Welcome back to Country: PM’s big statement as parliament opens
Peter Dutton claimed the Welcome to Country ceremony was “overdone”. Now the PM has opened the 48th Parliament with a big statement.
Anthony Albanese has clapped back at critics of Welcome to Country ceremonies praising the practice as a “powerful” reminder that Australians are stronger together.
As Parliament prepares to sit for the first time since the election, Mr Albanese has delivered to rebuke to ex-Liberal leader Peter Dutton,
Mr Dutton spent the dying days of the campaign whinging about the ceremony and claiming it was “overdone.”
After securing a huge majority, the Prime Minister has made it clear he strongly supports the cultural practice.
“The welcome to country is such a powerful way to begin a new parliament,’’ Mr Albanese said.
“Like a lot of the more positive things about our nation, we shouldn’t take it for granted. This ceremony didn’t take place until 2007 and was controversial in 2007.
“It is not controversial today. Nor should it be.”
Mr Albanese said it was a “respectful” way of beginning the 48th Parliament.
“What a welcome to country does is holds out like a hand warmly and graciously extended. An opportunity for us to embrace and to show a profound love of home and country,’’ he said.
“It is a reminder as well of why we all belong here together, that we are stronger together and we belong.
“We keep walking, together. With every step, we feel the echoes through history, the footsteps nearly a century distant from us now of every First Nations person who trekked to the opening of the first
Parliament House down the hill.
“The footsteps of the members of the stolen generations who came to this place 17 years ago now to hear the words that they needed to hear “I’m sorry”.
Former Liberal leader Peter Dutton famously boycotted the National Apology to the Stolen Generations in 2008. He later apologised years later.
“Uttered by an Australian Prime Minister on behalf of the Australian nation. That was a day of catharsis, built on courage and grace,’’ Mr Albanese said of Kevin Rudd’s apology.
“Ultimately, it was a day of togetherness and a reminder of our great potential and promise as a nation.”
Liberal frontbencher Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Peter Dutton have previously backed scaling back the use of Welcome to Country ceremonies, with Senator Price warning people are “sick if it”.
Speaking at a Voice to parliament No campaign event in 2023, former Prime Minister Tony Abbott also said he is “getting a little bit sick of Welcomes to Country because it belongs to all of us, not just to some of us”.
“And I’m getting a little bit tired of seeing the flag of some of us flown equally with the flag of all of us,’’ he said.
“And I just think that the longer this goes on, the more divisive and the more difficult and the more dangerous that it’s getting now.”
Senator Price has described the tradition as “divisive”.
“There is no problem with acknowledging our history, but rolling out these performances before every sporting event or public gathering is definitely divisive,” she said.
“It’s not welcoming, it’s telling non-Indigenous Australians ‘this isn’t your country’ and that’s wrong. We are all Australians and we share this great land.”
She said “around the country” there were some people whose “only role, their only source of income, is delivering Welcome to Country”.
“Everyone’s getting sick of Welcome to Country,’’ she said.
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