Linda Burney defends traditional welcome

Former Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney has given a fiery defence of the acknowledgment and welcome to country in the face of attacks from members of the Coalition that the ceremonies are ‘tokenistic’.

Former Australian Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney speaks during a Labor Party rally at Parramatta Town Hall on Sundayin Sydney. Picture: Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images

Former Indigenous Australians minister Linda Burney has given a fiery defence of the acknowledgment and welcome to country in the face of attacks from members of the Coalition that the ceremonies are “tokenistic”.

Debate over the acknowledgment and welcome to country has ramped up in recent months, with Coalition frontbencher Jacinta Nampijinpa Price vowing to review federal funding for the ­ceremonies and saying people were “sick of them”.

Controversy over the ceremonies has been especially stark over the past week, following booing of a welcome to country at Melbourne’s Anzac Day Dawn Service and a news.com.au poll that revealed 65 per cent of 50,000 people believed the ceremonies “should stop completely”.

In her own acknowledgment to country at the beginning of a Labor rally in Parramatta in Sydney’s west on Sunday, Ms Burney said the ceremony didn’t just recognise traditional owners but the “continuing struggle for equality and a long history of dispossession”.

“Understanding our history and geography is an intrinsic part of the telling of the story and ­finding the truth,” Ms Burney told the gathered crowd of party ­faithful.

Truth-telling is one of the key asks of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which also laid out the need for an Indigenous voice to parliament and a treaty-making process to be overseen by a ­Makarrata Commission.

However, Anthony Albanese has made clear truth-telling processes are being broadly handled by states and territories and  a Makarrata Commission is not among his government’s ­“priorities” for the next term.

Ms Burney, who announced her resignation as Indigenous Australians minister and retirement from federal parliament last year, said it was critical to keep telling “the story of our nation” regardless of discomfort over some ­elements of it. “Parramatta and the broader western suburbs region is an important part of the story of our nation … Families and communities were separated, scarred with trauma that has (continued) for generations, and we see the scars,” she said. “Mistakes must never be repeated”.

Linda Burneyduring a campaign rally at Parramatta town hall. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch

In the face of the growing opposition to welcome and acknowledgement of country, Ms Burney said the ceremonies were “not just about pain”.

“It is also about remembering triumphal survival and culture,” she said.

Peter Dutton was pushed on his views of the ceremonies last week, following the incident at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance. “If an organiser of a particular event decides that there’s a welcome to country, then people can respect that decision,” he said on Saturday.

It follows comments made in 2023 when the Coalition leader expressed scepticism over the ­ceremonies being used as a ­“virtue signalling” exercise by corporations.

The Opposition Leader has not changed his view that the nation’s leader should stand in front of only the Australian flag rather than both the Australian and Indigenous flags.

“I want our country to be ­united under one flag,” he said.

“And I want our country to be as good as it can be. And we can’t be as good as we can be if we’re separating people into different groupings

“We are all equal Australians, and we can respect the Indigenous flag and the Torres Strait Island flag, but we unite under one flag, as every other … comparable country does and that’s how we can help close the gap.”