Peta Credlin: Finally, acknowledgment that meaningless welcomes go too far
Acknowledgments of country have had their day. Bob Hawke said there is “no privilege of origin” – and we should keep it that way, writes Peta Credlin.
Opinion
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There was a rare win for common sense last week with a council worker, sacked for questioning a workplace acknowledgment of country, winning his unfair dismissal case.
It came after one of Victoria’s most woke councils (and there’s some competition for that title), Darebin in Melbourne’s north, sacked Shaun Turner for “serious misconduct” just because he’d questioned the need for an acknowledgment of country before a meeting to discuss the forthcoming week’s street-sweeping schedule. Yes, you read that right.
Turner said that, if anyone was to be thanked, it should be “the people who have worn the uniform and fought for our country to keep us free”. He said that acknowledgments of country were “getting out of hand and people are losing it”.
He said that acknowledgments were okay at big formal occasions but shouldn’t be made at the opening of an envelope. And that was enough to get him sacked.
Thankfully, he’s won his case and should now be reinstated. But what kind of an employer would insist on beginning every meeting, even a weekly meeting of the street cleaning team, with an acknowledgment of country? And what kind of an employer would try to sack a staff member who dared to question that?
I think acknowledgments of country have had their day. I mean what is the purpose of non-Indigenous people reciting these words anyway? It is vastly different from a welcome to country that’s given by an Aboriginal person at an appropriate Indigenous event, but even these have become overused and lost meaning.
I stand with Bob Hawke on this who said, in this country: “There is no hierarchy of descent” and “no privilege of origin”, and we should keep it that way.
THUMBS UP
B-2 bomber pilots – With two pilots per aircraft, in a single mission last Sunday, these brave Americans made the world safer and deserve our heartfelt gratitude.
THUMBS DOWN
Jacinta Allan – Victorian Labor’s new draft laws to fine farmers $12,000-plus if they refuse to allow new transmission lines on their land are criminal. This is what Net Zero really means!
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