Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has described Welcome to Country ceremonies before sports games as divisive in a pointed intervention into a debate over the cultural practice that has escalated since extreme right-wing agitators disrupted Anzac Day services on Friday.
Dutton told Channel Seven’s leaders debate on Sunday night that Welcome to Country ceremonies were respectful at official events such as the opening of Parliament each year, but that many other examples, including the common practice of holding them before football games, were overdone.
Dutton took a strong stance against Welcome to Country ceremonies at sports games during the fourth leaders’ debate.Credit: AAPIMAGE
His comments represent a hardening of the Coalition’s position since the opposition took aim at Welcome to Country ceremonies earlier this year by pledging to wind back government spending on them. Federal departments have spent about $550,000 on the ceremonies over the last two years.
The ceremonies have been a target of conservative criticism but came under further attack when right-wing hecklers, including a known neo-Nazi, disrupted them at Anzac Day services in Melbourne and Perth last week. This triggered condemnation across the political spectrum but a Welcome to Country ceremony at a Melbourne Storm match was called off later that day, distressing Indigenous groups.
Dutton on Friday said Welcome to Country ceremonies were “an important part of official ceremonies and it should be respected”. On Sunday, however, he said they were divisive in many circumstances.
“In relation to the Welcome to Country, the first [point] I would make is that is our most sacred day of the year, Anzac Day, and a time to respect diggers and not a time for booing any part of the ceremony,” Dutton said.
“In relation to the Welcome to Country otherwise … [There] is a sense across the community that it is overdone.
“For the opening of Parliament, fair enough, it is respectful to do. But for the start of every meeting at work, or the start of a football game, I think [a lot] of Australians think it is overdone and cheapens the significance of what it was meant to do.
“It divides the country, not dissimilar to what the prime minister did with the Voice [to parliament].”
