While Australia Day celebrations took pride and place in Narrandera on Sunday, some locals marched to display their “resistance”.

A Survival Day march attracted a crowd of about 100 people who marched along East Street to the Narrandera Memorial Gardens.

Dance groups entertained the crowd as people gathered to recognise the survival of the First Nations people and their culture.

An attentive crowd listened to some speeches during the event.

One of those who spoke at the Gardens was Narrandera Shire Councillor Braden Lyons.

Cr Lyons addressed the crowd, thanking people for their attendance and to “march in unity”.

Australia Day was a day for acknowledging the British invasion of sovereign First Nation lands and was “not a date to celebrate for us”, he said.

“The 26th of January, for our people, is a day to demonstrate our resistance, an opportunity to recognise the survival of First Nations people and culture, despite colonisation and discrimination,” Cr Lyons said.

“First Nation peoples have faced systematic and ongoing injustice and denial of rights.

“This day commenced the invasion of British colonists of our lands already occupied across the continent, a continent that was home to over 250 individual sovereign nations, interconnected by trade, knowledge sharing, culture values and spirituality.

“Starting on the 26th of January 1788 and continuing today, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities have been forced to fight to protect their country, people, culture, languages and history.”

Cr Lyons said January 26, 1788, also marked the beginning of a period of “active and sustained resistance from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander custodians of this land”.

“Creative resistance, resilience, refusal and survival have been hallmarks of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lives every day since invasion,” he said.

“On this day in history people continue to resist. On the 26th of January, 1938, while many Australians celebrated the 150th anniversary of the day the British flag was hoisted at Sydney Cove, a group of First Nations men and women gathered in Sydney in an official protest to declare a day of mourning.

“Then on the 26th of January, 1972, a particularly significant day of resistance, the Aboriginal tent embassy was erected on the lawns at Parliament House in Canberra.”

Becoming a permanent site in 1992, the tent embassy was listed by the Australian Heritage Commission three years later.

“It symbolised the feelings of many First Nations people that they were foreigners in their own country,” Cr Lyons said.

“Today across Australia our people have co-ordinated Survival Day celebrations to let the nation know that we’ll continue to survive and we will continue to fight for equality.

“When we talk about national unity we must be included. We stay visible and vocal and proud and strong and we reject this day … it is a day of deception and a stain on this nation’s history.”

Cr Lyons described January 26 as “a day of cultural genocide”.

“We come together on days like today with pride to display to the next generation the strength vision and legacy,” he said.

“We will fight for the rights of equality in our own lands.

“If you take anything from here today, take this message … our cultural pride is strengthening and the momentum of change is happening right now.

“We will not celebrate with Australia until the date, the 26th of January, is seen for exactly what it is and a new date is declared to celebrate as a nation.” 

This article appeared in the Narrandera Argus, 30 January 2025.