One Day in Freo - The Whys and Wherefores

This year, 2022, as during the previous two years, Covid has disrupted so many things around Fremantle, including a number of major planned events.

One of them, in late January, was the now familiar One Day event.

One Day first happened at Esplanade Park in January 2017. It caused quite a stir at the time. The idea of celebrating modern multicultural Australia on a day different from 26 January, being the date in 1788 that the British colonised Australia to the dismay of Indigenous Australians, all seemed so revolutionary. Now it seems so obvious.

Our Digital Media Team has been out and about investigating the significance of One Day and has produced this excellent YouTube presentation about it.

Rita Miller and Ethan Kelly-Agee explain the significance of One Day to Indigenous peoples, while the former Mayor of Fremantle, now Dr Brad Pettit MLC, discusses how One Day in Freo came about.

You’ll hear Dr Pettitt mention his important conversation with Professor Len Collard about the lack of significance of the old Australia Day celebrations for Indigenous peoples. If you’d like to know more about Professor Collard’s story, you find it here in our earlier podcast interview with Prof Collard.