CHANGE THE DATE NOW

BIG TROUBLE WITH AUSTRALIA DAY

SOME FURTHER THOUGHTS.

PLUS THE “BIG TROUBLE” VIDEO REPOST.

TERRY McARTHUR | BLOG 36 | 26.1.2025

for Lee Madden

Miss ya mate

BIGGER TROUBLE WITH AUSTRALIA DAY - some further thoughts

Australia Day for too long has been a finely honed product of a distorted imagination fed by the DNA of colonisation, racism, and the exoteric disease of self-entitlement. The 26th of January is not a day of celebration. This was the day Arthur Phillip planted the flag of dispossession. A day that began over two hundred years of systemic segregation, separation and genocide of the world's oldest living culture.

In 2021 the then Prime Minister Scott Morrison observed, "You know, when those 12 ships turned up in Sydney, all those years ago, it wasn't a particularly flash day for the people on those vessels either." Well bugger me Scotty mate, it hasn't been "a particularly flash day" for first Australians ever since then.

Our present Prime MInister Anthony Albanese brought with him a visible commitment to an Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum. Albo got the elbow. Smack bang in the larynx. Lost his voice and some would say has never really found it again. As one time Procol Harum lyricist Keith Reid, the author of John Farnham’s anthem for inclusion and unity The Voice, reportedly said of Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, a serial promoter of division and disunity like the rest of The Liberal Party, turns a whiter shade of pale whenever it comes to the first Australians.

Let's start by fixing this plain wrong ongoing insult. Let's change the date.

BIG TROUBLE VIDEO

Big Trouble is a live, raw and unedited sorry poem. It's my take on Australia Day. History has a habit of weaving faction and fiction into a taught myth.

The music was written and arranged by Phil Rigger with a special thanks to Bruce Carr for his inspired didge playing. The video was shot by Brandon Batton at Art Equity in Sydney at the combined launch of Deborah Young's Meditations exhibition and the launch of my poetry book Walking Skin.

The Big Trouble video features:

TERRY McARTHUR - Spoken Word PHIL RIGGER - Keys, Vocals RAMSAY McINNES - Guitar GEOFF INNES- Trumpet NATHAN HANDLEY - Snare Drum, Percussion

© Big Trouble (McArthur-Rigger).