A banner hung from the rail bridge crossing McIvor Road that read “Always was always will be Aboriginal land”, a reminder of the first peoples who called Australia home.

Australia Day, January 26, marks the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet.

Many people consider the occasion to be a whitewashing of the brutal treatment of Aboriginal people that followed.

The Indigenous community has led a growing campaign pushing for the date of the national holiday to be changed.

Former Northern Territory senator Nova Peris was among the high-profile Aboriginal people who participated in the Melbourne rally in support of the move.

But Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce told Sydney radio station 2GB that the idea of a date change was “political correctness gone mad” and said those who wanted it were “miserable gutted”.

Australia Day has been celebrated nationally as a public holiday since 1994.

Invasion Day rallies were also held in other capital cities and towns across Australia.