Australian Embassy and Mission to the EU

Belgium-Luxembourg

Embassy address: Rue Guimardstraat 6-8, 1040 Brussels - Telephone: +32 (0) 2 286 0500 - Fax: +32 (0) 2 231 07 88

EVENTS

►ANZAC Day on the Western Front, Belgium, Wednesday, 25 April 2012

The Embassy is helping co-ordinate a wide range of activities to commemorate ANZAC Day 25 April, 2012, on the Western Front, Belgium. They will start with a Dawn Service at Zonnebeke. Additional services will be held at Tyne Cot, Menin Gate at Ypres and Toronto Avenue cemetery. Details of the ANZAC Day program will be made available on this web page during February.

►ANZAC Day on the Western Front, Belgium, Monday, 25 April 2011

More pictures from ANZAC DAY 2011

Program details

► Australian blues guitarist and singer Fiona Boyes - Performance in Brussels (Laken) Tuesday 1 February 2011

On Tuesday 1 February 2011, Australian award winning blues guitarist and singer Fiona Boyes will perform at the Flemisch cultural center Nekkersdal in Laken (Brussels) during a unique representation in Benelux.

Australian blues guitarist and singer Fiona Boyes soulful, authoritative style — brilliantly displayed on her current US release 'Blues Woman' — has earned Boyes unprecedented international recognition. For the past four years she’s been a final five nominee in the Memphis based Blues Music Awards, the only Australian ever to be nominated in these awards, which are widely recognised as the Grammies of the Blues. Boyes received a “Contemporary Blues Album of the Year” nod in 2007 for her Yellow Dog debut, the electric 'Lucky 13'. The next year she garnered a ballot for “Contemporary Female Blues Artist of the Year.” In 2009 she received an “Acoustic Blues Album of the Year” nomination for the recording 'Live From Bluesville', which also won the Los Angeles based International Blues Critics Award for Best Live Album. And in 2010 she was nominated for 'Traditional Blues Female Artist of the Year' and earned 2 nominations in the 2010 Blues Blast Music Awards in Chicago. It’s worth noting that Boyes first arrived in America to claim yet another honor: winner of the 2003 International Blues Challenge (IBC) in Memphis, where she swept away the competition in yet another incarnation — solo acoustic performer. Representing the Melbourne Blues Society, Boyes was the first woman and the first Australian to earn the title. Her current release 'Blues Woman' is all about Boyes’ depth as an artist and the musical odyssey she’s taken since that first visit to the US.

Tuesday 1 February at 20.00
G.C. Nekkersdal
E.Bockstaellaan 107
1020 Brussels
For more information: 0475.736 374 and www.brusselsblues.eu

► Queensland on tour: Brussels - 29 November 2010

The Ambassador of Australia, HE Dr Brendan Nelson, attended a workshop organised by Tourism Queensland, on Monday 29 November. Nearly 30 Queensland tourism operators took Queensland on a European tour on 23 November-2 December, with a stopover in Brussels. The workshop consisted in promoting Queensland for European tour operators, and was organised this year by Qantas Airways & Qantas Holidays. Marc Lambert, CEO of Antipodes, a Brussels-based travel agency specialising in travel to Australia, was the Master of Ceremony. Antipodes forms travel agents and delivers, together with Tourism Australia, the ‘passport’ of an « Aussie specialist ».

To see some pictures of the event, click here.

► National Reconciliation Week 2010

National Reconciliation Week is celebrated annually from 27 May to 3 June.
It celebrates the rich culture and history of the First Australians - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples - and their strong contribution to Australian society today.

It is also a time of reflection, to look back upon Australia’s history, including its darker side, to see how far we have come along the road of reconciliation and see what still needs to change.

The history of National Reconciliation Week begins in 1996 when it was formally adopted as a national focus for all reconciliation activities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. However the idea has its roots in 1993 when ‘faith communities’ first began to hold an annual week of prayer for reconciliation.
National Reconciliation Week further coincides with two very significant dates in the history of race relations in Australia:

- 27 May marks the anniversary of the 1967 Referendum, in which more than 90 per cent of Australians voted to remove clauses in the Australian Constitution which discriminated again Indigenous Australians - excluding them from citizenship. The 1967 Referendum was by far the most overwhelming ‘Yes’ vote at an Australian referendum ever recorded, more so even than Federation.

- 3 June marks the anniversary of the Australian High Court judgement in the 1992 Mabo case. A decision that for the first time recognised the Native Title rights of Indigenous Australians as the original inhabitants of this continent and overturned the myth of terra nullius (empty land). The myth upon which the colonisation of this country was justified and which informed Australian legal practice for over a century.

This year, National Reconciliation Week has a third date to commemorate. National Reconciliation Week 2010 celebrates the ten year anniversary of the Bridge Walks in May 2000, which saw 300,000 Australians walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in support of Reconciliation, an event subsequently replicated in other cities and towns around the country.

The theme for National Reconciliation Week this year is “Reconciliation: Lets see it through!”. It aims to highlight the achievements that have been made since the Bridge Walks of 2000. While we acknowledge there is still a long way to go, Australia as a nation is working towards resetting relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians and achieving long lasting and real reconciliation.
To this end, the Australian Government is supporting the establishment of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundation to address grief and loss issues among Indigenous Australians, with a strong focus on the Stolen Generations.

The Government also considers that a national Indigenous representative body is a prerequisite to enabling new partnerships and re-setting relationships with Government.

Members of the first Congress Executive of the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples have now been appointed and will soon commence the important work of representing Indigenous Australians in the policy arena. This body is the first such organisation chosen entirely by Indigenous Australians to represent Indigenous Australians. It will play a key role in the Government’s commitment to developing genuine partnerships to “Close the Gap” on life expectancy and opportunities.

Australia was pleased to announce its support for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples last year.
Australia also celebrates the recent election of the first Indigenous Australian woman, Megan Davis, to the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, following a successful lobbying campaign by the Australian Government.

► ANZAC Day on the Western Front - Sunday, 25 April 2010

As every year on 25 April, Australians all over the world gathered at memorial services to commemorate ANZAC Day, remembering the sacrifice of those who lost their lives for our freedom.

ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps; the soldiers in those forces became known as ANZACs, and the pride they soon took in that name, as well as the ideals of courage, endurance and mateship, still prevail these days.

The commemoration of ANZAC Day, considered to be Australia’s most important national event, marks the anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915, the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War.

In Belgium, the cities of Zonnebeke and Ypres on ANZAC Day traditionally honour the Australian Diggers who died in the fields of Flanders, where 6000 Australian volunteer soldiers gave their life during World War I.

This year, the delegation, led by the Australian Ambassador, HE Dr Brendan Nelson, was again joined by Australian citizens and students.

The Zonnebeke authorities welcomed the delegation with a breakfast followed by speeches and exchange of gifts. Following this, all moved to Tyne Cot Cemetery in Passchendaele where 1011 Australians are buried.

In Ypres, the Australian delegation met the New Zealand delegation and local officials, and all will march in procession from the Cloth Hall to the Menin Gate for a Last Post ceremony, and then to the Belgian War Memorial. Following those ceremonies, the Ypres Mayor hosted a reception at the Town Hall with speeches, exchange of gifts and drinks.

Previous events
Australian Culture and Recreation Portal
Commemorations