Welcome back everyone! Whether you have spent time over the last few weeks with your family, got yourself in the water, or tried to soak up some of that vacation feeling away from home, I hope you’ve had a peaceful summer.

Hilltops has had a lot on over the last several weeks, much focused on our communities.

There have been and are a multitude of youth events around the area, many run by wonderful Hilltops Youth Action Group. If you’re wondering what to do with the kids this school holidays, they have lots of fun available.

It’s also been a great summer of fruit, with our orchards showing off a truly impressive amount of fresh and local fruit.

I can recommend finding one of the many nearby orchard shops across and stocking up on some of the best fruit you can buy - and all of it supporting our local growers and pickers!

This weekend coming is a long-weekend.

January 26 is a date that has different meanings to different parts of the community; for new migrants, it’s often the day they became a citizen, and were welcomed into our great country.

For others, it’s a day where they celebrate all that makes this country a great place to live and the envy of our neighbours.

And for some, the date represents a day of mourning for Indigenous peoples, and a reminder of the issues that still affect mob around the country.

I’m not going to tell you how you should view the day, or how you should spend it.

One of the things I love about Hilltops is the respect we have for one another, especially where we disagree.

Whether and how you commemorate the date is entirely your business, and anyone who says otherwise isn’t worth your time.

That said, this perhaps is a good opportunity to educate on why people might not celebrate this holiday the same way.

Marking January 26 as a day of mourning is not a new idea. Indigenous peoples first acknowledged the day as a Day of Mourning in Sydney in 1938, some 88 years ago. Meanwhile Australia Day only became a unified national holiday in 1994, 32 years ago.

For many, but not all, Indigenous peoples, this holiday represents not just the trauma of the British arrival, and the dispossession of us from our lands, violent as that was. It also represents an ongoing hurt at the injustices we face, the burdens our communities feel.

Many Indigenous peoples are proud to be Australian, some even celebrate Australia Day.

But being proud of Australia also can still mean acknowledging the past, acknowledging the active discrimination and violence faced by Indigenous peoples, and wanting to do better.

By every measure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people remain the poorest, most disadvantaged people in Australia.

In the words of Wiradyuri man Stan Grant Jr., this is no accident.

“The seeds of our suffering were sown in dispossession at a time when the very humanity of my people was denied.”

I’m immensely proud of this country, and our communities in Hilltops.

I would not have run for Council had I thought otherwise.

Australia is the envy of the world when it comes to social infrastructure, healthcare, community safety, quality of life, and so many other metrics.

Hilltops itself is a place with a great sense of community, where people help each other out, where working together is assumed, not unlikely.

I am proud every day to live in and represent our communities.

This is the duality of Australia Day for many Indigenous peoples.

We are proud of being Australian, with much love for our country and communities, yet we all too aware of the injustice and violence we so often face.

And are too often asked to just “get over it” and “move on.”

This itself poses many questions. What part of ourselves should we forget?

Which aspect of being Australian do we move on from, and which do we remember?

All of this is not to say you shouldn’t celebrate the day if you wish to.

But it is good to look at the history of how the day has come to be, and how different parts of our society take the day.

And how we might want to think about what Australia Day means for everyone.

Quoting Stan Grant Jr. again, “We are a nation unfinished; a nation that struggles still with its unfinished business: the injustice of our nation's birth.”

As you spend the weekend, no matter how you spend it, these are some fundamental questions we all should grapple with, if we want to live in a community where we all are equal.

Where all of our stories get told on January 26.

However, no matter how you spend this weekend, make sure you stay safe.

Especially on our roads; please report any road damage to council, so that we can make sure it gets fixed promptly.

Stay cool in the heat, and make sure you stay hydrated. If you can too, putting out water for local wildlife makes a real difference for the many native birds, bugs, reptiles, and mammals in our backyards and properties.

Best wishes for those returning to school and work soon.

Councillor James Blackwell