The boss of a technology company is offering his staff two days off if they work on Australia Day to boycott the January 26 public holiday.
Ben Beath, the founder of Melbourne digital agency Loud & Clear, opposes having a national day which commemorates the 1788 arrival of the British First Fleet in Sydney.
He is offering his 80 Melbourne-based staff an extra day off to protest against the public holiday, which the Greens and some indigenous activists regard as ‘Invasion Day’.
Company managing director Ben Beath, pictured second right with fellow managers, is offering his staff two days off if they work on Australia Day
The vast majority of digital agency Loud & Clear’s 80 staff worked on Australia Day in 2017 with a similar number planning to in 2018 (pictured is ‘Invasion Day’ protest in Brisbane)
Mr Beath said his staff approached him last year about working on January 26 as part of a campaign to ‘change the date’.
‘The more I dived into the discussion around changing the date, I realised that if people were so passionate about this that they want to come into work on a public holiday, I felt like Loud&Clear should make an effort to support this,’ he told Daily Mail Australia on Friday.
‘And giving an extra day off – two days off in total -just seemed like the right thing to do.’
‘It’s not virtue signalling. It’s about spreading an idea and asking other people to consider it.’
The company managing director said staff were not being forced to work on Australia Day
The company managing director said staff were not forced into working on Australia Day.
‘We’re an independent agency, and I want people to make their own minds up about this,’ he said.
‘For the 20 per cent of our team who want to take January 26 off – that’s perfectly fine.’
Mr Beath said 80 per cent of his staff took up the offer in 2017, after he wrote a LinkedIn article arguing his industry had a responsibility to effect change.
Mr Beath said Australia Day needed to be changed from January 26 to a ‘more inclusive date’
‘It should not fall to indigenous Australians to have this conversation, to repair the lazy cruelty forced on them,’ he said.
‘We are calling on our agency colleagues across Australia to join us and make a stand.’
Former Labor leader Mark Latham and indigenous Alice Springs town councillor Jacinta Price are fronting a ‘Save the Date’ television campaign to keep Australia Day on January 26.
Ms Price, the daughter of a former Northern Territory government minister, said changing the date would do nothing to address issues of domestic violence and alcohol abuse in Aboriginal communities.
Mr Beath acknowledged fixing social problems among indigenous people was more complicated than changing Australia Day to a ‘more inclusive date’.