For Jaymee Beveridge, the lead up to January 26 is something she despises.
She says ill-informed opinions and stories about Indigenous history are magnified around this time.
"The day really highlights the divide between those people who have a solid and credible knowledge of Australia’s Black history... versus those uneducated, small-minded individuals who refuse or don’t have the capacity to understand what this day represents to our people," Ms Beveridge said.
However a growing movement around the country is challenging the once ubiquitous insistence on celebrating the date.
Telstra, Woodside Energy, Channel 10, Deloitte and other large companies already offer flexible arrangements around working on January 26.
Now the University of Wollongong, where Ms Beveridge is an employee, has done the same.
Unions say the university is the first in the country to bring a new measure which gives all fixed-term and permanent staff the option to work on January 26 instead of taking the day as a public holiday.
First Nations staff welcome move
For former UOW employee and Wadi Wadi Elder Aunty Barbara Nicholson, the university's approach has been a judicious one.
"I am really quite impressed with the care and even concern the Vice Chancellor Patricia Davidson has exhibited in being cautious, in not exhibiting some grandiose plan," she said.
Aunty Barbara Nicholson says the plan is something she never expected to see in her time.
"It's a very wise decision, she hasn't overstepped. From little things big things grow, they really do."
Yorta Yorta senior lecturer at UOW, Dr Summer Finlay will be working on January 26.
"I was so pleased to see this announcement," Ms Finlay said.
"It's something the First Nations staff at the university have been speaking about, so to see it enacted is really exciting,"
"January 26 isn't a day to be celebrated, so taking a public holiday doesn't really make sense to me. So by me taking that day to work... is taking a stand on an individual level to protest that day," she said.
Senior Lecturer at the University of Wollongong Summer Finlay says she's opting to work on January 26 this year.
'Courageous conversations are being had'
Jaymee Beveridge works as the Executive Director of Indigenous Strategy and is also Director of the Woolyungah Indigenous Centre at UOW.
She's the mastermind behind the university's plan.
Ms Beveridge says while she understands there would be opposition out there to the university's move, the response she has received has been overwhelmingly positive.
She says one staff member reached out to her and said their option to work on January 26 had prompted conversations with their elderly parents around the meaning of the date for First Nations people.
"For me the desired outcome is that open conversations are entered into and truth telling is sought," she said.
Jaymee Beveridge says the decision she helped create is opening conversations around truth-telling on an individual level.
"As a community, we really hide from this day, because of what it brings out, and so this opting in and opting out lifts the invisible cloak that's been put onto Aboriginal issues for many years and opens up those conversations for change, which is so needed".
Aunty Barbara Nicholson never envisioned the day would come where people were given the option to work on January 26.
She says 40 years ago Indigenous people were protesting hard to achieve the basics, like housing and medical services for their people.
But she says the 'considered' approach by the university is the way to go.
"I think its a brilliant strategy to introduce this measure in the form that it has been... because there are naysayers out there, who say we should just forget it.
"Why can't we have our 'Lest we forget?'" she said.
"And our lest we forget is so tied up in 1788 and this date.
"If other universities and other institutions picked up on this plan, then perhaps I could dream that one day we might get our sovereignty recognised," she said.
