Dutton says veterans don’t want Welcome to Country on Anzac Day. RSL branches say otherwise

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has inflamed a growing dispute over Welcome to Country ceremonies in the final week of the election campaign by saying they should not be conducted on Anzac Day because most veterans did not want them included.

But Dutton’s claims about veterans were contested by Returned and Services League bodies, which backed the role of the ceremonies on Anzac Day in an attempt to defuse a debate which has escalated since far-right hecklers disrupted services in Perth and Melbourne last Friday.

Dutton speaks to the media in Nelson Bay, north of Newcastle, on Monday.Credit: James Brickwood

Both Dutton and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last week condemned the right-wing agitators, who included known neo-Nazis, and both leaders called for respect for the role of Indigenous Australians on the national remembrance day.

Dutton has since changed his tone and latched onto the culture war, also taking a stand against Qantas’ practice of acknowledging Indigenous lands on its flights. He hardened his stance on Monday as the Coalition’s policy agenda was beset by a series of conflicting statements from frontbenchers on immigration and road taxes.

The Coalition’s immigration plans have become confused after spokesman Dan Tehan last week ruled out targeting family visas under the opposition’s pledge to cut permanent migration by 45,000 places, only for a campaign spokesman days later to say family visas would be reduced.

Frontbencher Bridget McKenzie and Dutton similarly tangled their position on reducing working holidaymaker visas – the second-biggest contributor to net migration – after McKenzie ruled out cuts on Sunday but Dutton refused to do the same on Monday.

Dutton also overrode McKenzie on road-user charges for electric vehicles, saying they were not opposition policy a day after McKenzie had kept the option open, in the latest example of policy changes and reversals to trouble the Coalition’s campaign.

But Dutton was firm when asked whether an Anzac Day dawn service should include a Welcome to Country. “No, would be my answer to that. It is ultimately for the organisers of the events and they can make the decision based on their membership,” he said.

“But listening to a lot of veterans in the space, Anzac Day is about our veterans … I think the majority view would be that they don’t want it on that day.”

Labor has sought to avoid the issue, after Dutton raised the stakes by calling the ceremonies divisive at the Sunday night leaders’ debate. Albanese on Monday night said Welcome to Country ceremonies were “uplifting and a matter of good manners”.

“I don’t want to engage in fighting culture wars,” he said in an interview on the ABC. “This is a complete distraction by Peter Dutton, who wants to talk about anything but cost of living.”

Campaign spokesman Jason Clare called for people to “remember where all of this began” as debate continued. “On Friday, it sort of spawned out of the actions of neo-Nazis interrupting an Anzac Day dawn service,” he said.

“I don’t think any of us want to find ourselves on the same side of this argument as neo-Nazis.”

Extremism experts have warned that far-right agitators are seeking to hijack polarised public debates as they court attention in the federal election.

Credit: Matt Golding

They are seizing on mounting conservative opposition to Welcome to Country ceremonies, which has been led in parliament by figures including Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, the Coalition’s Indigenous affairs spokeswoman, who backed Dutton on Monday.

“We have absolutely overdone Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement of Country, especially when they become politicised sort of statements that are divisive,” she said on Sky News.

But many Indigenous leaders have expressed distress at the heated political dispute. Wurundjeri elder Aunty Joy Murphy on Monday told the ABC that “my heart’s really broken so badly” after the Welcome to Country she had planned to give at Friday’s Melbourne Storm football game was called off in the aftermath of the Anzac Day incidents.

The Welcome to Country has been performed in modern Australia since the 1970s and springs from ancient Indigenous customs, where tribes gave ceremonial welcomes to other groups as they moved across the country. It is typically given by an Indigenous elder on their ancestral lands.

This is different to an Acknowledgement of Country, which is often given by non-Indigenous Australians at the beginning of speeches and events, or when Qantas flights land at Australian airports.

Australian National University historian Frank Bongiorno said the Welcome to Country had been part of Anzac Day for more than a decade. “It’s about the growing recognition of First Nations people in the armed forces all the way back to World War I,” he said.

The national RSL declined to comment but pointed to its website, which suggests the order of any Anzac services include an Acknowledgement of Country or Welcome.

The separate NSW division of the RSL said Acknowledgement of Country was a significant part of all ceremonies.

“Including an Acknowledgement of Country in Anzac Day ceremonies is a respectful and appropriate recognition of the enduring role of Indigenous Australians in our proud military history,” a spokesperson said.

“Importantly, it also recognises the deep connection that traditional custodians have to the lands on which commemorative events are taking place.”

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