News / Community
Mourning ceremony held in Coburg
Council chooses not to celebrate January 26 as Australia Day

Mark Phillips
WHILE other parts of the nation celebrate January 26 as Australia Day with citizenship ceremonies and varying levels of jingoism, Merri-bek marked the date with a low-key “mourning ceremony” at its Coburg civic centre.
The mourning ceremony has become an annual tradition which recognises the dispossession of the land of Aboriginal people and seeks to unite the community for reconciliation.
On Sunday, more than 100 people attended the event in the civic centre’s forecourt, where Wurundjeri Wo-wurrung Elder Uncle Bill Nicholson conducted a smoking ceremony.
He said that for most Aboriginal people, January 26 was not a day of celebration but instead one of hurt and mourning, but he believed some form of healing could be achieved through open dialogue between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.
“We could create a date that we can all come and celebrate this country … where Indigenous people can feel culturally safe and comfortable within the broader Australian community, but to be honest, this [January 26] isn’t the date that I want to celebrate as a day that we are all Australians,” Nicholson said.
“There’s too much emotions that that are connected to it, and no doubt, the community, the Aboriginal community, who are here feel very similar to me.
“Let’s continually yarn to each other [and] continually understand one another through those yarns … and maybe one day we can, we can celebrate a day that we were all very comfortable with.”

Merri-bek’s decision not to celebrate Australia Day could put the council at odds with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, if he is elected Prime Minister this year. Dutton has declared that one of his first acts as PM would be to legislate that every council has to hold an Australia Day ceremony on January 26.
Three councillors attended the event, but neither Mayor Helen Davidson or Deputy Mayor Helen Politis were present.
But Merri-bek Council’s Chief Executive, Cathy Henderson, said the council’s position was that Australia Day should be moved from January 26 out of respect for Aboriginal people.
“January 26 is a terrible anniversary, marking the British invasion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lands, and it’s a day of mourning and survival and healing,” Henderson said.
“We acknowledge profound losses of lives and culture and of language. We’re here today because we agree that we must face the uncomfortable truths of this nation’s past and understand the ongoing impacts of dispossession, discrimination and racism, and as we’ve also heard today, this is also a story of incredible survival and resistance of the world’s longest continuous living culture.”
Henderson said Merri-bek was in full support of the negotiations for a formal Treaty currently underway in Victoria and hoped to transfer permanent ownership of the former Glenroy High School site – known as Ballerrt Mooroop because of its significance to as a traditional ceremonial and meeting place – to the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation as a contribution to the Treaty process.
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