Today marks the annual Australian day, it was this date two-hundred and twenty-two years ago that Australia was officially colonised on 26th January 1788 by Captain Arthur Phillip in the name of King George III.

Well done Professor McGorry on winning the Australian of the year award 2010

Australia’s celebrations started yesterday with a concert kicked off by Wendy Matthews to celebrate everything it means to be Australian. Festivities were mirrored by fireworks and parties across the country to welcome in midnight and the start of Australian day.

Today Kevin Rudd swore in 1300 new Australian citizens while in Perth a simiar ceremony was being held by Australian immigration minister Chris Evans. The day culminated in the Australian of the year being announced, it was awarded to Professor Patrick McGorry.

Mr. McGorry is a 57-year old psychiatrist who works in the mental health field, he took the opportunity in receiving the award to advocate the importance of preventing mental illness at the early stages and, in what must be a slight embarrassment for the Australian immigration authorities and Government, called for an end to immigration detention centres. In his speech the professor derided the centres and labelled them ‘factories for producing mental illness and mental disorder’.

The awards, which were held at Parliament House in Canberra, celebrated Professor McGorry’s work and the Prime Minister paid tribute to him as a ‘leader’ who had pioneered new approaches to mental health, especially in young people.

McGorry has been at the forefront of Australia’s invigorated policy on mental health among young people, the professor is the executive director at the Orygen Youth Health centre in Melbourne and has in large part been responsible for shaping the new thinking in the area of intervention, prevention and treatment of mental illness.

Australia day has in the past been open to criticism from some quarters for celebrating a day that, in actuality, celebrates the colonisation of Australian land and the persecution of the indigenous Australian people. Today however one felt a conscious effort by the Government and in particular Kevin Rudd in trying to establish a ‘coming together’ attitude. Rudd made a somewhat stirring speech in which he said that Australians should be ‘more understanding’ of each other and that there was much to learn from those that had made Australia their home.

Australian Understanding

This attitude seems to me like the ‘everything is great’ psyche people adopt around the Christmas period, brothers and sisters that have been fighting all year must sit together and exchange pleasantry’s as though the previous 12-months has not been filled with insults and skirmishes over who is next in the bathroom.

Where although it is fine for the Australian government to ‘celebrate’ ‘their’ country, Australia as a whole should replace the batteries on the moral compasses that most seem to parade around and think about the words the Australian of the year has imparted on them.

The unity that the Government are so keen to portray, Chris Sarra an indigenous candidate for Australian of the year, Australian immigration minister Chris Evans praising Indians that were being sworn in as citizens and the speeches given across the Australian TV networks praising the greatest of the country, seem to fall flat on their faces when faced with the criticisms levied by Mr. McGorry. Having briefly scanned the comments on the news sites covering the professor’s remarks the response has been predictably un-harmonious.

While it is great to celebrate your country the feeling is that the fights between the siblings has started before it is time to pull the first cracker. Australian people although being lauded as tolerate and welcoming, appear to be anything but when it comes to the issue of Australian immigration.

All one can hope is that the day holds more significance to most for changes in thinking, than the fragile peace treaty’s struck up over Christmas day, that are over by the time the Turkey has become a curry.