Australia Day will be celebrated in Sunbury next year with a festival planned for Sunday 26 January.
The decision follows a campaign by Cllr Trevor Dance who raised the idea with fellow Hume City councillors earlier in the year.
At a Hume City Council meeting on Monday 12 February, Cllr Dance said he was disappointed Australia Day was not celebrated in Sunbury, noting the Australian flag was hard to find raised on council-owned polls on Friday 26 January.
His call for an Australia Day event was not initially supported by Cllr Jarrod Bell, nor mayor Naim Kurt. Nevertheless, councillors voted to ask staff to investigate the options for an event in Sunbury.
At a meeting of the council on Monday 22 July, following a report from council staff that an Australia Day event would cost $20,000 from the council’s civic events budget, everything changed.
Cllr Dance said: “Some have said that the citizenship day is an Australia Day celebration. It is not really.
“In future years these new citizens, and the community as a whole, always want to celebrate this special day as one that’s a reminder to migrants who have become naturalised citizens, and for generations who have been here for a long time.
“We celebrate Easter, AFL Grand Final, King’s Birthday, Christmas, and even car parks being opened [a reference to the new Sunbury car park’s fun day Sunday 28 July]… So why not celebrate our nation’s most important day?
“It brings the community together. We need to be proud of our national day and not buried away because some minority groups are pushing their views onto the greater population.”
Cllr Chris Hollow also rose to speak in support of an Australia Day celebration in Sunbury.
“We need to recognise that this city is a multicultural city,” he said. “While I understand the pain and the hurt that is felt by our indigenous community, we also need to understand there are other groups and people out there who will respect Australia Day for what it is. Australia Day should be about uniting, and not dividing.”
Cllr Jarrod Bell said: “The last time this came up in the chamber I had a position that vastly differed from the majority of this chamber, and while I haven’t seen the light, I have accepted the decision to support an event on Australia Day.”
Cllr Bell asked that council apply for a $15,000 grant from the Australia Day Community Grants (Federal) Program to help fund the event. Cllr Dance said this would happen during the normal course of events by council staff.
