Mayor Floats Aboriginal 6-Season Year for Melbourne

The idea was mooted during a Town Hall discussion on how to improve the City of Melbourne.

An Aboriginal man and woman march during the Invasion Day Rally in Melbourne, Australia on Jan. 26, 2024. Tamati Smith/Getty Images

Melbourne’s four seasons may not make sense anymore, says Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece, who says a rethink could be in order based on local Indigenous tribes that recognised six distinct seasons a year.

Reece made the comments on Aug. 5 in discussing some of the ideas to create a 25 year plan for the City of Melbourne, including enhancing overall “happiness” levels and making the murky Yarra River swimmable.

“So, in the Wurundjeri calendar, there were six seasons in the year,” he told 3AW radio. “There’s a wet summer and a dry summer and a wet winter and a dry winter.”

“And when you think about it, it makes sense, like we have gone and superimposed the season four seasons, essentially from Northern Europe, here in Melbourne, and they don’t really match up with the weather patterns that we experience over here—quite an interesting idea.”

Lord Mayor of Melbourne Nicholas Reece speaks to media at Melbourne Town Hall in Melbourne, Australia on Aug. 22, 2024. AAP Image/Joel Carrett

The idea was part of the M2050 Summit involving 700 Melbournians to map out Melbourne’s 2050 vision.

Reece said the six-season idea “makes sense.”

“I mean, if you go to Singapore, they don’t have four seasons. They have the wet season and the dry season, and that reflects the climactic conditions of that part of the world,” he said.

“Now, Aboriginal people, that have lived here tens of thousands of years, in their calendar, they have six seasons here in Melbourne.”

Reece said he had completed his own informal research on the idea, following the flowering of wattle trees and lining it up with the Wurundjeri calendar.

“And when you actually look at the calendar and the seasons, you realise, ‘Hey, that actually does line up better with the ... hot periods, cold periods, dry period, wet period,’” he said.

“It’s extraordinary. Literally wattle season starts and that week you look around Melbourne and all of the wattle trees have turned fluorescent yellow and it’s beautiful.”

An image of the Melbourne CBD with Flinders Street Station and Yarra River in the foreground taken from Southbank in Victoria, Australia. A. Ming/The Epoch Times

Reason for the Seasons

Australia’s seasons are based on the European model and calculated by the Earth’s axial tilt and orbit around the Sun.

These factors create changes in the sun’s height in the sky while also determining the length of daylight and distribution of solar energy.

According to the Bureau of Meteorology, spring occurs when the sun sits directly over the equator, while summer happens as the earth’s tilt angles the nation closer to the sun.

In autumn, the sun crosses back over the equator, creating equal-length days, like in spring.

But in winter, the earth’s tilt moves the southern hemisphere further from the sun, resulting in colder weather due to the lack of heat.

The Bureau notes that Australia’s northern tropics tend to identify more with two seasons than four—like parts of South and Southeast Asia—the wet season from October to April, and the dry season from May to September.