Australia Day 2023 – Aboriginal recognition

The Sydney Opera House honours our First Nations by fostering a shared sense of belonging for all Australians, and we acknowledge the Gadigal, traditional custodians of Tubowgule, the land on which the Opera House stands.

We are continuing to understand and respect the peoples that have had to live and survive, for thousands of years, on this continent.

Australia Day has evolved as the nation has over the many years since the first fleet arrived in Australia with convicts on board. Ah, someone else’s problems.

The land was “englandfied” with the many plants and animals that were not meant to be here. Yes, even the newcomers. The land was farmed poorly, causing loss of top soil and salt getting into the water table. We learnt from the first nation’s people and local ingenuity and inventiveness, such that Australian farmers have become one the most efficient in the world.

This is a harsh land…..

”I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!”

 further

“An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land –
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand –
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

— Dorothea Mackellar”

We are learning; may it never stop! We are richer for what unities us, not what divides us. I do not colour, I see a fellow traveller though life, moulded by a diverse community that wants to be here, (unlike the convicts) and land that uniquely unites us. The” fair go”, our democracy and freedoms have been hard fought with blood and sacrifice. Lest We Forget.

Yes, we are the lucky country, but as the saying goes, I firmly believe, we made our own luck, without a doubt!