Another Invasion Day comes and goes but the impacts of the invasions to the continent of "Terra Nullius" remain - for many with merciless brutality.

More than two centuries after the first wave of invasions, today's population of First Nations descendants is still less than the estimated total First Nations population on the first invasion day.

What followed that day was ceaseless murderous brutality, systematic destruction of the living circumstances of peoples nurtured over countless generations. The invader 'settled' in as the oppressor, an ongoing horror where our ancestors were jailed in missions and reserves and literally had the psychological shit beaten out of them.

It is my hurt that January 26 is celebrated as 'Australia Day'. It diminishes us all in asking us to celebrate in whatever form what was Invasion Day.

For me 'changing the date' is not enough. It just relocates the day of hurt, of our deepest mourning. No nation should celebrate an invasion day. It is a day of divides; of the oppressor and the oppressed.

Human habitation of Australia is tens of thousands of years old. Let us celebrate a harmonious nation where the roads are paved to humanity, equality and diversity. We can do this by doing away with Australia Day altogether. Australia Day is a day tied up with a White Australia Policy, with a racist Constitution.

Let the oppressor apologise by doing away with Australia Day. Anything less is a slur on our ancestors and a demand that the only road to equality is assimilation.

If Australia wants a voice for our First Nations peoples, or any prospect of treaties, then start listening to the multitudes of First Nations voices – prove that you want to listen to us, understand us. Hear our cries that we want an end to Australia Day.

To the oppressor I say surrender your celebrations of power imbalances, your homogeneity imposts, and your pitting us against one another. Australia Day smacks of smug institutional racism; the flag of resistance to 'decolonisation'.

The oppressor's jails are filled with our First Nations brothers, sisters and children, as were the missions and reserves and other institutions of segregation. The hearts and souls of First Nations brothers and sisters are filled with justified fear of the oppressor, of distrust from the beginning of life, of them verse us – and Australia Day perpetuates the fear, the distrust, the line in the sand.

Do away with Australia Day and it may send a powerfully profound signal to First Nations peoples, more meaningful than all the empty apologies we have to hear while our peoples continue to die at the highest suicide rates, are jailed at the world's highest rates, and our children are taken from their families at horrific rates that should have led to rebellions and revolution and not just protests, endless mourning and suicides.

Megan Krakouer

National Suicide Prevention & Trauma Recovery Project