On 26 January every year, Australia Day, also known as Invasion Day, is celebrated, which is Australia's official national day.
The day marks the arrival of eleven British ships carrying prisoners at Port Jackson in present-day Sydney on 26 January 1788.
But many Australian indigenous peoples, who make up 3.8 percent of the country's 26 million inhabitants, are the beginning of a long period of discrimination and displacement of indigenous people from their land.
"A day to mourn"
During Friday, thousands of people demonstrated around the country demanding that Australia Day be abolished.
- Today is a day to mourn, not to celebrate. I brought my children because it is important that they know the true history of Australia and by educating them at a young age they can hopefully help create change, Melanie Watkins told The Guardian.
In Sydney, many waved indigenous flags in the city center at a march that closed nearby streets. Many also chanted, among other things, "has always been and always will be the land of the aborigines".
- This is not the right day to celebrate, says Sydney resident James Cummings to Reuters.
Thousands of protesters also gathered in Brisbane, and the second day of Australia's cricket match against the West Indies was briefly interrupted by protesters, AP reports.
Monuments damaged
Two monuments symbolizing Australia's colonial past in Melbourne have also been damaged. A statue of the British naval officer James Cook, who in 1770 charted the coast of Sydney, was sawed off at the ankles and a monument to Queen Victoria was drowned in red paint.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a speech that National Day was an opportunity for Australians to "pause and reflect on all that we have achieved as a nation".
It is also extra tense in the country after the historic referendum in October that voted against a proposal to give the country's indigenous peoples recognition in the constitution.