Emma Garlett: I am sick of the date debate too

Year after year at this time, our nation enters a debate on whether we should change the date of Australia Day from January 26 which marks the arrival of the First Fleet in Australia.
It was also the arrival of generations of genocide.
January 26 marks the start of the massacres, oppression and systemic exclusion of First Nations people in their own lands.
Using this date as the date on which we celebrate our nation is a continual oppression of First Peoples.
It’s a celebration of invasion, the rape of First Nations women, the murders of Aboriginal people, of atrocities.
It’s a celebration of the Stolen Generations, of segregation, of control over Aboriginal people and breaches of our human rights.
When the British arrived in Australia, the land was declared terra nullius, meaning land belonging to no one. This was a lie.
The High Court overturned the legal fiction of terra nullius in the Mabo High Court decision in 1992, recognising the land was inhabited by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people all along, tens of thousands of years before those 11 ships entered Sydney Cove.
So why are we continuing to celebrate that anniversary as a benign “arrival” instead of recognising it for the invasion that it truly was?
And why do we continue to celebrate the beginning of a genocide, the most serious of crimes?
The date must change.
It’s not much to ask. Just a simple shuffle on the calendar.
But some would prefer to continue to oppress First Nations people by celebrating their dispossession; celebrating the ravaging of their land for economic gain at the expense of Aboriginal lives.
Every year we have this argument. Every year we see the same assortment of headlines and contrasting opinion pieces.
Companies announce their support of a change, in the name of inclusion.
Then they backtrack, pressured by the noisy minority into cowardice.
It is infuriating.
My whole life, I have watched as my people are kicked and trodden on and our respectful request for a date that includes us is ignored and ridiculed.
It is so upsetting.
As soon as the New Year’s Eve fireworks fall silent, it’s game on again.
It leaves us battered and bruised before the new year has a chance to begin.
Ironically, it’s this hurtful and damaging debate that brings most airtime to First Nations people and issues.
We’re forced to come forward to defend our request for a new date, to justify why we should be included in the celebration of Australia’s nationhood. It’s exhausting.
Our elected leaders can put an end to the merry-go-round. They have the power to make the change and leave a positive legacy.
Keeping the date on January 26 shuts Indigenous Australians out. That’s not what this country should be about. Celebrating genocide is not what this country is about.
Changing the date needs to go to the top of the agenda.
If it doesn’t, year after year you can look forward to me giving my two cents in a column like this one.
Choosing a new date for us all to celebrate is more than a symbolic action.
It would be an act of peace, inclusion and respect.
Emma Garlett is a legal academic and Nyiyaparli-Yamatji-Nyungar woman