Culture

Watch Briggs Rip Into Australia Day On Last Night’s Episode Of ‘The Weekly’

"It's like throwing a party to celebrate the day the bank repossessed your home."

by Osman Faruqi  2 February 2017

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Another year, another incredibly cooked attempt to drum up Australian nationalism on January 26 — a day many Indigenous Australians refer to as Invasion Day.

Last year triple j rejected calls to change the date of the Hottest 100 and move the countdown away from Australia Day. At the time Briggs, one half of hip-hop outfit A.B. Original, said: “It’d be an obvious salute for us if they did move it. That’s solidarity right there, for something that would be the right thing to do.”

A.B. Original’s track ‘January 26’ ended up featuring in the countdown at number 16, which seems like a decent result until you remember it was beaten by Miike Snow and Milky Chance. Wake the hell up, Australia!

Last night the ABC’s The Weekly returned for another season and Briggs was announced as a new permanent member of the cast in a segment parodying the now infamous Amber “You can’t both wear white!” Sherlock incident.

Hell yeah.

Later on in the show Briggs joined host Charlie Pickering for a chat about January 26. Pickering kicked things off by asking Briggs why he decided to write the song ‘January 26’.

“Every single year the phone rings and some journo wants my opinion about the date,” Briggs said. “So I decided to put my opinion in a song and they can download that for cash on iTunes.”

You can watch the whole segment here:

You can catch The Weekly on the ABC at 8:30pm on Wednesdays or check it out on ABC iview.