Anglican Bishop calls for 'confession, repentance' on Australia Day

Bishop Condie, who says he recognises the importance of celebrating and giving thanks for all that is great about Australia, will today deliver a sermon at St David's Cathedral in Hobart in which he will call for people to approach the national holiday with the spirit of confession and repentance.

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"This date celebrates an imperialist British government triumphantly annexing another part of the world under their control," he will say. "This date also marks the beginning of occupation and dispossession of Aboriginal peoples across this land."

"It was God who gave 60,000 years of history to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islands people. It was God who apportioned the territory of these islands to the 300 nations that lived here prior to 1788.

"The truth on the lips of the Apostle Paul exposes the untruth that the great southland was terra nullius.

"It was actually terra populus, by the Lord's hand. It exposes the untruth that the 'Crown' could appropriate land and dole it out to others, as if it were theirs to give."

Bishop Condie will preach that Christians should respond to Australia Day by embracing the Bible's tradition of "corporate and historic confession of sin".

"You and I have benefited from this great wrong of January 26, 1788," he will say. "We continue to benefit from it while Aboriginal peoples still live with its impact."

"January 26 should be a day of corporate lament, a day to say sorry, a day to make restitution, a day to acknowledge the past, a day to tell the truth about our dark history."