Patrick Carlyon: Use of Acknowledgment of Country has gone too far

The Acknowledgement of Country should be reserved for events where its dignity and meaning are embraced, because popularising its use is now diminishing its currency.

The university student describes the exercise as “weird”.

Every tutorial class in a particular subject starts with an Acknowledgment of Country.

The spiel runs for about 30 seconds, offering the student time to scroll his social media before settling into study.

It shouldn’t be like this. When did the Acknowledgement of Country become a default snooze button, a chance to tune out, an opportunity for one last text message?

When did the word “emerging”, as the standard acknowledgment now ends, start to serve as a cue to stop tuning out?

The acknowledgment now features in places where it is neither needed nor welcomed, such as on TV shows and supermarket receipts.

Why would anyone expect to see a printed Acknowledgement of Country on a shopping docket? How many trees must die for the gesture, which is naturally couched in a company line about “diversity” and “inclusion”?

Coles’ Acknowledgement of Country on its shopping receipts.

The acknowledgment ought to mean something, to be reserved for formal events, where its dignity and meaning are embraced.

Instead, in a culture of confected offence and name-calling, it’s become the safe (albeit weird) option.

One suspects that particular TV shows are afraid not to have an acknowledgment, lest someone claim that its absence is somehow disrespectful.

It’s unclear why a supermarket chain thought a receipt represents any higher purpose than a chance to whistle at the price of that punnet of strawberries.

The effect of including an acknowledgment stands to be the opposite of that which is intended.

Popularising its use, shifting the accepted gauge so that an acknowledgment routinely appears in once unlikely places, diminishes its currency. It also invites the listener (or reader) to dismiss the gesture as twee and something to ignore.

This overreach rightly upsets some Indigenous voices, who recognise that the acknowledgment has become what Senator Jacinta Price calls a “throwaway line”. That’s why there ought to be limits to its use.

Not every speaker should feel compelled to replicate the acknowledgment offering of the first. To do so, unwittingly, trivialises the gesture as just another sugar hit in a candy shop of virtue, a safe choice in the glare of scrutiny.

The acknowledgment is supposed to mean something, to nod to sacred values and cultural practices.

Where will it appear next? A restaurant menu? A Twisties packet? Be sad if it does.

Because what’s the message when an acknowledgment of country doubles as a fuel discount voucher on a slip of throwaway paper?