Andrew Bolt: Taxpayer-funded smoking ceremony panders to elites

Multicultural broadcaster SBS is promoting a recently revived Aboriginal religion. It should stop dabbling in mysticism and get back to work.

This should shock the anti-Catholic ABC.

A government body two weeks ago hired a Catholic priest to perform a three-hour cleansing of their entire headquarters.

Can you imagine this priest wandering through the offices, halls and tea rooms with his holy smoke?

What foolish unreason. The ABC’s Four Corners will surely send chief witch hunter Louise Milligan to exterminate such taxpayer-funded Christian superstition.

Except it won’t. I changed one detail that makes all the difference: the ceremony was performed not by a Catholic priest but an Aboriginal “Loreman”, Leslie McLeod.

The SBS headquarters in Artarmon, Sydney.

It was McLeod who was hired by SBS, the federal government’s multicultural broadcaster, to roam through its Artarmon headquarters with burning leaves, not incense, to drive away the badness of the past few years.

This ceremony was announced in an email to all staff, as if of course it would chase away the ghosts or whatever mystic evil the SBS bosses thought was putting staff off their game.

As the email explained: “On Thursday from 7am to 10am, we’re delighted to welcome Yuin, Dharawal and Ngario Custodian and Loreman Leslie McLeod who will conduct a Smoking of the entire SBS Artarmon site to help cleanse away the past few years and bring us together to make space for a successful 2023.”

The smoking was followed by a presentation by SBS chief James Taylor, but not until the “ceremonial embers” were relit and a Welcome to Country performed, as if every non-Aboriginal Australian staffer was a stranger in their own country.

A smoking ceremony during the launch of Newtown Pride Square in Sydney. Picture: Getty

Of course, SBS wouldn’t dream of hiring a Catholic priest for such a ceremony. It would be mocked on the ABC. Pilloried by the Greens.

Yet I’d bet more Australians would rather trust a priest than a smoking ceremony to fight evil, and many more again would think the SBS bosses – who’ve even hired an “Elder-in-Residence’ – should stop dabbling in mysticism and get back to work.

So what’s going on? Why is SBS promoting some recently revived Aboriginal tradition when even most Aborigines are actually Christian? In fact, just 2 per cent claim they follow traditional Aboriginal religions.

It’s clear, isn’t it? SBS is pandering to the modern self-hatred of the elites, treating a pagan faith as more admirable than the Christian one that’s founded this western society.

The SBS is not paying respect to Aborigines with this cleansing. It’s disrespecting the faith of most of them, while – not incidentally – dissolving our country’s real foundations.