Sarah Hanson-Young doesn’t know why we celebrate Australia Day

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young made an awkward slip up when she seemed to reveal that she doesn’t know the real meaning behind Australia Day.

In a press release sent out today, the Senator for South Australia got her wires crossed when referencing plans to change the date of the national holiday “away from Captain Cook’s landing at Botany Bay”.

The public holiday, which is celebrated on 26 January, actually marks the arrival of the First Fleet into Sydney Harbour in 1788, which was captained by Arthur Phillip. Whereas Captain Cook arrived in Botany Bay on April 29, 1770.

Hanson-Young published the shocking mistake on her website in a fiery statement titled “Tone deaf Liberals plunder from ABC to build yet another Captain Cook monument”, before realising her error and later amending the post.

She originally wrote: “Despite an important national debate about changing the date of Australia Day away from Captain Cook’s landing at Botany Bay, the government has decided to spend taxpayer money it is stripping from the ABC on yet another monument to Captain Cook on the land of the Dharawal people.

“The Liberal Government is waging a culture war against not only the ABC, but both the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in our community who speak out against the divisive commemoration of the colonialism that caused the 200 years of displacement and pain to our First Peoples.

“This Government is out of touch with the Australian people – taking money from our most trusted news service which will no doubt lead to further job cuts, and ignoring why our First Australians find the celebration of the arrival of Captain Cook so painful in one fell swoop.”

The 36-year-old politician also took to Twitter to vent about the proposed statue to her 148,000 followers.

Government is spending almost $50m on a statue and commemorations of 250 years since Captain Cook, but they couldn’t tell me in #estimates which aboriginal land the statue will be placed. 😳

— 💚🌏 Sarah Hanson-Young (@sarahinthesen8) May 23, 2018

The press release was later updated with the correct information in one section, although failed to correct a line in the last quote that still reads at the time of publishing: “This Government is out of touch with the Australian people – taking money from our most trusted news service which will no doubt lead to further job cuts, and ignoring why our First Australians find the celebration of the arrival of Captain Cook so painful in one fell swoop.”

This isn’t the first time the Australian Greens representative has made a blunder. In 2014, she mistook the television drama Sea Patrol for a factual documentary series.

Two years later, in 2016, she made another gaffe when she suggested that earnings within superannuation funds should be taxed at a person’s marginal income tax rate (they are currently taxed at a maximum of 15 per cent) when the Greens’ policy was to change the tax rate on contributions for people on incomes of more than $100,000 a year, but not at their marginal income tax rate.

What do you think? Is it an easy mistake to make or an embarrassing gaffe?