Petition Launched To Move Triple J’s Hottest 100 To “Less Inflammatory Date”

There are many Australia Day traditions — knocking back a few tinnies, scoffing some Lamingtons, firing up the BBQ and listening to triple j’s Hottest 100, to name just a few. It’s also a holiday with complex connotations, and increasingly, both Aboriginal and non-Indigenous Australians are acknowledging 26 January’s other alias: Invasion Day.

With 2017’s Australia Day coming over the horizon, a call has been made by activists to move triple j’s Hottest 100 announcement "to a less inflammatory and more inclusive date", as an act of solidarity with Australia’s First Nations people. The annual rundown of the year’s biggest hits has been an Australia Day fixture since 1993.

Launched by the Bar(r)ed Subjects collective yesterday, the Change.org petition has called upon triple j Breakfast hosts, Matt Okine and Alex Dyson, to spearhead a campaign to have the annual countdown shifted to a less contentious date.

 

"By changing the date of the Hottest 100 countdown, triple j can send a message to First Nations’ Peoples that they, and their experiences, are valued and respected by other Australians," a statement attached to the petition reads. Since going live, the campaign has secured more than 500 signatures.

This isn’t the first time calls have been made to acknowledge 26 January as a day of bleak significance for Indigenous Australians. This year, a Google Doodle, inspired by the Stolen Generation, was released to coincide with Australia Day, prompting a storm of debate over whether the day ought to be moved, renamed or abandoned altogether.

 

Aussie rap star Briggs — an Aboriginal man of the Yorta Yorta peoples — alongside electro duo The Presets, publicly boycotted Australia Day 2016, stating in a Facebook statement, "For the indigenous people who were here long before the boats came, January 26 marks the beginning of the end of their way of life – a way of life that they had enjoyed for over 40,000 years.

 

"January 26 is the day white man arrived with his guns, his alcohol, his church, his flues and other illnesses… Whatever day we choose, it must be something that all Australians can truly get behind once and for all. And anything would be better than the 26th of January."