Belonging is something we practise, not something we declare

In a regional town like Wangaratta, belonging isn’t an abstract idea.

It’s something we feel - or don’t - in everyday moments.

It shows up in who stays when things get hard, who turns up for working bees and emergencies, who looks after the land, and who takes responsibility for the place we share.

As Australia Day approaches, conversations about belonging often become louder, sharper, and more polarised.

For some, the day is a celebration.

For others, it carries discomfort or grief.

In regional communities, these differences don’t stay theoretical - they sit across kitchen tables, sporting clubs, schools, and paddocks.

Avoiding the question of belonging doesn’t help.

But neither does reducing it to slogans or symbolic gestures.

Belonging is not something we inherit automatically, nor something we declare once a year.

It is something that forms slowly, through relationship - with people, with place, and with responsibility over time.

Living in North East Victoria has taught me that land is not neutral.

It shapes us whether we pay attention or not.

Seasons, fire, water, soil, and weather quietly structure the limits of what’s possible here.

Communities that endure are usually those that learn to live within those limits rather than pretend they don’t exist.

That’s why belonging can’t be reduced to identity alone.

It’s not only about who we are or where we came from, but about how we live now - and what we’re willing to be responsible for.

In regional towns, belonging often looks practical.

It’s found in caring for waterways and roadsides, preparing for fire seasons, looking out for neighbours, raising children who understand the place they live in, and staying engaged even when it would be easier to leave or disengage.

These forms of belonging don’t make headlines, but they matter.

They are quiet, cumulative, and grounded.

They don’t require perfection - only attention and participation.

Australia Day tends to compress complex questions into simple positions.

Yet most people I know live somewhere in between.

They want honesty without hostility, reflection without accusation, and a future that feels shared rather than divided.

Belonging, in that sense, is not about erasing difference or denying history.

Nor is it about endlessly rehearsing it without moving forward.

It’s about recognising that living in a place carries obligations - to land, to community, and to those who come after us.

If we treat belonging as something static or symbolic, it quickly becomes fragile.

But if we treat it as a practice - something enacted through care, responsibility, and participation - it can grow stronger over time.

Perhaps Australia Day can serve less as a verdict on who belongs, and more as an invitation to ask how we are belonging - here, now, together.

That question doesn’t demand a single answer.

But it does ask something of all of us.