Election 2025: Indigenous indignation at Peter Dutton’s stand on ceremony

Australia’s first Indigenous treasurer says some welcome to country ceremonies are too long, but arguments about whether they should happen show how awkwardly First Nations heritage sits within our national identity.

Uluru Dialogue co-chair Pat Anderson and Australia's first Indigenous treasurer, Ben Wyatt. Pictures: Rohan Thomson, Colin Murty

You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles.

Australia’s first Indigenous treasurer, Ben Wyatt, says some welcome to country ceremonies are too long and others descend into “political diatribe”, but arguments about whether they should happen at all show how awkwardly Australia’s First Nations heritage sits within our national identity.

Mr Wyatt described the practice of welcome to country as a chance for all Australians to reflect briefly and with pride on the long history of a great country, as Peter Dutton said he believed the majority view was that Anzac Day services were not the place for welcome to country.

In response to questions about whether a welcome to country was appropriate at the Dawn Service, Mr Dutton said Anzac Day was for the nation’s veterans.

“No. It is ultimately for the organisers of the events, and they can make the decision based on their membership and what their board wants to do, and that is a decision for them, and I respect that,” Mr Dutton said.

“But listening to a lot of veterans in the space, Anzac Day is about our veterans, about 103,000 Australians who have died in the service of our country.

“I think if you are listening to their sentiment, and we are respectful of that sentiment on Anzac Day, I think the majority view would be that they don’t want it on that day.

“But I think it is an individual decision for the RSLs and what I have also pointed out is there is no place for booing of any nature whatsoever at a sacred Anzac Day ceremony, regardless of which part you disagree with.”

Mr Dutton said Welcome to Countries were appropriate for significant events only, and ­attacked Labor over the voice referendum. “(It’s appropriate at) a significant event like the opening of parliament,” Mr Dutton said.

“The Prime Minister divided this country with the voice. It was $450m and he tried to divide us on the basis of heritage and race, and I didn’t agree with it and the majority of Australians didn’t agree with it. Australians are respectful towards Indigenous Australians. We are all equal Australians. It is why I believe we should stand ­behind one flag united to help Indigenous Australians deal with disparity around health outcomes, around education outcomes, around housing, around safety as you have seen up in Darwin.”

Uluru Dialogue co-chair Pat Anderson, an elder who devoted her working life to Indigenous health and the safety of Indigenous children, said the debate over welcome to country just days before a federal election showed that “again, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are used as a political football in an outdated and tired match”.

“It is not up to politicians to regulate when and how a welcome to country should happen.

“Let’s be clear. A welcome to country is not about welcoming you to Australia. It’s about welcoming you to our cultures, lands and seas.

“A welcome to country is an ancient act of generosity and peace. It’s a ritual that we have been practising for millennia. Why can’t it be celebrated?”

Referring to booing of the welcome to country ceremonies at Anzac Day services in Melbourne and Perth on Friday, Ms Anderson said it was sad to see such disrespect.

“My question to the Australian public is how much longer do we have to do this?” she said.

Indigenous leader Marcia Langton told The Australian: “These rituals do not divide. They bring people together to share in the sacred ancestral power of a place from the deep past. Another generation of Australians are being fed lies.

Marcia Langton. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

“It’s a tragedy that such race hate has been incited against us again. Many elders are saying that we should stop the welcome to country ceremonies altogether to stop the racism, while others insist they must continue so that our cultural traditions are recognised. Decent Australians who reject racism and exclusion will continue to ask traditional ­owners to conduct welcome ceremonies. I hope that decency wins. Yet part of me knows that this ugliness will never go away and will be raised repeatedly by those seeking to use Aboriginal people and our traditions as a battering ram.”

In an essay in The Australian, Mr Wyatt writes: “Yes, I agree, sometimes the welcome can go too long and become too much of a political diatribe, but we are ­arguing over the symptom, not the cause. The fact is that our First Nations history still edges around the mainstream of our national thinking.

“First Nations people are wanting to bring this narrative into the mainstream embrace of our national identity.

“Note, this is not a challenge to sovereignty of our nation. Such movements are doomed to divide and fail. Rather, it is for Australians to understand that across the relatively short history of colonial Australia there has been a dramatic impact on the lives of Aboriginal Australians and that that impact is relevant today.”

Jacob Hersant, a self-declared neo-Nazi, was reportedly led away by police following booing at the Shrine of Remembrance during the welcome to country that preceded Melbourne’s Dawn Service on Friday morning. Mr Hersant – the first person in Victoria to be convicted of performing the Nazi salute – was released on summons.