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The Briefing …
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The controversy over local councils cancelling Australia Day celebrations continues to widen, with a second Melbourne council stripped of its powers to run citizenship ceremonies on the day by assistant immigration minister Alex Hawke.
Darebin Council joined neighbouring Yarra in voting to replace celebrations on January 26 with “an inclusive and culturally appropriate event on an agreed date” with local Aboriginal groups, sparking a backlash from the government and morning TV program Sunrise. Writing for the ABC, journalist Stan Grant compared the American movement to tear down statues of Confederate soldiers with the ways in which Australia honours the early colonists, many of whom perpetrated massacres and dispossessions against Aboriginal people.
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Alex McKinnon, The Saturday Paper