Before the actual day – and time for the annual soul-searching about Indigenous and colonial history soon forgotten – comes this thoughtful article from Professor Maggie Walter, Pro Vice Chancellor and Professor of Sociology at the University of Tasmania. She concludes: “Australia, first change the date to begin a just settling, then contemplate becoming a republic”. Her reasoning is thus:
“Reconciliation between the Settler and First Nations populations is a self-evident prerequisite for Australia cutting the ties of colonial dependency with Britain to stand on our own. If we can’t work out that we need to complete the peacemaking between Indigenous Australians – the sole occupiers of the Australian continent for upwards of 60,000 years – and those whose ancestors arrived at or post-1788, we are not ready to be a republic. We might be attracted to republican prestige, with its sense of a national coming of age, but we can’t just take the title. Being a republic brings with it the responsibilities of being a grown-up country.” The complete article can be accessed on the link below [“First reconciliation, then a republic – starting with changing the date of Australia Day” by Maggie Walter, The Conversation online, 23 January 2018]
