This Australia Day let’s change the date ourselves.

Author Annie Lillico Lewis

Expert Reviewer Jen Purnell

At Kearney Group, we like a public holiday as much as anyone. And, we do want a day to come together to celebrate our nation, our diverse communities and reflect on what it means to be living in Australia today.

However, we don’t believe January 26th is the right day.
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So, we’re encouraging our team to help us change the date. We’ve offered the team the option to take the Australia Day public holiday on another date of their choosing.⁠

Why change the date?

For many, marking Australia Day on the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788… it’s a confronting reminder of the great suffering, trauma and dispossession inflicted upon Australia’s First Peoples.⁠

To celebrate today is to ignore the enduring consequences of such trauma.⁠
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So to honour the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples who called Australia home for over 60,000 years before Europeans first arrived on her shores and colonised this land, we’re proud to help advance the Change It Ourselves campaign.⁠
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It’s a small gesture, but one we hope catches on. As individuals and businesses increase pressure to officially change the date, we move forward on our reconciliation journey.

Learn more about our work on Indigenous issues, including our funding of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab founded by scholar and author, Tyson Yunkaporta.