Some Australians celebrate Australia Day, but for many Indigenous people there, it’s known as Invasion Day—a painful reminder of colonisation and the ongoing fight for sovereignty.
On January 26 1788 the First Fleet arrived in Australia and after their arrival, First Nations peoples faced state-sanctioned massacres, enslavement, deaths by disease, land dispossession, and generations of children stolen by the state.
Kooma Murri elder and long-time activist, Wayne ‘Coco’ Wharton says celebrating this is both insulting and degrading and he wants it abolished.
“The old people back in 1938 would call it ‘Day of Mourning’ and we built on that and we call it ‘Invasion Day,” says Wharton.
The Australia Day protest, he says, is one day where they can come together, educate allies and their own people, and build on the energy to fight all year round.
Welcomes Maussies to support their fight
Last year record-breaking numbers of New Zealanders moved to Australia for better income and opportunities, however, 30 percent of its Indigenous people are impoverished.
Re: News reported that over 65,000 Māori live in Wharton’s home of Queensland - the biggest population of Māori outside of New Zealand.
“We need our people that come from other countries that are escaping similar persecutions and support us in our fight for freedom,” says Wharton.
“It’s through their attendance that we might get our freedom one day, nut what we need them to do is to help us in our campaign and our fight.”
The struggles of First Nations people today?
When asked what troubles they face in Australia today, Wharton said they face “genocide”.
“The main trigger for genocide in this country is poverty, they dispossessed our people and kept us in poverty since the day they got here.”
First Nations people are overrepresented in the jails, and there has been legislation to sentence 10-year-old children to adult crimes and adult punishments in Queensland and Northern Territory.
The legislation meant going against the children’s human rights protections and so to pass the bill, the Queensland government suspended the state’s Human Rights Act.
With over 50 years of experience in activism, We asked where Wharton gets his strength to fight and he says, “I wanna be free.”
“I’m not an Australian. I was raised a free man in my own Country and I have a love for my grandchildren and I want them to experience being free people in their own Country.”
