News flash: Australia Day isn’t a ye olde tradition
It’s a strange, brutal and relatively recent quirk of Australia’s colonial history that January 26, a day that marks an invasion rather than independence, has even become our national day. It wasn’t until 1994 ― less than 30 years ago ― that all states and territories declared it a holiday.
“People love to say, ‘Oh, but it’s tradition’, and I say, ‘No, it’s not. It’s in my lifetime.’” NITV’s ’The Whole Table’ panelist Wesley Enoch told HuffPost. “It reminds us that this country loves to forget history…
“I had graduated from university and got my first job, and toured the world before they said Australia Day had to be on January 26.”
Heart and intent transcend a lack of technical finesse in new First Nations dance piece
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By Jill Sykes
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Campbelltown Arts Centre, January 20
Lyrebirds have a remarkable talent and inclination to imitate songs and sounds from the world around them. Jasmin Sheppard has used this as a symbol of First Nations Australians to feel the need to copy the looks, clothes and manners of colonial settlers – from then to now.
Jasmin Sheppard in The Complication of Lyrebirds
Credit:Samuel James
She and Kaine Sultan Babij are first seen in tan-coloured swimsuit-like costumes, stylishly ribbed but surely a representation of Indigenous people in their natural element. At their first encounter with settlers’ clothes, these are tied and wound around their waists like sashes. Later they struggle awkwardly to get into a dress and trousers.
Clothing The Gap co-founder and director Laura Thompson. Source: supplied.
Aboriginal-owned and -run streetwear brand Clothing The Gap has been up and running for less than a year, and has already amassed a 100,000-strong social media following, and evolved from an e-commerce store to bricks-and-mortar retail offering.
But for Laura Thompson, Clothing The Gap’s co-founder and director, and a Gunditjmari woman, this social enterprise was never only about selling a few T-shirts.
It’s about giving First Nations Australians a voice and an online space to occupy, and amplifying their voices, while also educating non-Indigenous people.
Never has that been more evident than now, in the run-up to January 26, or so-called Australia Day.
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2020 has been a wild ride that’s seen the creation of new words like ‘iso’ and TV presenters forgetting to wear pants as they work from home.
Let’s recap on the year that’s killed satire, seen absurd conspiracy theories hit the mainstream and that, let’s be honest, everyone’s looking forward to ending.
The Hawaiian holiday
Most of us kicked off the new decade, wearing face masks and trying not to inhale hazardous smoke brought on by some of the worst bushfires in Australian history. And with the pandemic, some of us will likely end the year the same way: wearing a face mask.
First Nations entrepreneurs presenting at the Barayamal Demo Day 2019. Source: supplied.
With more than $1.6 billion committed to Aussie VCs this year, one entrepreneur is calling on Australian funds to commit to investing at least 3% in First Nations founders.
Dean Foley, a Kamilaroi man, self-proclaimed ‘Indigipreneur’ and the founder and chief of the Barayamal Indigenous startup accelerator, has been doing a bit of digging, finding that little to no VC capital is ending up in the pockets of First Nations business owners.
Now, Foley is calling on investors to commit a minimum of 3% of those funds to First Nations entrepreneurs.
In a post on LinkedIn, in which he tagged the likes of Square Peg, Blackbird Ventures, Rampersand and Mike Cannon-Brookes’ Grok Ventures, Foley explained that he has often found VCs are unaware of just how many First Nations entrepreneurs there are in Australia.