Recognising Aborigines as the first Australians in The Constitution… Abbott’s Australia Day Letter

In his Australia Day letter, released via Facebook today (below), Tony Abbott, with great dignity has raised the possibility that after 226 years, our country might finally recognise our Aboriginal peoples as “the first Australians” in our Constitution.

“We will also begin a national conversation about amending our Constitution to recognise Aboriginal peoples as the first Australians.  This should be another unifying moment in the history of our country,” the letter reads.  (below)

It comes at the same time as our country delivers a strong indigenous unification message through selection of Australian of the Year, Adam Goodes for his services to indigenous rights and the Senior Australian of the Year, Fred Chaney AO in recognition of his commitment to reconciliation and human rights.

Goodes, an Indigenous AFL footballer said to the Sydney Morning Herald  last night that he finds it hard to buy into a celebratory notion of Australia Day ”because of the sadness and mourning and the sorrow of our people and a culture that unfortunately has been lost to me through generations”.

In the same article, it says that Goodes grew up believing Australia was founded on a summer’s day in January 1788 when Governor Arthur Phillip staked the flag of the British kingdom in the sand of Sydney Cove.

So it is a dramatic change to the learned history of our nation to incorporate such language into the Constitution and will certainly be a historic move.  But it is still the day that white people planted a British flag in the soil a long time ago rather than the day our country was first inhabited by its first residents, the Indigenous peoples.

What do you think of the effort Abbott has put into unification on Australia Day this year, and the potential of this change to the Constitution that will now be discussed openly throughout the country?  

Will it make the timing of what we celebrate on Australia Day inappropriate?