5/22/2023 0 Comments Searching for the secret river![]() Commemorating the arrival of the First Fleet in Sydney Cove and the onset of settler colonialism has long carried the suggestion of Anglo-Irish ascendency. This is not the first time the date assigned for national self-congratulation has been called into question. The alternative event went ahead-without fireworks or ceremony. By politicizing the Citizenship Act, Freo council had sent the public an ‘anti-Australia Day message.’ Mayor Brad Pettitt saw off protests from local business groups (who let off their own fireworks) and the United Patriots Front (who went off at a rally), but at the eleventh hour bowed to government threats of prosecution. ![]() ![]() What, after all, is more culturally inclusive than Australia Day? Indignant, Turnbull threatened to revoke the council’s right to hold the ceremony. In December last year, Malcolm Turnbull blasted the City of Fremantle for its bid to hold a Australia Day fireworks display and citizenship ceremony not on 26 January but two days later, in what the council promoted as a ‘culturally-inclusive alternative event.’ The council’s snub of the national celebration could not go unanswered. ![]()
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