Aboriginal ceremony sending Australia Day joy up in smoke

When the sun rises over Bondi Beach on Australia Day this month it won’t just be surfers and early morning joggers enjoying the dawn.

Another group will be breathing in fumes from burning eucalyptus leaves as part of an ancient Aboriginal smoking ceremony believed to have spiritual and physical cleansing properties, as well as being a way to connect with ancestors.

The local council’s decision to stage its first Aboriginal morning reflection ceremony on Bondi Beach on January 26 this year reflects the growing unease about a public holiday which marks the anniversary of Britain invading a land that had been occupied by aboriginal people for at least 60,000 years.

Australia Day protests have been growing in the country’s major cities

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Indigenous elders will discuss the persecution that followed the arrival of the English 235 years ago, said Gene Ross, a Bondi local and Aboriginal man who sits on the council’s indigenous advisory group. “We’ll go to the beach and yarn [chat] about the horrific atrocities perpetrated on our people by the settlers.”

Their reflective solitude won’t last for long, though.

Shortly after the eucalyptus smoke dissipates, the beach will fill up with Australian revellers and tourists, many of them flaunting the national flag on themed sunhats and beach towels or sporting patriotic bikinis and tight “budgie smuggler” swimming briefs.

Across the country there will be boozy barbecues, firework displays and citizenship ceremonies — all trappings that have come to define Australia Day for millions of Australians.

Koomurri-Bujja Bujja dancers perform a smoking ceremony in Sydney during last year’s Australia Day

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More than any other day in the national calendar, Australia Day exposes glaring differences in opinion about issues of national identity, culture and race.

Opposition to the holiday that many indigenous people refer to as “Invasion Day” or “Survival Day” has been growing over the past decade, with tens of thousands of people attending “Invasion Day” protests in major cities.

The protests have been accompanied by a high profile #changethedate campaign on social media, which urges the government to move Australia Day so that it can be celebrated by everyone, including aborigines.

Celebrities, including the Hollywood actor Liam Hemsworth and the model Lara Worthington, have backed the campaign which encourages Australians to work on Australia Day and ask for a day in lieu.

Indigenous Australians refer to January 26 as ‘Invasion Day’ and there is growing support to change the date of Australia Day to one which can be celebrated by all Australians

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A growing number of left-leaning local councils, such as Labor-led Waverley, which includes Bondi, are starting to lay on events that mourn the birth of modern Australia or boycotting Australia Day celebrations out of respect for indigenous people.

Melbourne city council has been among those lobbying the government to change the date of Australia Day after a survey of residents which found that 60 per cent of respondents backed the move.

Parts of the sporting and media establishments have also distanced themselves from the public holiday.

Cricket Australia, the sport’s national governing body, angered Scott Morrison, then prime minister, two years ago when it dropped all references to Australia Day for Big Bash matches scheduled for January 26.

Triple J’s Hottest 100 song countdown was an Australia Day radio fixture until five years ago when the popular youth station switched the countdown to the fourth weekend of January after feedback from listeners.

The backlash has been energised by the arrival last year of a Labor government — led by Anthony Albanese, the prime minister — which has rejected calls to move the date, but has already shown itself to be more sympathetic to those calling for change.

Last month the government reversed a policy introduced under Morrison in 2019 which forced councils to hold citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day — a key part of the public holiday — or lose the right to host them altogether.

The Australian flag and Australian Aboriginal flag fly side-by-side at Bondi Beach

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A week earlier the Greens-led Merri-bek council in Melbourne’s north voted to abandon the citizenship ceremony in favour of a “day of mourning event” for indigenous Australians.

Two other Melbourne councils — the City of Yarra and Darebin City – had already voted to scrap citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day.

Although widely assumed to be the anniversary of the first English convict ships — known as the First Fleet — landing at Botany Bay in 1788, January 26 actually marks events that took place roughly a week later when the fleet dropped anchor at nearby Sydney Cove raised the Union Jack and declared sovereignty over the land that would become Australia.

Victoria adopted January 26 as Australia Day in 1931 and by 1935 that date had become a holiday in all states and territories apart from New South Wales.

It became a national public holiday officially in 1994 when New South Wales jumped on board.

Successive prime ministers have championed the holiday as a day to bring all Australians together, acknowledging both the achievements of modern Australia and the pain inflicted on indigenous people.

The federal government’s National Australia Day Council spends millions of dollars on hundreds of events, ranging from concerts to firework displays.

Visits to the beach, boozy barbecues and firework displays are all part of Australia Day for millions of Australians

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Prominent Australians, including the late former cricket captain Richie Benaud, have been roped in — in his case to front a major advertising campaign encouraging Australians to eat lamb, described as the “national meat” — on Australia Day.

Matt Canavan, a Queensland senator for the right-wing National party, and a supporter of the #keepthedate campaign, said he has come to cherish the annual debate, describing it as another part of the tradition.

“Yes, the arrival of the First Fleet has negative consequences but it had very positive consequences as well, including establishing one of the greatest countries on Earth.”

Polls have shown growing support for moving the date of the public holiday, and an increase in the number of people treating it as just another day off work.

But they have also shown that a majority of Australians are still opposed to such a move. In a YouGov poll last year 35 per cent of respondents supported changing the date 56 per cent wanted to keep it and the rest were undecided.

Younger people on the whole are tending to be more supportive of changing the date and less inclined to celebrate Australia Day. Teenagers in the 1990s and 2000s thought little of wrapping themselves in the Australian flag and getting drunk on Australia Day. Now many younger people, who have been constantly reminded at school that they are on Aboriginal land, refuse to attend parties on Australia Day.

Some Aboriginal leaders, such as Gene Ross, believe changing the date would be a token gesture which would achieve very little, however. “We should keep the date but change the celebration,” he said.