracing unity and building a better future together on Australia Day

The campaign to "change the date" of Australia Day attempts to divide our nation. Instead, we should focus on unity, acknowledge challenges, and celebrate our diverse achievements as Australians.

By news@gippsland - 13th January 2025 - Back to News

The annual campaign to 'change the date' of Australia Day is an attempt to divide our country, deny our history, and shame everyday Australians to feel some level of collective guilt for the actions of past generations. I support Australia Day remaining as a public holiday on January 26 each year and reject the attempts by politically motivated activists and some corporations to undermine the significance of the day.

Darren Chester supports Australia Day on January 26, rejecting attempts by activists and corporations to undermine its significance, advocating for unity and respect

Respect, reflect, unite

For those of us who are proud of our country but mindful of the challenges we still face, the constant lecturing about Australia Day is tiresome and counterproductive to a vision of a more united and respectful nation.

In contrast, we commemorate Anzac Day on April 25 each year because that's the day Australian troops actually started their ill-fated mission on the Gallipoli peninsula. It's not a celebration of war and we don't sugarcoat the failures of the campaign and the heavy losses sustained on both sides.

We don't try to change the date of Anzac Day, but we do tell the full story of Australians at war across several conflicts and the freedom they secured. The challenge is to take exactly the same approach to Australia Day and tell the entire story of European settlement in our nation. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Celebrate, unite, thrive

We should not ignore the sensitivities and the impacts on the longest-living culture on the planet, but we should also celebrate the extraordinary successes and countless positive changes over the past 240 years. And we should commit ourselves to working together to help all vulnerable Australians, both black and white.

At a time when much of the political and media commentary focuses on what's wrong with Australia, we should try to count our blessings more often and be proud of our incredible achievements as a nation.

As we cast our eyes around the world and witness stories of armed conflicts, religious intolerance and minority groups being persecuted, we should be thankful for the freedoms we enjoy and the largely safe, secure communities we share. We should be mindful of the threats we face today from people who seek to divide our nation.

Strength in unity

Of course, we can't ignore our colonial past, and it's a simple fact that the lives of Indigenous people were changed forever when European settlement started on January 26, 1788. Subsequent generations have built the civilisation we enjoy today, and by any comparison around the world, we have brought together diverse cultures to live largely harmoniously.

That's not to say there aren't genuine problems and unfinished business we would all like to fix, but changing the date of Australia Day isn't the answer. Rather than look backwards as a nation, we need to understand that now is our time to write our chapter of the great Australian story.

It should be a story of unity, hope, optimism and confidence as we instil passion and belief in the future of our regions in our younger generations. It should be a story of innovation and resilience.

Unite for progress

By working together, we can address challenges like poverty, homelessness, Indigenous disadvantage, mental illness, illicit drugs, family violence and any shortcomings in our government services. We have to believe in ourselves and each other as we keep writing our chapter of the amazing Australian story.

Our time would be much better spent focusing on how we can all play our part every day to make sure Gippsland and Australia are just a little bit better and cement our place as one of the greatest nations in the world. Australia Day is a celebration of our nation and its people from all cultural backgrounds and an opportunity to reflect on things we can do better in the future.

Pictures from Darren Chester MP website.

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: news@gippsland.com