‘Listen to our voice’: Invasion Day rally crowds march through Melbourne

Protesters have been told to use hand sanitiser frequently and wear face masks and most appear to be doing so but social distancing is proving difficult.

The Aboriginal leader said that there was a “deliberate ignorance” in Australia about the history of the land. “The British tried everything to eradicate us after their invasion but it didn’t work.”

“We want you to listen to our voice, and that is why I believe we are here today with so much support, wanting our voice to be heard and listened to and respected.”

Following a minute of silence at 11.26am, two women with white ochre on their foreheads sang a mourning song while the crowd beat their chests in time with the clapping sticks.

Victorian senator Lidia Thorpe, a Gunnai Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung woman, then told the crowd January 26 is Invasion Day and not a day to celebrate.

“People [are] having barbecues and shrimp on the barbie and celebrating the death and destruction of these people, the oldest continuing living culture in the world,” she said.

She described a “slimy pandemic” of racism in Australia that needs to be eradicated.

“It’s killing us,” she said. She called for a treaty which “means peace, a treaty means equality and a treaty means justice.”

March makes staggered start as protesters split into smaller groups

Groups of about 100, separated by about five metres, started marching down Bourke Street at 11am, with other protesters joining the procession after speeches finished at 12.30pm. Most are being led by government-approved coronavirus marshalls wearing red armbands.

The red, yellow and black of Indigenous flags stretches hundreds of metres up the tram tracks of Bourke Street, given life by the leg slapping, clapping and chanting of individual groups.

Indigenous rappers A.B. Original’s song “January 26” blared along Bourke Street as a group with a sign stating “Captain Cook brought the first pandemic” passed.

One person held a sign reading: “White Australia has a black history.” Another sign says: “No pride in genocide.”

Eighteen “legal observers”, wearing pink bibs and masks, are monitoring the event.

Equipped with video cameras and business cards outlining protesters’ rights, their role is to gather objective evidence in case of trouble between police and protesters.

Police are also filming the protest from the rooftop of the Imperial Hotel on the corner of Bourke and Spring streets.

Dawn mourning services

The march comes after hundreds of people, including Melbourne lord mayor Sally Capp, gathered for a dawn mourning service in the steady rain at Kings Domain.

A minute’s silence to remember those who have passed was led by senior Wurundjeri elder Aunty Joy Wandin Murphy at the service.

“Our heartache and our loss can not be measured,” she told the crowd.“Still today, we lose too many of our people.”

Bundjalung-Yorta Yorta man and historian John Patten told the crowd that January 26 represented a day where “many minds and hearts are in conflict, but they don’t need to be”.

“It’s been interesting to see over the last two years how the winds have changed in our direction,” he said.

“More and more Australians are starting to see and starting to speak out and understand that there is something more to be said about Australia Day: Mourning Day, Invasion Day.”

Senator Thorpe read a list of massacres of Indigenous people in Victoria.

A number of other councils, including Port Phillip Council, also held mourning events on Tuesday.

Later in the morning, Wurundjeri elder Joy Wandin Murphy took aim at Prime Minister Scott Morrison in an impassioned speech at a flag-raising ceremony at Melbourne’s Government House attended by Premier Daniel Andrews and Governor Linda Dessau.

Last week Mr Morrison told Cricket Australia to stick to cricket after the governing body scrapped the term Australia Day from the promotion of its Big Bash matches.

Aunty Joy said those comments show the fight for Indigenous equality had gone backwards under the current government.

“I’m very disappointed in what the Prime Minister had to say about Cricket Australia when in his first term of office he made a statement about changing the constitution. We talk about, ‘let there be trust, let there be confidence’ and all we hear is about being patient. We’ve almost lost that patience.”

She said that children and adults had been taken “well before their time and for the only reason that they were considered sub-human or not fit for this earth”.

“I was reminded today that I’ve been coming here for 20 years and today I still get a lump in my throat because I don’t really feel like I belong. I’m frustrated.”

Referring to Australia Day, she asked Australians to think about making changes and “where Australia is at”.

“And I urge you, let’s move forward for a new celebration in a new time.”

In Governor Dessau’s speech, she thanked Ms Murphy for her “thoughtful words”.

“Aunty Joy, your words were particularly important this year when our choice of words is front of mind.“

Ms Dessau said Tuesday was the first time the national anthem would be sung with the words “for we are one and free” instead on “young and free”.

Tuesday’s Invasion Day rally has been organised by the Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance, the same group behind Melbourne’s Black Lives Matter rally in June.

That protest attracted tens of thousands of people and became a political flashpoint for weeks, but no incidences of community transmission of COVID-19 were recorded because of it.

Last week, Premier Daniel Andrews said Victorians should not attend Invasion Day rallies, with large congregations still banned under COVID-19 rules.

“This will be a different Australia Day, we’re in the midst of a global pandemic,” he said.

“It’s no time to be protesting, it just isn’t. We’ve built something precious and unique, Victorians have, through their sacrifice and their commitment and their compassion for each other and we have to safeguard that.”

Anti-lockdown protesters, who clashed with police last year, have also vowed to rally.

A People’s Australia Day Parade, protesting the cancellation of Melbourne’s Australia Day parade, is scheduled to start near Queen Victoria Gardens at 2pm and march to Catani Gardens.

The event is hosted by the Melbourne Freedom Rally group, which was associated with last year’s anti-lockdown protests.

With Carolyn Webb, Ashleigh McMillan