Deputy Opposition leader Sussan Ley’s Australia Day speech, in which she likened the First Fleet’s arrival to Elon Musk‘s mission to colonise Mars, has been slammed for overlooking a significant difference.
Ms Ley addressed the St Matthew’s Australia Day mass in Albury on Sunday and told the congregation that British settlers did not seek to ‘destroy or pillage’ what they found on the continent but set about the daring task of founding a new society.
‘In what could be compared to Elon Musk’s Space X’s efforts to build a new colony on Mars, men in boats arrived on the edge of the known world to embark on that new experiment,’ Ms Ley said.
‘And just like astronauts arriving on Mars those first settlers would be confronted with a different and strange world, full of danger, adventure and potential.’
Australia Day, observed each year on January 26, marks the arrival of the First Fleet in Sydney Harbour in 1788.
Unlike future astronauts arriving on Mars, the British fleet was not arriving at an unoccupied frontier, but at a continent that was already populated – something Ms Ley omitted from her description.
For many Aboriginal people, Australia Day is therefore regarded as ‘Invasion Day’ or the ‘Day of Mourning’, with protests being held in every major city each year.
Sussan Ley’s (pictured) Australia Day speech, in which she compared the First Fleet’s arrival to Elon Musk ‘s mission to colonise Mars , has been slammed for something it completely failed to mention
‘In what could be compared to Elon Musk’s (pictured) Space X’s efforts to build a new colony on Mars, men in boats arrived on the edge of the known world to embark on that new experiment,’ Ms Ley said
Ms Ley’s comments raised more than a few eyebrows in many quarters, with Anthony Albanese branding it ‘very strange’.
‘There aren’t people that we know of in Mars,’ the Prime Minister said.
When asked about the issue by the ABC, Treasurer Jim Chalmers laughed, claiming he ‘can’t focus on mad stuff that Sussan Ley says’.
A prominent commentator pointed out that not once in Ms Ley’s 1,114-word speech did she mention the words ‘Indigenous’, ‘Aboriginal’ or ‘First Nations’.
John Paul Janke, co-host of NITV’s flagship program The Point, said that it ‘seems that our nation’s story – the story of “us” – during that Sunday Australian Day morning mass doesn’t warrant including First Nations history or people’.
‘Ley’s “national story” about our national day fails to mention that this continent’s history or story stretched thousands of generations before 1788 or the 1770 arrival of Captain Cook…’, Mr Janke wrote.
Mr Janke pointed out that the first people to be called ‘Australians’ were actually Aboriginals.
‘It was the English navigator Matthew Flinders who used the term in March 1802 and again in November 1802 to describe the Aboriginal people he saw,’ he wrote.
Australia Day, observed each year on January 26, marks the landing of the First Fleet in 1788 when the first governor of the British colony of New South Wales , Arthur Phillip, hoisted the Union Jack at Sydney Cove (pictured: celebrations at Wavebreak Island on the Gold Coast)
But, for many Indigenous people and younger Australians, it is regarded as ‘Invasion Day’ or the ‘Day of Mourning’, with protests being held in every major city each year (pictured: marchers during an Invasion Day rally in Sydney)
‘Ley knows her language matters. Her silence also matters,’ he wrote.
On Monday, a spokesperson for Ms Ley defended her speech.
‘It is not surprising to see Anthony Albanese lacks the imagination to understand the significance of Australia’s founding story,’ the spokesperson told The Guardian.
‘This is the problem when you have a prime minister who was an activist at university instead of a student – he may see Australia’s founding as an invasion story, but I do not.’
Ms Ley has led a petition to force her local Albury Council on the NSW/Victoria border to restore citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day.
This publication previously revealed that a staggering 154 councils did not hold citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day this year.
Responding to Daily Mail Australia’s audit of the country’s 500-odd councils, Ms Ley promised that the Coalition would reinstate the old rule for councils if elected.
‘It is time to end the division on Australia Day and it is time for councils to get back in their lane,’ she said.
‘An elected Coalition government will reinstate the requirement for councils to hold citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day, this will be done in the first 100 days.
‘It will be a sign of pride and nationalism in our country – a move for Australia and Australians to be united, not divided; to stand up for what we believe in.’