Sandra Kanck: Australia Change Speech

	Speech to “Australia Change” event, Adelaide

Sandra Kanck Leader South Australian Democrats Member of the Legislative Council

I begin by acknowledging that we are on Kaurna land, and I thank the Kaurna people for their welcome.

I don’t know if you’ve come across “The Big Issue” a magazine which is sold on the streets of Adelaide by homeless people or those supporting homeless people, but in the latest edition” one of the contributors, Anthony Morris, in musing about a suitable date for Australia Day posed the question of “how to come up with a day boring enough to reflect our apathy, yet exciting enough to deserve a holiday”.

“No worries mate” is great if you can get yourself into a position where you are considered to be an Australian. But, even if you make it over that hurdle, the no-worries part is questionable for many.

The 26th January was the date on which the First Fleet of British colonisers landed at Port Philip Bay in 1788 and claimed this land as belonging to the British.

Australians celebrate a history that begins only at that moment, as if nothing had happened before that time in this ancient land.

Because we’ve not been able to fix on a better date on the calendar, we celebrate our nationhood on 26th January. What this represents says some interesting things about Australia.

The British were using Australia as a dumping ground for their prison system which could not cope with the number of criminals imprisoned in their own country - a strange thing to celebrate.

Using the doctrine of ‘terra nullius’ these invaders took over the best of the land of this country, driving Aboriginal people from their homes to the verge of extinction, destroying their culture in the process - again a very strange thing to celebrate.

Not content with subjugating the indigenous people of this country, the British set about to exploit the environment and resources of this country, imposing a European view of nature on an ancient, largely dry and infertile country.

We have the dubious distinction of being the species extinction capital of the world and we have seen the progressive destruction of some of the best of our farming land with dryland salinity. Again, most strange things to celebrate.

The 26th January celebrates Britishness, despite the fact that we have been a multi-cultural country for a long time.

The speaker of the House of Assembly, Peter Lewis, has been quoted in the media as saying we should celebrate Australia Day to coincide with the anniversary of our first Federal Parliament which met on 9^th May 1901.

Yet this too is offensive. Australia Day should be an inclusive day with relevance to all Australians.

The shame of 9^th May is that indigenous people were deliberately not recognised as citizens in Australia’s First Parliament. Indeed it took almost seven decades before they were granted full citizenship in their own land.

On 27^th May 1967 came the referendum in which Australian-born white people - along with the many people who had migrated to Australia and been able to apply for and be granted Australian citizenship (the Italian-born Australians, the Greek-born Australians, the Chinese-born Australians, and so on) - these people voted for indigenous people who had been living in this land for 40,000 years to have the same rights of citizenship.

Perhaps the date of the referendum which recognised and included the original inhabitants of this country as equal human beings in the eyes of the law would be an appropriate date for Australia Day.

Yet despite that equality before the law, many indigenous Australians receive second-rate health care, their incarceration rates in our prisons is way too high, and their life expectancy is significantly lower than white Australians.

For my part, I have observed Australia Day this year by using it to act on my beliefs. Earlier today I walked with members of the Voluntary Euthanasia movement in the Australia Day parade, as a way of demanding what I believe is a right to die with dignity.

I am using Australia Day at this very moment to express dissent, and I believe passionately in that right.

But, in law I do not have that right, because, despite repeated attempts, the conservative and fundamentalist right of this country has fought it. How strange that one would not want, for instance, the right of free speech or the right to freely assemble set into law.

We assert a right of freedom, even if the law does not guarantee it. But without asserting and exercising that ‘right’, it can very quickly diminish simply because it does not exist in law.

In the early 1990s the Keating Government passed legislation for the detention of asylum seekers, despite the fact that it is a perfectly legal act to seek asylum in this country. In doing so we broke our human rights obligations.

More recently, at the hands of a clever Prime Minister who tells us that we are at risk of terrorism, we have seen enormous new powers delivered to ASIO.

The Democrats today call on the South Australian Government to enact its own Bill of Rights, enshrining recognition of the Aboriginal people of this State as its original inhabitants.

That Bill of Rights should recognise that discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, sex, sexual preference, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property or birth is simply not acceptable.

Clearly there is no chance of the current Federal Government introducing a Bill of Rights, so why wait for the Federal Government?

We need a Bill of Rights. Perhaps, when Australia has one there will be cause to celebrate. The passage of a national Bill of Rights would be reason to celebrate and would be a highly suitable date for Australia Day.

The 26th January commemorates the actions of a colonising nation dumping its criminals in Australia, of subjugating the indigenous people of this country and all but destroying their culture, of subduing and exploiting the natural resources of this country and causing irreversible environmental damage.

We can commemorate this, but not celebrate it. We should acknowledge that history, and learn from it.

We must continue to explore what it is to be Australian, what it is that makes us different, but at the same time explore what it is to be human and what we have in common.

But whether we recognise 26^th January as Australia Day or Invasion Day, we should embrace this date because it tells us so much about where we have come from and what we need to achieve.

Only when we have become an inclusive society will we have real cause to celebrate.