Singer clashes with George Brandis: ‘This is me as an Aboriginal person telling you how an Aboriginal person feels and you’re telling me I don’t feel that way’

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Dan Sultan has asked Australian politicians to listen to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on changing the date of Australia Day, saying that 26 January is a date “that started the ongoing genocide of our people”.



Speaking on the ABC’s Q&A program, the Indigenous singer-songwriter, of Arrernte and Gurindji heritage, said Australia could not have a united national celebration on the anniversary of New South Wales being declared a British colony.

ABC Q&A (@QandA) .@resourcefultype thinks we should have more monuments. George Brandis agrees. @JacquiLambie says add the truth to plaques #QandA pic.twitter.com/0eHhI0SHKj

“The fact of the matter is that it doesn’t include us, it excludes us.” he said. “It excludes anyone who has any type of sympathy or empathy towards our story, which is a hell of a lot of Australians. To call it Australia Day is wrong.”

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Sultan made the comments in response to a question by a D’harawal Saltwater woman, Shannon Foster, in the wake of two Melbourne councils voting to scrap Australia Day celebrations and citizenship ceremonies out of support for the campaign to change the date.

The attorney general George Brandis, whose ministerial colleague Alex Hawke stripped those two councils of their right to perform any citizenship ceremonies in the wake of their Australia Day declarations, said there was a “natural logic” to marking the national day as “the point in time in which the Australia we now recognise, modern Australia, had its beginning”, while still reflecting on “those parts of our history that are dark passages”.

Jada Alberts (@jadaj) What an odd world it is when it's safer for my psychological stability to watch Game of Thrones than QandA.

That’s a problem, Sultan said, because it consigns those problems to history when issues including suicide and an over-representation in deaths in custody remained pressing issues for Indigenous Australians today.

“It’s a complicated issue but also very simple as well,” he said. “Does it include everyone or doesn’t it? No, it doesn’t. Don’t call it Australia Day.”

Sultan is featured on a song by the Indigenous hip-hop outfit AB Original, the “subtext” of which, Q&A’s host, Tony Jones, suggested, was that Australia Day was racist.

There was no subtext, Sultan said. “Australia Day’s always been racist … It’s pretty straight up about it … it is racist.”

When the Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie said she did not support changing the date of Australia Day and agreed with a questioner who felt the number of immigrants who did not speak English was changing the character of Australia, Sultan remarked: “Heaven forbid you lose your culture.”

Emeline Gaske (@emelinegaske) Call of the night goes to Dan Sultan: "Heaven forbid you lose your culture" #qanda

Lambie said her priority was in closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, saying: “The gap is killing us.”

Brandis agreed: “This is a debate about symbols. I think symbols are very important … [but] those practical outcomes matter even more.”

“Absolutely,” Sultan said. “I think one of those practical things to do is to stop ignoring Aboriginal people when they tell you what we’re looking for and what we need … This is me as an Aboriginal person telling you how an Aboriginal person feels and you’re telling me I don’t feel that way.”

The Labor frontbencher Tony Burke said it was “dishonest” to pretend there was not a problem with the way Australia Day was viewed in the public consciousness, and said the date itself “must evolve”.

“We need as a country to be able to find a day where the whole nation can celebrate together,” he said. “I think that’s an incredibly valuable thing. And we should be working to be able to achieve that as well.”

Burke said he supported calls by the prominent Indigenous broadcaster Stan Grant to amend the plaques on statues of colonial figures including Captain James Cook and the NSW governor Lachlan Macquarie to acknowledge that the land they claimed was occupied.

“Anyone who was told that this nation was discovered by Captain Cook was told something that is factually untrue,” he said. “Just factually untrue.”

The Cathy Wilcox (@cathywilcox1) If we do have more statues can they please not be by the guy who did this? #Qanda pic.twitter.com/KDcimPkohT

Brandis said that amending the statutes would be akin to an Orwellian destruction of history, saying they stand as monuments to history as it was interpreted at a certain point in time.

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Lambie proposed simply adding a new plaque addressing any factual errors or omissions in the original plaque.

“If that’s not telling the whole truth, then we do the right thing, we lead by example, we put in another plaque and we tell the Australian people the truth,” she said.

ABC Q&A (@QandA) How do we ensure the Aussie spirit & culture that made this country great is not lost? @Tony_Burke & @JacquiLambie respond #QandA pic.twitter.com/srFBn9b5SK

Christine Forster, a Liberal councillor and sister of the former prime minister Tony Abbott, said she did not think the majority of Australians supported either changing the date or changing the plaques.

Forster, a prominent gay rights advocate who is campaigning for a “yes” vote on the postal survey on marriage equality, said that despite her misgivings the survey did offer Australia the chance to have “an Ireland moment”, referencing the 2015 poll when Ireland voted 62% in favour of marriage equality.

“It will be the point in time where we say that we recognise that every single Australian is equal before the law and should be recognised as such,” she said. “And we embrace that as a country and as a community and we can move on from there.”

Forster, who with her partner has six children, said concerns that legalising same-sex marriage would lead to an increase in same-sex couples having children were ill-founded, because same-sex couples already had children.

Mariam Veiszadeh (@MariamVeiszadeh) The reality is that same sex couples can and already have children. #QandA

“The sexuality of the parent is not the important thing; the important thing is the quality of the parenting,” she said.

Forster, Burke and Brandis, who have all said they will vote yes on the postal survey, said suggestions subsequent legislation to change the Marriage Act would do anything beyond allowing two people of the same gender to marry was “scaremongering”.