O’Brien: Don’t let welcome to country ceremonies become self-serving symbols
Welcome to Country speeches should be welcome. But they should also be be short, poignant, heartfelt, non-political and non-divisive.
Opinion
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You don’t usually hear jokes in welcome to country ceremonies.
But no one told Gadigal Elder Uncle Allen Madden, who went viral with clever quips at a welcome at the SCG a few years ago.
After noting that it “was, is and always will be Aboriginal land”, he said that there are “only three things surer than that – coming, taxation and going”.
Uncle Allen finished off with another joke. “There’s an old Aboriginal saying out there, and I think it’s very appropriate for you mob out here today,” he said.
“They say where there’s a will, there’s relatives.”
Ah, nice.
Such ceremonies have yet again been in the news this week, with some concert-goers objecting to the inclusion of a Welcome to Country at Melbourne’s Coldplay concert.
I won’t repeat some of the nastiest comments here, but some saw it as “madness”.
“OMG make it stop,” said one online objector.
I don’t mind Welcome to Country speeches. But there’s a limit. They should be short, poignant, heartfelt, non-political and non-divisive.
People giving them should be compensated for their time, but the cost shouldn’t be so high that it becomes a money-making venture.
For instance, I don’t blame a NSW surf club for objecting to being charged $2000 by Indigenous elders for holding their carnivals on the sand four times a year.
It reminds me of that old ABC Black Comedy episode featuring Deborah Mailman
and Leah Purcell.
Mafia-style matriarchs, they are summoned to thrash out a Welcome to Country turf war with Uncle Sid mediating.
“The Welcome to Country income stream has been a lucrative venture for the elders,” Sid says, urging the women to settle their differences and stop sabotaging each other’s ceremonies.
Aunty Mary (Purcell) then accuses Aunty Joyce (Mailman) of taking all the choice events “She wants the AFL grand final and the Australian Open, that’s spring and summer. What’s left?”
Then Uncle Sid divides the turf into two territories along Punt Rd, giving Joyce the prime sporting precinct. This leaves Mary to wonder who she’s going to welcome “on the east side of Punt Rd” where there’s “f--- all there”.
It’s wickedly funny, particularly because welcome to country events are a protected species, and people don’t seem to be able to say what they really think about them – let alone make jokes.
Such ceremonies should be kept only for large events such as major sporting matches, so that they have impact and meaning.
They should also not be overtly political.
I didn’t like the approach of elder Brendan Kerin, who performed a welcome last month in the GWS semi-final. Kerin noted it’s “not a ceremony we’ve invented to cater for white people. It’s a ceremony we’ve been doing for 250,000 years-plus BC. And the BC stands for Before Cook”.
It’s unnecessarily divisive.
There’s also no need for elders to use the occasion to sermonise or berate the audience.
I went to a function at the State Library for some of our state’s wealthiest benefactors, and the Welcome to Country speaker became very pointed in his comments to the cashed-up crowd. A sigh of relief was heard among Melbourne’s who’s who when he finally sat down a full 15 minutes later. (I was there for work, obviously, not as a wealthy donor.)
Acknowledgement of Country statements, which is the same as a welcome, but said by a non-Indigenous person, should also not be rolled out at every single event, yoga class, student lecture, council agenda, Zoom meeting, phone call or staff discussion.
These days, people are afraid not to offer such affirmations, worried they will be seen as racist or anti-Indigenous.
After a while, such statements lose their power and become little more than an empty self-serving symbol. What are the organisations holding country ceremonies at the start of every Zoom meeting doing to increase Indigenous life expectancy, employment rates or school completion figures?
And there’s no need to say the same thing at every class when the same people are there each time. Welcome once, not every single class.
There is a need, however, for elders who deliver these welcomes to be treated with respect. It was disappointing to see the criticism of Indigenous elder Aunty Julie Jones, a proud Dharug woman, after her speech at this year’s NRL grand final. Her 118-word speech was respectful, heartfelt and generous. Despite warm applause on the night, trolls online attacked her afterwards, questioning her fair skin and blonde hair. “Pretty white for an Aboriginal,” said one.
There needs to be more elders like Aunty Julie and less like Aunty Joyce.
Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist
Originally published as O’Brien: Don’t let welcome to country ceremonies become self-serving symbols
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