Indigenous Australians Plan to Go Bigger on Australia Day

The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. This week’s issue is written by Julia Bergin, a reporter based in the Northern Territory.

Parades, Union Jack themed barbecues, angry protests, and reflective vigils — it’s 2024, and Jan. 26 in Australia remains a day that inspires many different reactions across the nation.

Formally Australia Day but also known as Invasion Day or Survival Day, the date marks the violent arrival of British settlers to the continent in 1788, and it has a long history as a political flashpoint for Indigenous affairs.

This year, a First Nations advocacy group in Darwin decided to go bigger — with a hybrid protest for Indigenous Australians, Palestinians and the people of West Papua, which was annexed by Indonesia decades ago, leading to a prolonged conflict.

“Yes, Invasion Day is the reason why we’re all here today, but we must go beyond that,” said Mililma May, who runs the group, a nonprofit called Uprising of the People.

Ms. May, a Kulumbirigin Danggalaba Tiwi woman, said that what was needed for all groups were practical and tangible ways to understand colonialism. By bringing separate protest movements together with a common goal “to demand land back,” she said she hoped Jan. 26 would unify oppressed groups and appeal to a broader cross-section of Australians.

It’s also an effort meant to bring attention back to unresolved issues.

In the months after the failure of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum — devised to enshrine an Indigenous advisory group in the Australian Constitution — First Nations issues have dropped off the mainstream news agenda and slid down the government’s to-do list.