Jacinta Price says ‘Australians don’t need to be welcomed to their own country’
Jacinta Price has called for an end to welcome to country acknowledgments before every sporting event and public gathering because the practice is dividing the nation.
Opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman, Jacinta Price, has called for an end to welcome to country acknowledgments before every sporting event and public gathering because the practice is “wrong” and dividing the nation.
The attack comes after former prime minister Tony Abbott last week conceded he was “getting a little bit sick” of welcome to country, arguing the nation “belongs to all of us, not just to some of us.”
Senator Price, a Warlpiri-Celtic woman who grew up in Alice Springs and the leading campaign spokeswoman against Anthony Albanese’s constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament, said “Australians don’t need to be welcomed to their own country”.
“There is no problem with acknowledging our history, but rolling out these performances before every sporting event or public gathering is definitely divisive,” Senator Price told The Australian.
“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.”
Peter Dutton last week said he thought that welcome to country was a “respectful way to acknowledge the Indigenous heritage of our country” but argued the practice was overdone and often used as an exercise in virtue signalling.
“I do get the point that when you go to a function and there’s an MC who I think appropriately can do recognition, you then get the next five or 10 speakers who each do their own acknowledgment to country, and frankly, I think it detracts from the significance of the statement that’s being made,” he told 2GB. “I think there are a lot of corporates that just do it because they think it’s what people want to hear.”
An acknowledgment of country is made every sitting day alongside the Lord’s Prayer in both the Senate and House of Representatives – a practice that was introduced in 2010.
A number of Coalition MPs on Sunday supported the substance of Senator Price’s comments, with Nationals Leader David Littleproud saying that welcome to country had “just gone over the top.”
“I think unfortunately what’s happened – it’s not just sporting events – you can go to a meeting and everyone makes an acknowledgment,” Mr Littleproud said. “I think it’s gone overboard. It’s gone too far. Is it necessary? I think it’s a reasonable question to ask.”
MP Keith Pitt said the welcome to country was supposed to be “culturally significant.”
“If that’s the case they should be treated as such, not thrown around on T-shirts, email signatures, video conferences and aircraft arrivals,” he said. “I think sensible management would be widely welcomed.”
South Australian Liberal senator Alex Antic said the idea a “welcome” should be “constantly extended for Australians to be in their own country is tiresome and divisive”.
“Endless acknowledgments of country performed by white middle class professionals before meetings do little more than brick in their credentials in front of an imaginary court of wokeness approval,” he said.
“These clashes against Western values only subside when courage culture triumphs over cancel culture and the use of these gestures ceases.”
LNP senator Gerard Rennick said the welcome to country should be reserved for special occasions, arguing it was now an example of “virtue signalling that’s gone mad”.
“It’s overkill,” he said. “You feel like they are shoving it down your throat.”
In a piece for The Australian last November, Senator Price said welcome to country had become “a standard ritual practice before events, meetings and social gatherings” but argued she had received “more than my fill of being symbolically recognised”.
“It would be far more dignifying if we were recognised and respected as individuals in our own right who are not simply defined by our racial heritage but by the content of our character,” she said.
When he was prime minister, Scott Morrison adopted the practice of giving Australia’s veterans equal billing with Indigenous elders “past, present and emerging” when speaking at formal events and ceremonies.
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