The federal government frontbencher Ken Wyatt says Australia Day should remain on 26 January but commemorations around the country should mark both the “good and the bad” of the nation’s history.

Wyatt, the first Indigenous man to be minister for Indigenous Australians, told Nine newspapers “dark beginnings” must be recognised in communities across the country.

But this should not overshadow celebrations of what he sees as a “remarkable” multicultural country Australia has become.

“We can have anger at the past, the pain and the hurt ... but at some point we’ve got to give our children a better future,” Wyatt said. “It’s not about [Captain Arthur] Philip landing in Sydney. It’s about the way we’ve grown firstly into a federation but ... a country of incredible people.”

He said of instead rallying to move the date, Australians must engage in a new generation of “truth telling”.

He said the erecting of a monument to mark the Myall Creek massacre was a positive step that could be replicated across Australia and he also supported the dual naming of towns and regions.

Wyatt has previously floated the idea of changing the date of Australia Day to the day the country becomes a republic.

“I think it is inevitable that we will become a republic,” the Liberal MP said two years ago when he was minister for aged care.