We always support NAIDOC Week

THE UNION movement has been fighting countless workers' rights battles over the past 200 years, but we've never strayed from helping protect and support the underprivileged and disadvantaged here and overseas.

This includes supporting Australia's First Nations community in their constant struggle against the systematic issues they face. Each year we join the Indigenous community to celebrate NAIDOC week, in its 48th year in 2020. The history of celebrating Aboriginal and Islander history, culture and achievement goes back nearly twice as long as that. The first event was the Day of Mourning in Sydney on 26 January 1938, where thousands got together at one of the first major civil rights gatherings in the world. This became an annual event known as ‘Aborigines Day’ and it was held on the Sunday before Australia Day for the next 15 years. In 1955 it moved to the first Sunday in July and became a celebration of culture as well as a protest against the treatment of our First Nations people. The formation of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs in 1972, a result of the 1967 referendum, saw the creation of the original National Aborigines Day Observance Committee. In 1974 the celebration extended to a week, with a mourning day on the second Sunday. In 1991 the growing understanding of the differences in culture and history between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples led to NADOC's expansion to recognise Islanders separately. Since then the committee has been known as the National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee (NAIDOC). It meets each year and develops a theme and the important issues and events that are to be the focus of reflection for that year’s week. The 2022 theme was ‘Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up!’, to celebrate the proud history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities doing exactly those things. From the frontier wars and their earliest resistance fighters to their modern-day activists who continue getting up, standing up and showing up for systemic change. This includes celebrating the many throughout history who've driven and led change in our communities fighting for equal rights and even basic human rights. NAIDOC Week is a time to stand together and support institutional, structural, collaborative and cooperative reform. This could be seeking cultural, heritage or environmental protections, campaigning for constitutional change, engaging in the process of truth-telling, working towards treaties or simply calling out the racism that we see. We can all be a part of it and we can all do it together.