Show of Sovereign Strength on Gadigal for Invasion Day 2026

“You know the only way to go forward is to go Black. As you see, look at our youth up here. Look at our elders. Understand, white Australia has a Black history and it’s also going to have a fucking Black future,” declared Elizabeth Jarrett over the microphone at the Invasion Day 2026 rally on Gadigal land in Hyde Park on 26 January.

The sentiment in Jarrett’s statement was in keeping with the theme of the rally: Always Was, Always Will Be. Indeed, the entire event, speaker after speaker, continued on with this sentiment. And it could also be grasped when one looked back up College Street to see a great mass of thousands sprawling all the way up to where the rally had begun, despite the threat of an ongoing protest ban.

“They’re still killing our people. They are still stealing our children. They are still fucking taking away land, water, sacred sites,” Jarrett, a Gumbaynggirr Dunghutti and Bundjalung woman, later said, while a rally in the same spot last week, highlighted that NSW prisons have more First Peoples locked up than ever before and that the most Aboriginal deaths in custody on record occurred last year.

Warlpiri elder Uncle Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves from Yuendumu shockingly lost his jaja/grandson in a needless brutal death in custody in May 2025. And when addressing the rally, Uncle Ned explained that “they are making our lives miserable. And particularly, they’re taking the lives away of our young people. It is a shame, what they are doing. But nevertheless, we are going to stand firm and fight.”

Dunghutti man Paul Silva, who was MCing the event with Jarrett, further reaffirmed the future-forward theme of the day with the tens of thousands covering the park, as he said, “To the nation that celebrates invasion, that builds comfort on graves and calls it pride – fuck you Australia. We are still here. We are still resisting, still breathing, still fighting and still fucking rising.”

The 26th of January: a brief history

“I want to share a bit of my people’s history,” said Bidjigal Gweagal man Jordan Ryan Hennessy. “The history of January 26, and the ongoing effects that colonisation has had and continues to have on First Nations people across this continent, but also, to embrace the resilience and Black excellence of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.”

“That is shown through our survival, through our sheer existence – our continued fight for freedom, justice, equality, equity, and our ongoing resistance against systematic racism in this colony,” he continued. “When the British invaded our shores in 1788 and established an illegal occupation, at first, my ancestors accommodated them. We weren’t violent. We weren’t primitive.”

Hennessy explained that it “wasn’t until the British started committing mass atrocities” that the local people started fighting back. He recalled that Bidjigal man Pemulwuy then formed and led a resistance against the invading British, with people from the Dharawal and Dharug nations, that fought the invaders.

The Bidjigal Gweagal man asserted that this pattern of resistance played out repeatedly across the continent as the British violently usurped more territory and it’s because of First Nations ancestors then that their descendants are here today. Hennessy reminded the Monday morning crowd that none of the land was ceded and then he insisted that people today must “keep the fire burning”.

“It is important to remember that the rights we have today as First Nations people, they weren’t given to us by the government,” Hennessy underscored. “They were fought for by our elders and our old people, when our people had the 1939 Day of Mourning protest here at Australia Hall or the Cummeragunja walk-offs or the Aboriginal Land Rights movement.”

Keep the fire burning

“We must never forget the history of this continent. It is trying to erase the narrative of genocide that has been perpetuated in this country for two centuries. We keep showing up to remind them every year, we aren’t going nowhere.” said Wiradjuri and Badulaig woman Lynda-June Coe. “Our young people are powerful. And you know what? They know it and they fear it.””

“That’s why the world is placing this chokehold around Indigenous people and it’s happening to people of colour as well. And I would like to say, ‘Fuck Australia, Fuck Israel and Fuck Trump,’” she continued.

Coe explained that sovereignty having never been ceded means that First Nations people are surviving an undeclared war. She added that the country has been occupied by force, and this is maintained via Australian police forces. As for the government, Coe said, every time her people rise, there’s no political will to steer change for them, as the major parties are in the pocket of billionaires.

The fact that Pauline Hanson is on the rise is another reason that people need to be mobilising in the present, Coe inisited, as Hanson’s One Nation party overtook the now defunct Coalition in the polls a week ago. Pauline has been on Sky News discussing One Nation possibly forming government, whilst she was down in Naarm-Melbourne on the day, at the local iteration of the antiimmigration rally.

“I’ve got a message for Pauline – fuck off. We don’t want you here, and you can take your Aunty Gina with you. It’s Australia Clean Up on 1 March, so let’s get rid of Pauline,” said Gomeroi woman Gwenda Stanley. “We are the survivors of the massacres. We are the survivors that they couldn’t kill. They didn’t advance Australia fair, because we’re still living on missions and reserves today.”

“They talk about reconciliation, let’s start talking restitution,” Stanley continued. “It’s about land rights in this country. Unfortunately, we don’t have land rights. But everyone else can come to this country and benefit from it – except us. This is because of the colonial white oppression that is continuing to oppress us. Sovereignty was never ceded and we’ll continue to keep that fire burning.”