“We lose nothing by tempering our own views in such a way as to be able to incorporate within Australia Day, both our gratitude for being able to live in such a beautiful land our acknowledgement that our fortune came at the loss of our Indigenous population.
Were we personally responsible for the past?
No, of course not.
But we are personally responsible for both the present and the future.”
I am truly grateful to live in this beautiful land.
At the same time, I am also honest enough to be able to acknowledge the history of dispossession that shadows our land and hence to seek to understand and honor the feelings of Australia’s traditional indigenous population regarding Australia Day.
In so doing, I offering up my humble apologies for the disrespectful way in which Australia was stolen from its traditional indigenous land owners all those years ago.
I believe that holding the capacity to acknowledge the wrongs of the past does not make anyone a “bad Aussie”.
If anything, I believe that holding the capacity to truly acknowledge our past, whilst also offering up a genuine willingness to pay respect to the true custodians of this land, would make us better Australians.
There is no shame in showing respect and understanding towards those for whom Australia Day is not…
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Seventh Voice 