As Australians wind down for the January break and welcome in the new year, a familiar pattern begins. Media headlines start to surface, and social media feeds fill with polls from major outlets asking, “Should we change the date of Australia Day?” People are invited to react with an emoji to vote yes or no, and the comment sections quickly flood with strongly held opinions.
This happens every year. Like clockwork. For a brief, intense period, the nation is consumed by divisive headlines and reactive debate about 26 January and whether the date should be changed. And then, just as predictably, comes the silence.
While the annual “change the date” debate is an important conversation, it nevertheless risks overshadowing the broader and far more urgent systemic injustices experienced by First Nations people and the need for structural reform to address them. Once the frenzy surrounding 26 January subsides, we are left exactly where we were before: no closer to improving the lives of First Nations people, no closer to closing the gap, and no closer to addressing our nation’s unfinished business.
This silence has been particularly deafening in the two years since the 2023 voice referendum. Most Australians would agree that the level of disadvantage experienced by First Nations people in this country is unacceptable. Yet each year we are drawn into the same familiar cycle: the release of the Closing the Gap report, followed by a press conference confirming what we already know – that the gap remains and governments are not on track to meet the 19 socioeconomic targets and four priority reforms under the national agreement. In fact, on several key measures, outcomes are not merely stagnating but worsening.
This ongoing failure is not the result of isolated policy missteps. It reflects entrenched systemic issues embedded within Australia’s institutions and decision-making structures. The Productivity Commission’s review of the Closing the Gap agenda makes clear that much of what governments are doing to implement the national agreement remains “business as usual” and that this is a key reason progress remains slow or is going backward. Without structural reform that enables First Nations people to have a guaranteed and genuine say in the laws and policies that affect their lives, the same systems that created inequality will continue to reproduce it, year after year, report after report.
We need sustained, honest discussions about why First Nations people die younger than other Australians; why our young people are over-incarcerated; and why our children continue to be removed from their families at unprecedented rates. These are the conversations that matter. And they must occur year-round.
Yet instead, we are confronted with a more troubling reality: a sustained political silence on Indigenous affairs. This was laid bare in the most recent election, where neither major party leader articulated a clear, credible or comprehensive vision for Indigenous Affairs in this country. In the absence of leadership, substantive reform has been replaced with noise and distraction.
The risk is that truth-telling processes place the burden for change back on to First Nations people, rather than on the institutions responsible for historic and ongoing harm. There is no evidence that a national truth-telling commission, on its own, will improve the lives of our people. At best, it buys governments time. At worst, it delays the structural reform our communities are calling for.
Today, First Nations communities continue to call for a meaningful, national mechanism to be heard in decisions that affect our lives. If we are serious about justice, we must stay focused on the mandate of the Uluru statement from the heart: towards meaningful recognition and structural reform. The issues we face are systemic and structural in nature. That is where change must occur.