A large crowd of Invasion Day protesters has swept through central Sydney after gathering in the city and listening to speeches earlier on Wednesday.
Attendees marched in silence down Elizabeth St after meeting at Sydney Town Hall from 10am, echoing the historic Day of Mourning rally that took place at the same site in 1938.
This year’s rally heard from several speakers, some of whom shared stories of relatives who had died in police custody to cries of “shame” from the crowd.
One woman, captured on video, stood behind the microphone on the Town Hall steps and asked: “When will we see our justice?”
“This is our land, this is where we come from. And we’re still oppressed, we’re still down, we’re still not good enough,” she said.
“People can say that Australia isn’t racist, but we cop it every day.”
The protesters then marched through the city to Victoria Park in Camperdown for the Yabun Festival, where there were more speeches planned.
“First Nations people and allies are invited to participate in an act of resistance against continuing systemic racism, deaths in custody and the colonial project,” the rally’s organisers wrote on social media before the event.
Organisers had asked attendees to wear face masks and to socially distance from one another, with Omicron continuing to circulate in the community.
It is 234 years to the day since Sir Arthur Phillip raised the British flag at Sydney Cove, also known as Warrane, to claim the land as a British Colony.
For many Indigenous people the day represents a day of mourning or survival rather than celebration, marking the beginning of the dispossession of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Invasion Day rallies have become an annual mainstay as momentum builds for changing Australia Day to a more “inclusive” date.
Many other people choose to celebrate Australia Day on January 26, to commemorate the arrival of the First Fleet a week earlier.
It is also the day on which citizenship ceremonies and other official celebrations are held.
NSW Police Superintendent Despa Fitzgerald said about 2000 officers had been deployed across the state to ensure revellers and protesters remain safe.
“In relation to the Invasion Day rally, we have a number of police that will ensure the safety of those people who are participating in that rally,” she told Channel 9.
“Obviously, the public health orders are still in play in terms of wearing masks on the public network and indoors.”
All roads and transport routes were back to normal after some were closed or interrupted earlier in the day as the march moved through the city.
Motorists were advised to avoid parts of the Sydney CBD and Camperdown, with roads closed around Town Hall, between Hyde Park and Central, and Haymarket, Chippendale and Camperdown.
