Into the suburbs now to revisit a story we published last week about a local council’s decision last year to shift its Australia Day citizenship ceremony away from January 26.

This week, after the city received pushback from the community, all but one City of Wanneroo councillor decided to keep the event on the 26th.

The event has been crowned the country’s largest several years in a row.

Councillor Jordan Wright said while the City’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait community reference group Ni Kadadjiny Koort was likely to be hurt by the decision, the council had to act on the wishes of the “majority of the community”.

“The city and the council is very committed to reconciliation and there are various other initiatives that are underway in regards to closing the gap, initiatives around employment… [and] various other initiatives to continue working on reconciliation. While this may be a bit of a pause in that journey, I don’t think this will be a forever thing within the state or within Australia,” he said.

“I just think the country is just simply not ready at this point.”

Loading

A door-to-door random survey of 375 City of Wanneroo residents showed 48 per cent wanted to keep the ceremony on Australia Day; 19 per cent wanted to change it; and 33 per cent had no preference.

An online Open Survey Sample survey available to all residents and ratepayers, completed by 214 people, showed 74 per cent supported keeping the date, 20 per cent were against it, and six had no preference.

The main reasons for keeping the ceremony on Australia Day included national significance, tradition and convenience.

Those in favour of changing the ceremony date listed cultural sensitivity, solidarity with First Nations Australians, and the desire to avoid controversy as their reasons.