They Watched the Tall Ships Come

I tried to stay out of it, I really did. This year I did a night shift on the 25th of Jan, I escorted a man out of town to a hospital that was better equipped to deal with his injuries. I sat in the ambulance for two hours, watching him breathe to make sure the pain relief I had given him wouldn’t depress his respiratory system too much. His story that night, outside of where it intersected mine in that ambulance, had nothing and everything to do with Australia Day but it’s his story to tell and not mine.

When I got home I had a couple of hours sleep and then I packed my family into the car and we drove to a local lake to relax, swim, eat and drink in the sunshine and fresh air. It was a beautiful day, just what a public holiday should be, family, friends and time out to switch off. I sat on the shore most of the day, between changing kids in and out of rashies, taking photos of their adventures and settling one for a nap under a towel. I had a few quiet moments to think about Jan 26th and what it means and it didn’t spoil my day. In fact it made me so extremely grateful for my life and all that I have, grateful for my hard working immigrant grandparents who made this life possible for me. It also made me sad for those who don’t have the opportunities that I had and still have and that didn’t spoil my day either.

Since my phone battery hadn’t lasted through night shift and into the next day it wasn’t until the 27th that I spent some time scrolling and reading some of the discourse around the holiday and the current protest to ‘change the date’. Like I said, I tried to stay out of it, being extremely mindful of the couple of comments I did make, mindful to be respectful and only say what I really felt needed to be said. Blaming each other and getting nasty only causes more division. The thing is, there has always been division on this date, what people are noticing now is that both sides have a voice. Indigenous Australians have not just recently decided that they don’t want to celebrate Australia Day. What has happened recently is that the rest of Australia have now been made aware of their feelings. A lot of what I’m reading and hearing boils down to “Why should we be forced to ruin a joyful and celebratory day? Why should we have to?”

This is the feeling inside of me, the question that has driven me to write this. I am not indigenous, I am second generation Australian and as I mentioned the granddaughter of European immigrants. I am however a nurse and I have worked in hospitals and clinics around the state. More and more it feels like banging my head against a brick wall because nothing is changing. There is more money and there are subsidized medications and there are screening programs but it’s not getting us very far at all because it’s not addressing why our Indigenous brothers and sisters are getting so sick, so young or why they are living the lives they are. Medical practice doesn’t need to change, attitudes do. Budgets don’t need to grow, understanding does.

We are living alongside a group of people who have lived through massacres of their families, destruction of their culture and land, loss of their children, their languages and their way of life. They have been told through legislation that they are ‘flora and fauna’ and therefore less than human, they have been through slavery and displacement not by our hands personally but they have still been through it. Now we have changed the legislation, said sorry, directed funding at the many issues they subsequently face, which is great and a start but it doesn’t mean we get to forget. I didn’t do any of the atrocities above but I am deeply sorry that they happened and I always will be. When I go to work and feel completely helpless and at a loss as to how I can help my patients I am deeply sorry for what they are up against.

In a few months time we will all manage to celebrate everything that is good about our beautiful country, how far we have come as a nation and our freedom while also commemorating those who were lost in the process. We don’t tell the families of the ANZACS that it could’ve been worse or that enough time has passed now and it’s time to move on. We march with them and bow our heads year after year before we celebrate. When we pride ourselves on doing this on April the 25th and then fiercely refuse to do it on the 26th of January what message are we sending to our Indigenous Australians? I think it says to them that our soldiers and relatives deserve to be commemorated and their ancestors do not. It says that again they and their ancestors are less than, it’s not something that is going to help us to move forward as a nation together. Maybe if we changed the way we celebrate on Australia Day we wouldn’t need to change the date. I really don’t think it’s too much to ask. We can mindlessly celebrate and feel completely carefree on Boxing Day, New Years Day and our birthdays if we want but Australia Day deserves more than that.