Protestors Hold "Invasion Day" Rally on "Australia Day"

Australia Day this year unfolded less as a single civic ritual than as a stress test of Australia’s social cohesion. Thousands gathered in central Sydney on Monday for annual “Invasion Day” rallies supporting Indigenous Australians, while separate anti-immigration demonstrations drew crowds nearby. The parallel mobilizations underscored how questions of history, migration, and national identity are colliding in a country of roughly 27 million people, where Indigenous Australians make up about 4% of the population and where one in two residents is either born overseas or has a parent born overseas.

The “Invasion Day” rally began at 10 am at Hyde Park with a tribute to victims of a shooting in rural New South Wales the previous week. Speakers emphasized land repatriation, deaths of Aboriginal people in police custody, and the need for unity amid rising nationalism.

Aboriginal woman Gwenda Stanley told the crowd, “We need a coalition of all new Australians because if it wasn’t for immigrants, Australia would have perished,” before asking for continued solidarity.

The term “Invasion Day” itself framed the gathering, reflecting Indigenous views that Jan. 26 marks the destruction of cultures following Britain’s establishment of New South Wales as a penal colony.

Competing Mobilizations

Nearby, anti-immigration demonstrations organized by March for Australia began at noon, with protesters, estimated in the hundreds by local media, arriving with Australian flags. The group has been criticized for alleged links to neo-Nazi networks.

Similar “Invasion Day” rallies and March for Australia protests were held across the country, signaling a national pattern rather than an isolated Sydney event.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese sought to temper the day’s divisions earlier at an Australia Day citizenship ceremony, urging unity rather than polarization. His appeal highlighted the government’s challenge: balancing calls for reconciliation with First Nations communities against anxieties about migration and national identity.

The dueling rallies come as Australia experiences record-high immigration alongside rising costs of living and a housing shortage, dynamics that have sharpened political debate. Yet international polling points to a more complex public mood. In June 2025, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said 67% of people across 29 countries still support the principle of offering refuge, with support highest in Sweden, Argentina, the Netherlands, and Australia - placing the country among the more receptive societies even as domestic protests grow louder.

Structural Inequities in Focus

The protests also intersect with unresolved institutional issues. Human Rights Watch said on Mar. 26, 2025 that Western Australia’s child protection authorities continue to disproportionately remove children from Aboriginal families, nearly two decades after a national apology for past forced removals. The organization warned that children are still being placed in out-of-home care at high rates, underscoring how historical trauma remains embedded in present-day systems.

That continuity is reinforced by longer-term warnings. On Jan. 23, 2026, advocates marked 35 years since the Australian Human Rights Commission launched its 1989 National Inquiry into Racist Violence. The final report had issued 64 recommendations covering law enforcement reform, legislation, and education investment. But even after decades have passed, the implementation is allegdely far from perfect.

35 years later, much remains unaddressed. Racial violence is still not a specific criminal offence. And despite having a Racial Discrimination Act for over 50 years, systemic racism remains embedded in law and policy.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Katie Kiss

Taken together, the Hyde Park rallies, nationalist marches, and official unity appeals highlight a country negotiating its past while managing contemporary pressures. Australia Day continues to function as both celebration and reckoning, revealing how unresolved inequities, migration debates, and institutional legacies converge in public space.