Council locks in date for 2024 Dubbo, Wellington Australia Day events

The final decision on the date was made by Dubbo councillors on Thursday night.

As it was this year, the 2024 Wellington ceremony will be held at 6.30pm on Thursday, January 25, while the Dubbo ceremony will be held in the morning of Australia Day on Friday, January 26.

It's fitting with the feedback from the public.

The council recently undertook a survey to see if the celebrations should be changed. It found 69.7 per cent of survey participants preferred an Australia Day event on January 26.

Despite the results, mayor Mathew Dickerson, as well as Aboriginal councillors Pam Wells and Lewis Burns, have pushed for the council's Australia Day event to be held on a different day.

Cr Burns, who joined the council meeting from Los Angeles, was critical of holding an event on January 26.

"Australia Day has always been a negative day for Aboriginal people and if you go back to celebrating it on the 26th January, it's a step back. The 26th is a day we should all reflect on going forward but not a celebration day [when it marks] the taking over of the country," he said.

This year's Australia Day was the first time the official address, which is normally made by the mayor, was handed over to an Indigenous person.

Cr Burns used the speech to tell to the crowd about his family's beginnings in Dubbo and the racism they experienced.

At Thursday's meeting he said making those changes made it "feel as though a lot of the negativity was wiped out".

Deputy mayor Richard Ivey was in favour of keeping the events at the same time.

He said the Australia Day events provided recognition of the good things about Australia Day, and recognition that for some it's "a time of reflection and time when we'd like to look back with some kind of sadness or sorrow at what's gone on".

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