Calls to scale back ‘Welcome to Country’ ceremonies in Australia are gaining momentum as more Australians express frustration with the constant repetition of these performances at public events.
Liberal leaders Peter Dutton, Jacinta Price, and Tony Abbott argue the practice has become divisive rather than unifying, with Price noting it sends the wrong message that non-Indigenous Australians don’t belong.
A Welcome to Country is a formal ceremony performed by an Indigenous elder to greet visitors and acknowledge traditional ownership of the land.
Recent controversies, including the abrupt cancellation of a Welcome to Country at an NRL game and tensions at the Anzac Day Shrine ceremony, have reignited debate.
Advocates for cutting back say Australia should focus on unity under one national flag, rather than continually emphasising division.
Price has described the tradition as “divisive”.
“There is no problem with acknowledging our history, but rolling out these performances before every sporting event or public gathering is definitely divisive,” she said.
“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.”
A “welcome to country” planned for the Melbourne Storm’s Anzac Day NRL game was cancelled at the last minute tonight, hours after the humiliation ritual was booed during a dawn service.https://t.co/2aPzyY2MDi
— The Noticer (@NoticerNews) April 25, 2025
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: https://t.co/YSbwzaIB9H pic.twitter.com/W36hpPrJyd
— The Australian (@australian) August 15, 2023
Across the Tasman too?
Nz could learn allot from this
Its a Zionist UN led corporate apartheid agenda, designed to divide the countries involved, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other western empire controlled colonies.
“A Welcome to Country is a formal ceremony performed by an Indigenous elder to greet visitors and acknowledge traditional ownership of the land”
Traditional societies DO NOT own the land though, that’s the thing. They LOST it when they LOST all those wars, when they signed treaties and when they bartered territories away for British medicines and/or muskets with which to slaughter one another. Countries were formed, borders were drawn up, maps were filled in. History does still matter, whether you like it or not.
You can’t still claim ownership and “custodianship” over a land when it’s actually the modern day taxpayers who fund the land’s conservation, development and upkeep while YOU piss away all your reparations money. Sorry not sorry.
Sending the message that “non-indigenous people don’t belong” is precisely the point of these rituals.