In its first substantive meeting the new Geelong council, dominated by Liberal party affiliates, has dealt a blow to Geelong’s First Nations community by beginning the process to roll back changes surrounding January 26 introduced in 2023.
In front of a packed and emotion-charged gallery, Geelong councillors spent the majority of Tuesday night’s meeting debating Councillor Eddy Kontelj’s motion to direct City chief executive Ali Wastie to prepare a report detailing the process for confirming support for the date for Australia Day.
The report will also address the City once again referring to January 26 as Australia Day in all communications and discontinuing advocacy for a different day of national celebration.
The motion was moved by Cr Kontelj and seconded by previous mayor Cr Trent Sullivan – both part of the council group that unanimously voted to support the changes around January 26 in May 2023 – and supported by Mayor Stretch Kontelj, Deputy Mayor Ron Nelson and councillors Chris Burson, Andrew Katos and Rowan Story.
Councilors Anthony Aitken, Melissa Cadwell, Emma Sinclair and Elise Wilkinson voted against the motion.
Council group refused to answer any of the questions put to it during the time allocated for public questions and submissions.
All councillors spoke during the sometimes fiery debate, with Cr Kontelj saying while the motion was “not intended to be disrespectful to anyone in the community, including First Nations people”, he apologised if “some will see it that way”.
“Since the adoption of the 26th of January report on the 23rd of May 2023, there has been significant feedback and there has been concern raised by the broader Geelong community, particularly related to Council’s decision to cease from referring to the 26th of January as Australia Day,” he said.
“When we unanimously adopted the report… it was not apparent to some of us that what we were actually doing was putting council in that position where we would no longer be acknowledging or recognising Australia Day on any day or any date.”
Before Cr Kontelj’s motion could be discussed, Cr Sinclair introduced an alternate motion that would have reaffirmed support for the 2023 changes, but which was defeated by the same voting blocs.
In presenting her alternate motion, Cr Sinclair spoke of the good faith placed in council by First Nations community members during the engagement period preceding the 2023 changes.
“We know that celebrating Australia Day on January 26 causes harm; we know this because we asked a bunch of people and they told us that’s what happens,” Cr Sinclair said.
“We asked them to share something personal and talk about a subject that we already knew was a source of trauma for some members of our community. They trusted us to listen and respond.
“Please don’t let this council be the group that closes that door.”
Ms Wastie’s report will be presented to the council at its January meeting.
