Celebrate Wattle Day

Hobart is lighting up in wattle colours this year to celebrate Wattle Day.

The Wattle Day Association (WDA) in collaboration with Hobart City Council is lighting up Hobart landmarks (the Cardinal Lights on Franklin Wharf, Elizabeth Mall, Railway Roundabout Fountain and Franklin Square)  for the Week of the Wattle (1-6 September 2020).

This year’s National Wattle Day (Tuesday 1 September) comes at a time when Australia’s unity is being tested and vital to our future, according to the WDA.

“Wattle is a unifying symbol that we can all relate to, irrespective of our politics, ethnicity, or religion or what state or territory we live in,” said Suzette Searle, WDA President. “Its diversity reflects us as a nation of indigenous peoples and colonists, settlers, immigrants and refugees from across the world.”

WDA hope to lift the shadows caused by COVID-19 virus by encouraging people, councils and institutions across Australia to light up their gardens, towns and cities in yellow and gold to welcome in the spring.

“Wattles are also a symbol of the resilience it takes to survive and thrive across this vast continent,” said Searle. “Over the last year our lifestyles, livelihoods and lives have been buffeted, damaged and for some destroyed by disasters. Any of them would have been enough to cope with but they kept coming from ongoing drought, huge dust storms, fires everywhere, smoke haze across cities to intense hailstorms and now a deadly human virus.”

The concept of National Wattle Day is supported Governor-General David Hurley.

“Wattle Day is all about appreciating wattle and celebrating what it is, and means, to be Australian,” he said. “It is a day to appreciate how fortunate we are. A day to remember that we are strongest and at our best when we look out for our neighbours and when we respect and care for each other.”

HEALTH WORKERS WIN ‘GOLDEN WATTLE AWARD’

With these words in mind, the Wattle Day Association announces that the 2020 Golden Wattle Award winners are Australia’s health and medical professionals and allied workers, who have been at the front line of the fight against the coronavirus (COVID-19) and who, day after day, have put their own lives at risk to keep the Australian community healthy and safe.

This award is in recognition of their expertise and skill, their dedication and commitment and their unselfish demonstration of the very best of Australian care and compassion for their fellow citizens.

Previous Golden Wattle Award winners since 2011 include tennis great Ashleigh Barty and Dylan Alcott (2019), Craig Challen and Richard Harris, underwater rescuers of the young Thai soccer (2018) and Samuel Johnson and his sister (2017).

The Wattle Day Association Inc. began in the suburbs of Canberra in 1998 with its founder Jack Fahy wondering why people weren’t celebrating National Wattle Day, proclaimed six years earlier (1992) as an Australian day of celebration. The association is a grass-roots volunteer movement that has members from around Australia. It exists to raise awareness of National Wattle Day (1 September); Golden Wattle (Acacia pycnantha) as Australia’s floral emblem, and all wattles as a symbol of Australia.