But we need not look back far to see it in action; in fact, we don’t have to look back at all, as it was on full display at a recent meeting of Greater Shepparton City Council.
The council had decided in 2023 not to fund events recognising Australia Day on January 26, but the newly elected council reversed that on Tuesday, December 17, eight votes to one, with the lone vote supporting the status quo being that of Cr Sam Spinks.
Shepparton’s Indigenous community, the largest outside Melbourne, had been celebrating the council position not to celebrate what they consider a day of mourning, but now they weep.
So the mentality that gave rise to colonialism — the exploitation of people and of resources by a foreign group — prevailed in the council chamber, seemingly ignoring the fact that Shepparton has the largest Indigenous population in Victoria, beyond that of Melbourne.
Shepparton has had some, and still has, some remarkable Indigenous leaders, and on Tuesday, just hours before the vote was taken, nearly 100 people, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, gathered in Shepparton’s Queen’s Gardens near the statue of William Cooper to talk about what was to come before council just hours later.
Some might say the linking the recent decision by council to colonialism is a somewhat long bow to draw.
However, when introducing the Queen’s Gardens event, the MC for the day, Neil Morris, in talking about how ceremony was central to Indigenous people, said that aspect of their lives had been destroyed by colonialism.
Listening to Mr Morris reminded me of what US historian Sunil Amrith had written in his recently released book, The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years.
He pointed to a 1936 speech by the then-Minister of Food and Agriculture in the Nazi government, Richard Walther Darré, who insisted on Germany’s need to break the binding limits of its territory.
Looking to the east of Germany, Darré boasted: “We will settle this space, according to the law that a superior people always has the right to conquer and own the land of an inferior people.”
“This was a view that straightforwardly defined how every European empire had justified its expansion,” Professor Amrith wrote.
Does the idea still have oxygen here in Shepparton today?
Some would adamantly say “no”, some would say “yes” — I stand with those whose say “yes”.
Writing on The Conversation in January last year, a senior lecturer in history at the Central Queensland University, Benjamin T. Jones, said: “January 26 is a date that sparks mixed emotions in Australia. For some, it’s a day to celebrate all the good things about living in Australia. For others, it’s a painful reminder of the beginning of British colonisation and the dispossession of First Nations.”
According to this newspaper, Cr Sam Spinks spoke against the motion to reinstate council support for Australia Day, saying “this will send us strongly backwards”.
Cr Fern Summer moved the motion calling for the reinstatement of council funding for Australia Day.
“With good intentions the last council took away Australia Day funding on January 26,” she said.
“Predictably, this was met with substantial backlash, with some towns choosing to forgo council grants all together.”
Mayor Shane Sali said council hadn’t established a Shepparton Australia Day committee this year due to lack of interest from community groups, but council would fill the gap until one could be established.
Cr Sali noted the importance of Shepparton having an Australia Day event.
“No doubt people in our community have different views on January 26, but we can’t dismiss it as our national day,” he said.
However, in a letter to the editor, Shepparton’s Charlotte Brewer said: “Their (the seven councillors’) oft-stated opinion that January 26 could be a day of healing and reconciliation reeked of hypocrisy and weasel words. Social justice took a mighty hit.”
Interviewed by Fran Kelly on Radio National on the first anniversary of the defeat of The Voice to Parliament, the co-conveyor of the process that lead to the Uluru Statement from the Heart, Pat Anderson, said success of the No vote led to what she saw as “Open season on blackfullas”.
‘Blackfullas’, or at least those of the Goulburn Valley’s First Nations people, were the target of a recent decision taken by Greater Shepparton City Council.
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