Scaling Colonial Violence: One Day Celebrations in Fremantle, WA

The aim of this paper is to analyse the Fremantle City Council’s decision to celebrate One Day on January 28th 2017 instead of the usual Australia Day on January 26th, as well as the ensuing media debate between its supporters and opponents, especially Noongar leaders and WA Government. The discourse is examined in the context of the disruption of colonial violence. The City of Fremantle, as a place, itself serves as a point of reference for the analysis. Although today Fremantle is often perceived as a “progressive island” in a largely conservative Western Australia, the Fremantle prison and nearby Rottnest Island are stark reminders of the maltreatment of the Whadjuk people after the formation of the Swan River Colony in 1829.1 In December 2016, I attended the International Australian Studies Association’s conference in Fremantle, Western Australia (WA). The conference was titled “Re-imagining Australia: Encounter, Recognition, Responsibility.” Going there, I had little knowledge of Fremantle itself, and it was my fi rst visit to WA. I read up on the city’s history and was looking forward to visiting the famous Maritime Museum and Fremantle Prison. It was not until I met my hosts, whom I found via a traveller website that I heard about, how progressive Fremantle was supposed to be, especially compared to the rest of Western Australia. The couple seemed to have quite a liberal approach to issues such as immigration, personal freedoms, etc. On the following day, prompted by the news on TV, they told me about the Fremantle City Council’s decision to move the celebrations of Australia Day from January 26th to January 28th in 2017. They were outraged and insisted that the celebrations of Australia Day had nothing to do with the history of genocide, and that they were about the wonderful and multicultural nation that Australia has become. I was perplexed not only by the argument itself, but also by what seemed to me like a dissonance in their attitudes toward immigrants and the Indigenous Peoples of Australia. Later on in our discussion, it also turned out 60 Zuzanna Kruk-Buchowska that their attitudes toward the issues faced by Indigenous communities, such as crime, incarceration or alcoholism were defi nitely not ones one would normally associate with left-wing views. They not only blamed Indigenous communities for their fate, but also saw Australian society as the saviour of the Indigenous victims of crime and neglect saying, for example, that if some Aboriginal children had not been taken away from their families, they would have died. The National Australia Day Council, which was founded in 1979, views Australia Day as “a day to refl ect on what we have achieved and what we can be proud of in our great nation,” and a “day for us to re-commit to making Australia an even better place for the generations to come” (National Australia Day Council; qtd. in Korff 2018). Australia Day is supposed to be a commemoration of Captain Arthur Phillip’s formal possession of the colony of New South Wales, on January 26th, 1788, when he raised the British fl ag for the fi rst time in Sydney Cove (Korff 2018). It became a public holiday in 1818 and in the early 1880s, it was known as “First Landing,” “Anniversary Day,” or “Foundation Day.” In 1946 the Commonwealth and state governments agreed to unify the celebrations on January 26 and call it “Australia Day” (Korff 2018). Since 1994 all states and territories celebrate Australia Day together on that day, during which citizenship ceremonies are held. People also celebrate with barbecues, contests, parades, performances, fi reworks and other fun events. 1. ‘Change the Date’ Debate However, for many Indigenous Australians, there is not much to celebrate. Quite the contrary, it is a commemoration of a deep loss for them: “loss of their sovereign rights to their land, loss of family, loss of the right to practice their culture” (Korff 2018). As stated by Aboriginal activist Michael Mansell, “Australia Day is 26 January, a date whose only signifi cance is to mark the coming to Australia of the white people in 1788. It’s not a date that is particularly pleasing for Aborigines” (qtd. in Korff 2018). Such sentiments have been present for a very long time. In 1938, on the holiday’s 150th anniversary, William Cooper, a member of the Aboriginal Progressive Association, declared it a “Day of Mourning,” referring to the annual re-enactment of Phillip’s landing (Korff 2018).2 Cooper, together with Jack Patten and William Ferguson organised a conference to “grieve the collective loss of freedom and self-determination of Aboriginal communities as well as those killed during and after European settlement in 1788” (Korff 2018). By 1988, the re-enactments were stopped. Today, the day is called “Invasion Day,” “Day of Mourning,” or “Survival Day” by many Aboriginal people. In 1992 the fi rst Survival Day concert was held in Sydney. On this occasion, Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists play music or dance, information is made available about Indigenous issues, arts and crafts are Scaling Colonial Violence: One Day Celebrations in Fremantle, WA 61 sold, and one can buy food and bush tucker. The name “Survival Day underscores the fact that Aboriginal culture is still strong despite all that has happened (Korff 2018). In major cities you can visit alternative concerts where mostly Aboriginal people gather. Since 2006, the name “Aboriginal Sovereignty Day” has also been used to emphasise that “all Aboriginal nations are sovereign and should be united in the continuous fi ght for their rights” (Korff 2018). Survival Day concerts and Indigenous activism have led to an increase of public awareness about the controversial nature of Australia Day, and have fostered a discussion about ‘changing the date.’ Many Indigenous Australians, including Mick Dodson, Aboriginal Law Professor and 2009 Australian of the Year, are hopeful that Australia will be celebrated on a diff erent day: “To most Indigenous Australians, it really refl ects the day on which our world came crashing down. Many Indigenous people regard it as Invasion Day,” he said bluntly (2010, 21). He continued: “And if we look at the recent survey that showed 90 per cent of people are saying Australia Day should be inclusive of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, I fi rmly believe that someday we will choose a date that is a comprehensive and inclusive date for all Australians” (21). There have been several local responses to the debate, e.g. Flinders Island council in Tasmania decided to end its January 26 celebrations in November 2013, and instead support the three-day-long Furneaux Islands Festival held in January and organised by the Flinders Island Aboriginal Association Incorporated (FIAAI). Fremantle City Council’s decision to celebrate One Day can defi nitely be seen as one of such local responses to the ‘change the date’ debate. Although the Fremantle City Council had announced that it would be hosting a special event to celebrate Australia on 28 January 2017, already a year before, the story made headlines towards the end of November 2016, with the Council’s proclamation of the celebrations of One Day. This “free, family-friendly event is a culturally-inclusive alternative to traditional Australia Day celebrations” was to see “some of Australia’s fi nest artists take the stage” (“World-class artists” 2016). On the one hand, the Council’s decision was met with praise from the traditional owners of the land, the Noongar people, and Australians who condemn the celebration of the anniversary of the arrival of the fi rst fl eet of British ships to Port Jackson in 1788.3 On the other hand, the proclamation sparked outrage in Western Australia, threats on the part of the federal government, and was widely commented nationwide. The issue was also discussed during the conference, and a special panel was held, with Robert Eggington, Noongar Elder, and Executive Offi cer of Dumbartung Aboriginal Corporation, as well as a member of the City Council, and other members of the community participating. This paper aims to analyse the Council’s decision as well as the ensuing media debate between its supporters and opponents, especially Noongar leaders and the WA Government in the context of the disruption of colonial violence. The City of Fremantle, as a place, will itself serve as a point of reference for the 62 Zuzanna Kruk-Buchowska analysis. As aptly put by Suvendrini Perera, “Certainly, this small Indian Ocean town suddenly fi nds itself at the forefront of the Change the Date movement which is gathering daily momentum in the media” (2016). Nonetheless, many Whadjuk and Noongar people living in the area see the celebrations of Australia Day and the strong reactions to their cancellation by the Fremantle City Council not only as an obstacle to creating an Australian society that would be inclusive of its Indigenous population, but also as a reminder and continuation of the violence that they have endured since the creation of the Swan River Colony in 1829. Therefore, the author sees it as important that the discussion around the announcement of One Day celebrations is not only considered as part of the national Change the Date debate, but that it is also viewed in light of the local history of colonial violence, particularly Aboriginal imprisonment and removal from land in what is today Fremantle and its surrounding area. The study considers online articles in the regional WA News as well as in the national media outlet SBS. The examination of colonial violence is carried out in view of Tanganekald Meintangk Boandik scholar Irene Watson’s considerations of the issue, who argues that “the greatest tensions arise out of the state’s justifi cation of the theft of Aboriginal lands and the absorption of Aboriginal lands into western property paradigms” (Watson 2009a: 2). Of equal importance, she claims, is the state’s “failure to acknowledge Ab

In December 2016, I attended the International Australian Studies Association's conference in Fremantle, Western Australia (WA).The conference was titled "Re-imagining Australia: Encounter, Recognition, Responsibility."Going there, I had little knowledge of Fremantle itself, and it was my fi rst visit to WA.I read up on the city's history and was looking forward to visiting the famous Maritime Museum and Fremantle Prison.It was not until I met my hosts, whom I found via a traveller website that I heard about, how progressive Fremantle was supposed to be, especially compared to the rest of Western Australia.The couple seemed to have quite a liberal approach to issues such as immigration, personal freedoms, etc.On the following day, prompted by the news on TV, they told me about the Fremantle City Council's decision to move the celebrations of Australia Day from January 26 th to January 28 th in 2017.They were outraged and insisted that the celebrations of Australia Day had nothing to do with the history of genocide, and that they were about the wonderful and multicultural nation that Australia has become.I was perplexed not only by the argument itself, but also by what seemed to me like a dissonance in their attitudes toward immigrants and the Indigenous Peoples of Australia.Later on in our discussion, it also turned out that their attitudes toward the issues faced by Indigenous communities, such as crime, incarceration or alcoholism were defi nitely not ones one would normally associate with left-wing views.They not only blamed Indigenous communities for their fate, but also saw Australian society as the saviour of the Indigenous victims of crime and neglect saying, for example, that if some Aboriginal children had not been taken away from their families, they would have died.
The National Australia Day Council, which was founded in 1979, views Australia Day as "a day to refl ect on what we have achieved and what we can be proud of in our great nation," and a "day for us to re-commit to making Australia an even better place for the generations to come" (National Australia Day Council; qtd. in Korff 2018).Australia Day is supposed to be a commemoration of Captain Arthur Phillip's formal possession of the colony of New South Wales, on January 26 th , 1788, when he raised the British fl ag for the fi rst time in Sydney Cove (Korff 2018).It became a public holiday in 1818 and in the early 1880s, it was known as "First Landing," "Anniversary Day," or "Foundation Day."In 1946 the Commonwealth and state governments agreed to unify the celebrations on January 26 and call it "Australia Day" (Korff 2018).Since 1994 all states and territories celebrate Australia Day together on that day, during which citizenship ceremonies are held.People also celebrate with barbecues, contests, parades, performances, fi reworks and other fun events.

'Change the Date' Debate
However, for many Indigenous Australians, there is not much to celebrate.Quite the contrary, it is a commemoration of a deep loss for them: "loss of their sovereign rights to their land, loss of family, loss of the right to practice their culture" (Korff 2018).As stated by Aboriginal activist Michael Mansell, "Australia Day is 26 January, a date whose only signifi cance is to mark the coming to Australia of the white people in 1788.It's not a date that is particularly pleasing for Aborigines" (qtd. in Korff 2018).Such sentiments have been present for a very long time.In 1938, on the holiday's 150 th anniversary, William Cooper, a member of the Aboriginal Progressive Association, declared it a "Day of Mourning," referring to the annual re-enactment of Phillip's landing (Korff 2018). 2 Cooper, together with Jack Patten and William Ferguson organised a conference to "grieve the collective loss of freedom and self-determination of Aboriginal communities as well as those killed during and after European settlement in 1788" (Korff 2018).By 1988, the re-enactments were stopped.
Today, the day is called "Invasion Day," "Day of Mourning," or "Survival Day" by many Aboriginal people.In 1992 the fi rst Survival Day concert was held in Sydney.On this occasion, Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists play music or dance, information is made available about Indigenous issues, arts and crafts are sold, and one can buy food and bush tucker.The name "Survival Day underscores the fact that Aboriginal culture is still strong despite all that has happened (Korff 2018).In major cities you can visit alternative concerts where mostly Aboriginal people gather.Since 2006, the name "Aboriginal Sovereignty Day" has also been used to emphasise that "all Aboriginal nations are sovereign and should be united in the continuous fi ght for their rights" (Korff 2018).
Survival Day concerts and Indigenous activism have led to an increase of public awareness about the controversial nature of Australia Day, and have fostered a discussion about 'changing the date.'Many Indigenous Australians, including Mick Dodson, Aboriginal Law Professor and 2009 Australian of the Year, are hopeful that Australia will be celebrated on a diff erent day: "To most Indigenous Australians, it really refl ects the day on which our world came crashing down.Many Indigenous people regard it as Invasion Day," he said bluntly (2010,21).He continued: "And if we look at the recent survey that showed 90 per cent of people are saying Australia Day should be inclusive of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, I fi rmly believe that someday we will choose a date that is a comprehensive and inclusive date for all Australians" (21).
There have been several local responses to the debate, e.g.Flinders Island council in Tasmania decided to end its January 26 celebrations in November 2013, and instead support the three-day-long Furneaux Islands Festival held in January and organised by the Flinders Island Aboriginal Association Incorporated (FIAAI).Fremantle City Council's decision to celebrate One Day can defi nitely be seen as one of such local responses to the 'change the date' debate.
Although the Fremantle City Council had announced that it would be hosting a special event to celebrate Australia on 28 January 2017, already a year before, the story made headlines towards the end of November 2016, with the Council's proclamation of the celebrations of One Day.This "free, family-friendly event is a culturally-inclusive alternative to traditional Australia Day celebrations" was to see "some of Australia's fi nest artists take the stage" ("World-class artists" 2016).On the one hand, the Council's decision was met with praise from the traditional owners of the land, the Noongar people, and Australians who condemn the celebration of the anniversary of the arrival of the fi rst fl eet of British ships to Port Jackson in 1788. 3On the other hand, the proclamation sparked outrage in Western Australia, threats on the part of the federal government, and was widely commented nationwide.The issue was also discussed during the conference, and a special panel was held, with Robert Eggington, Noongar Elder, and Executive Offi cer of Dumbartung Aboriginal Corporation, as well as a member of the City Council, and other members of the community participating.
This paper aims to analyse the Council's decision as well as the ensuing media debate between its supporters and opponents, especially Noongar leaders and the WA Government in the context of the disruption of colonial violence.The City of Fremantle, as a place, will itself serve as a point of reference for the analysis.As aptly put by Suvendrini Perera, "Certainly, this small Indian Ocean town suddenly fi nds itself at the forefront of the Change the Date movement which is gathering daily momentum in the media" (2016).Nonetheless, many Whadjuk and Noongar people living in the area see the celebrations of Australia Day and the strong reactions to their cancellation by the Fremantle City Council not only as an obstacle to creating an Australian society that would be inclusive of its Indigenous population, but also as a reminder and continuation of the violence that they have endured since the creation of the Swan River Colony in 1829.Therefore, the author sees it as important that the discussion around the announcement of One Day celebrations is not only considered as part of the national Change the Date debate, but that it is also viewed in light of the local history of colonial violence, particularly Aboriginal imprisonment and removal from land in what is today Fremantle and its surrounding area.The study considers online articles in the regional WA News as well as in the national media outlet SBS.The examination of colonial violence is carried out in view of Tanganekald Meintangk Boandik scholar Irene Watson's considerations of the issue, who argues that "the greatest tensions arise out of the state's justifi cation of the theft of Aboriginal lands and the absorption of Aboriginal lands into western property paradigms" (Watson 2009a: 2).Of equal importance, she claims, is the state's "failure to acknowledge Aboriginal sovereignty and the absorption of Aboriginal political identities into the 'one nation' Australian state" (Watson 2009, 2).

One Day Media Debate
In response to the Council's announcement, West Australian Liberal MP Ben Morton fl agged his concerns about the Council's actions in a letter to the Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Alex Hawke, who in turn wrote a letter to the city in which he claimed the Council would be banned from holding citizen ceremonies because it breached the Australian Citizenship Act of 2007 by "politicizing" its fi reworks ban.He stated that the government's position was very clear and "if the council are unable to reconcile their political views with their civic duty, I will consider revoking authorization from those persons in the City of Fremantle who can currently receive a pledge of commitment at citizenship ceremonies" (2016; qtd. in Fremantle Australia Day fi reworks).He also noted that a similar situation had occurred twice in the past decade and the Government would be "monitoring the situation closely" (2016; qtd. in Fremantle Australia Day fi reworks).
Fremantle council fi red back, saying it would not be bullied by the Turnbull government into moving its One Day in Fremantle event back to January 26.The council assured that its decision "was not to denigrate Australia Day or those who celebrated it, but to hold an event on January 28 that would be "more respectful and inclusive for the entire community" (qtd. in Young 2016).
Diff erent public fi gures and local groups also reacted.Not wanting to miss out on one of the biggest trading days of the year, businesses jointly raised the $50,000 needed to salvage the traditional fi reworks display on Australia Day. Visitors and residents thus had a choice: the fi reworks, which were part of a fourday fi esta called "Australia Week" or the council's alternative event "One Day in Freo" on the 28 th (Moodie 2017).In addition, far right groups Reclaim Australia and the United Patriots Front planned to congregate in Fremantle on Australia Day to protest against what they called "an act of betrayal against Australia" (Moodie 2017).
Brent Fleeton, Councillor for nearby Bayswater, slightly less radically, although still showing ignorance of the Indigenous community's argument, stated "[I'm] sick of being made to feel guilty for wanting to celebrate Australia on the anniversary of the fi rst British settlement," and "Not everyone likes this day for various reasons, I understand that, but that doesn't mean the rest of us should be shamed into wearing black armbands and apologizing for being here" (qtd. in Young 2016).
Western Australia's Premier, Colin Barnett, on the other hand, asked in a much more accusatory manner: "Maybe they are going to ban Christmas because Muslims don't celebrate Christmas; what's next?" (qtd. in Young 2016).He also called the move "unAustralian" and, by twisting the cause and eff ect of the council's action, an "exaggerated" attempt to prevent people taking part in citizenship ceremonies on a day that meant something to them (qtd. in Young 2016)."I think it's a selfi sh act by the Fremantle council to deny new people to this country the right to become Australians on Australia Day" he stated (qtd. in Young 2016).
Robert Eggington responded to the Premier stating that "Comparing the decision to banning Christmas and then attaching the Muslim face is absurd.You would expect it to come from the mouth of an uneducated redneck, not the Premier of Western Australia" (qtd. in Young 2016).He also poignantly noted that "Deep in the minds of people who are accessing their citizenship rights through these ceremonies would be a consciousness that this country has been founded on the dispossession of Aboriginal people […] especially since many come from countries that are war-torn and may know what it's like to be impoverished, or face genocide" (qtd. in Young 2016).He went on to praise the Council's decision: "This is a historical moment; the fi rst time the status quo of celebrating Australia's identity, its nationhood, has been challenged by any government instrument" (qtd. in Young 2016)."We are upon the oldest ceremonial grounds on the planet.For people to savagely attack him like this just shows that they don't understand the nature of this land, its beauty and its indigenous practice" (qtd. in Young 2016).
However, not all Indigenous voices in Western Australia were unanimous about the council's decision.For example, Noongar elder, former West Australian of the Year, and ambassador for the Australia Day WA Council, Robert Isaacs, disagreed, stating that his fellow Indigenous Australians were causing divisions by opposing Australia Day. "We're one nation of people and we've just got to try and not forget that we need to go forward and don't look back" (qtd. in Moodie 2017).Dr Isaacs was scathing about the City of Fremantle's alternative celebration and argued that hundreds of Aboriginal families attended Perth's Skyworks each year after a "survival concert" in the city centre (qtd. in Moodie 2017).

A History of Colonial Violence in Fremantle
Indigenous Australians have long used terms such as Shame Day, Invasion Day and Day of Mourning to describe this date.According to Professor Suvendrini Perera, a resident of Fremantle of fi fteen years: Among non-Anglo migrants and refugee Australians, the sickening rise in racist slurs and attacks in the lead-up to January 26 is an all-too-well-known experience.Changing the date may well lead to an initial increase in these kinds of abuse, but even as we dread the infl ux of fl ag-waving racists into the streets of Fremantle, […] the council's decision is undoubtedly one that moves us forward into a less racist future.( 2016) She examines the council's move in a local context, seeing the Change the Date push as an example of how, "at the edges of […] frightening and well-worn scripts, others are being acted out, and new stories are being written."She gives several other examples of such "new stories," e.g., the inscription of Kim Scott's poem "Kaya" in Noongar language on the walls of the new Perth Stadium, "literally, into the concrete façade," greeting all manner of motley arrivals to Whadjuk Country; the NoongarPedia project, "a living testament to the survival and sharing of the language of the place"; the projected display of the state's maritime heritage featuring the Bremen, a boat that successfully evaded extensive surveillance to sail straight into Geraldton Harbour in 2013, carrying 67 asylum seekers from Sri Lanka (2016).She also states that the same urgent imperative to "fi nd possibilities for the country" shaped the conference, Reimagining Australia that took place in Fremantle from December 7-9 2016 (2016).The "well-worn scripts" on the other hand, are expressed in WA's plummeting economy caused by a recurring crash of the mining industry and, consequently: fl y-in fl y-out ghost towns fuelling support for One Nation and a Trump-style politics of white grievance; of a state government scandalously indiff erent to shocking Indigenous suicide rates in the Kimberley and elsewhere; to the recent racist violence in Kalgoorlie leading up to the death of 14-year-old Elijah Doughty; and to the obscene and antiquated laws that led to the jailing of Ms Dhu in a Port Hedland cell where she died in agony.(Perera 2016) 4  The Fremantle prison and nearby Rottnest Island are also stark reminders of the city's history of maltreatment of the Noongar people after the formation of the Swan River Colony in 1829.Rottnest Island, now a popular tourist destination, lies 20 km off the coast of Western Australia and is clearly visible from Fremantle.It received its fi rst prisoners in 1838 and formally came into existence as a prison in 1841.
The Swan River Colony, which later became Fremantle, was not established as a penal colony, unlike the colonies already founded in the eastern part of the continent, as it was a military and civilian settlement, not a settlement for convicts ("Fremantle History…").The 'free' status of the colony was ended by the English before 1850: "The settlers were not happy about the proposition of turning the colony into a penal colony.They were concerned that it was against the founding 'free' principles of the colony -what had been 'promised' to them in England.They opposed the arrival of convicts as they felt they would bring stigma and trouble" ("Fremantle History…").In November 1849, it was offi cially announced that the Swan River Colony had been constituted a penal settlement to accelerate the economic growth, despite public opinion.Over nine-thousand convicts were brought to Fremantle from England on 43 voyages.Importantly, two thirds of the convicts remained in the colony after they were released from prison and by 1868 the population had reached 22,738 ("Fremantle History…").Until the 1870s, the city's economy was based on meat, wheat and wool.
From the Noongar perspective, however, the establishment of the colony had a grave impact on the lives of their communities.As noted by Karen Jacobs, a Noongar woman and former member of the Rottnest Island Board, "all of a sudden fences were going up, people were being pushed off their land and we were marginalised" (qtd. in Melville 2016).She continues: Then they started bringing in a law that passed judgment over us, when we'd had our own governance structure for thousands and thousands and thousands of years.They cleared the land and blocked all the freshwater springs that ran through the city.This meant all the medicinal plants, all of the traditional vegetation and animals were all gone.Our whole hunting ground was gone within three years of settlement.(qtd. in Melville 2016) Irene Watson also comments on the legal implications of colonization in Australia with regard to land, noting that individual ownership was a very diff erent concept to an Aboriginal relationship to land, which was collective: "all Aboriginal relationships to land were deemed by British law to be non-existent.Aboriginal peoples were held to have no legal ownership of land or political identity as sovereign peoples" (Watson 2009a, 2, after Watson 2009b;Schlunke 2009).
As food supplies became scarce, Noongar men started hunting any animal they saw, including sheep, chicken or cows, without realizing that animals can belong to people under white man's law (Melville 2016).To them, animals belonged to the land.In consequence, Noongar people started being arrested for theft and trespassing, and they started to fi ll up the prisons.
According to Green (2011, 78), between 1838 and 1931, more than 3670 Aboriginal men served one or more sentences on Rottnest Island and 365 are buried there.An Aboriginal cemetery is located within the Thomson Bay Settlement.The 1850 land regulations provided for pastoral leases to a maximum of 20,000 acres and the lease was extended from one year to eight years (still six years less than in New South Wales).At the insistence of Earl Grey of the British Colonial Offi ce, after 1851 the form of lease included a clause giving Aboriginal people a right of access to pastoral leases to seek their subsistence, a right which continues to the present.New land regulations in 1864 raised the maximum lease area to 100,000 acres and off ered a generous rent concession to those willing to pioneer new districts of the North-West.This inevitably brought settlers into confl ict with Aboriginal people on the expanding pastoral frontier: " Thomas and Stewart (1978), in their study of imprisonment in Western Australia argued that in the early years, settler fear of Aboriginal people infl uenced the arrests but later in the century fear gave way to a 'dislike of the native population' and eventually to contempt, shown in the lack of compassion.They noted, 'very rarely in the history of the legislature is there a categorical denunciation of the conditions under which Aborigines were imprisoned'" (qtd. in Green 2011, 78).
Although the Aboriginal prison offi cially closed in 1902, it became an annex of Fremantle prison the following year, and received Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal low-risk prisoners to do maintenance work on the tourist holiday cottages, roads and pathways until 1931 (Green 2011, 78).According to Green, during the collation of data for Far from Home, it became apparent that the advance of the pastoral frontiers between 1854 and 1900 was refl ected in the Rottnest prison population (2011,(77)(78). 5For example, the overall preponderance of prisoners from the South-West refl ects the early establishment of pastoral settlement in that region.Similarly, stock killing was by far the most common conviction.There was a marked increase in the number of prisoners sent to Rottnest from the 1860s, as the pastoral frontier expanded, especially following the 1864 regulations and their incentives.This reached a striking peak in the 1880s.Closer inspection of the data showed that in 1884, for example, prisoners form the Murchison and Gascoyne regions accounted for more than half of the Rottnest prisoners, with the most convictions for stock killing (2011,78).
Watson also argues that demonizing Aboriginal culture allows an opening for the state to appear as "a crusader and rescuer of Aboriginal women and children," especially from violence committed by Aboriginal men (a view most defi nitely shared by my hosts in Fremantle) (2009( , 4, after Watson 2005( and 2007)).The scholar asks whether a long process of vilifi cation assists in the assimilation of Aboriginal peoples and the commodifi cation of their lands into Australian real property.In her view it does, as the state becomes "the knower of what is

Conclusion
For many Australians, "1788 brings to mind the 'Old Sydney Town' version of history, with red coated soldiers and convicts subjected to cruelty for an arrogant English aristocracy" (Faruqi 2017).However, "clinging to the myth that invasion, occupation, colonisation and settlement are somehow peaceful processes and something to be celebrated continues to hurt us all," says Mehreen Faruqi, Pakistani-born Australian Greens MP for the New South Wales Legislative Council (2017).Supporters of the Change the Date campaign, including many Whadjuk and other Noongar people see the celebrations of Australia Day and the strong reactions to their cancellation by the Fremantle City Council as both a reminder and continuation of that violence, and an obstacle to creating an Australian society that would be inclusive of its Indigenous population.Keeping the date allows the state to retain the power to construct what Aboriginal culture and history means, thereby not only ignoring 200 years of imprisonment, land grabs and other forms of colonial violence, but also undermining Indigenous peoples' rights to selfdetermination and their rights as Australian citizens.Changing the date would thus mean that the state (and mainstream society) no longer yield that power.Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Fremantle Council's decision was met with such strong resistance and why many do not want to see the date changed.
As argued by Watson, the state "still has assimilation agendas, intent upon the removal of Aboriginal peoples from traditional lands and the absorption of Aboriginality into a 'white Australia'" (2009a, 1).Celebrating Australia Day on the 26 th of January can defi nitely be seen as part of such an agenda.Unfortunately, we cannot have justice or the possibility of de-colonising the past injustices of colonialism, when "the state is committed to a one dimensional universal world order, one which disallows for the diversity of peoples and cultures" (Watson 2009a, 1, after Watson 2006).The Fremantle City Council's decision may thus be viewed as a form of disrupting the status quo, and a move toward de-colonising past and present injustices toward Indigenous Australians.
To come back to Suvendrini Perera, in commenting on the council's decision, she wrote: "it seems that something is shifting here at the edges.Yes, something is happening here, at the edges: a stirring and unsettling of words, an unmooring of certainties, a small change of dates" (2016).Indeed, other councils have followed Fremantle's suit.On August 15 th , 2017, City of Yarra councillors in Melbourne voted unanimously to no longer refer to 26 January as Australia Day in all offi cial documents, but as "January 26" instead, to stop citizenship ceremonies on that date, and to support the campaign to change Australia Day recognizing that it is "a day of distress for many Aboriginal people" (Korff 2018).However, in response, the federal government stripped the council of the power to hold citizenship ceremonies.Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull declared the decision to be "utterly out of step with Australian values" and accused the council of seeking to divide Australia."To change the date of Australia Day would be to turn our back on Australian values," he said (qtd. in Korff 2018).About a week later, neighbouring Darebin council also voted in favour of not calling 26 January Australia Day, and on September 13 th 2017, Moreland City Council (a neighbour of Darebin) did as well, although it will still hold citizenship ceremonies, as in 2015, it moved its annual citizen awards ceremony from January 26th to October, out of respect for Aboriginal people (Korff 2018).Hopefully, more of such "small changes of dates" continue to take place, ultimately leading to a new, inclusive and non-violent date for celebrating Australia Day.