{"id":206489,"date":"2025-04-27T12:08:11","date_gmt":"2025-04-27T02:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=206489"},"modified":"2025-04-27T12:08:45","modified_gmt":"2025-04-27T02:08:45","slug":"aussies-overwhelmingly-reject-welcome-to-country-in-staggering-poll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=206489","title":{"rendered":"Aussies overwhelmingly reject Welcome to Country in staggering poll"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tens of thousands of Aussies have made their opinion clear on Welcome to Country ceremonies, with two thirds saying they want them to stop altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As controversy continues to swirl around the booing of Bunurong elder Uncle Mark Brown during Friday\u2019s Anzac Day Dawn Service at Melbourne\u2019s Shrine of Remembrance, both sides of politics have condemned the actions of neo-Nazis who led the heckling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the Liberal Party has previously vowed to scale back the ceremonies, with frontbencher Jacinta Nampijinpa Price warning people are \u201csick if it\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A news.com.au poll on Saturday with nearly 50,000 responses found readers overwhelmingly agree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked, \u201cHow do you feel about Welcome to Country ceremonies?\u201d, 65 per cent said \u201cthey should stop completely\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twenty-three per cent said \u201cthere should be less\u201d and 8 per cent said \u201cthere is the right amount\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just 4 per cent said \u201cthere should be more\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, federal opposition leader Peter Dutton and National Party leader David Littleproud have all indicated support for a winding back of the tradition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking at a Voice to Parliament No campaign event in 2023, Mr Abbott said he is \u201cgetting a little bit sick of Welcomes to Country because it belongs to all of us, not just to some of us\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Bunurong elder Uncle Mark Brown. Picture: Asanka Ratnayake\/Getty Images<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019m getting a little bit tired of seeing the flag of some of us flown equally with the flag of all of us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd I just think that the longer this goes on, the more divisive and the more difficult and the more dangerous that it\u2019s getting now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Dutton has also expressed some reservations over Acknowledgement of Country and Welcome to Country ceremonies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a respectful way to acknowledge the Indigenous heritage of our country,\u201d he told 2GB radio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut I do get the point that when you go to a function and there\u2019s an MC who I think appropriately can do recognition, you then get the next five or 10 speakers who each do their own Acknowledgement to Country, and frankly, I think it detracts from the significance of the statement that\u2019s being made.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A Welcome to Country at Optus Stadium. Picture: Michael Willson\/AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senator Price has described the tradition as \u201cdivisive\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is no problem with acknowledging our history, but rolling out these performances before every sporting event or public gathering is definitely divisive,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not welcoming, it\u2019s telling non-Indigenous Australians \u2018this isn\u2019t your country\u2019 and that\u2019s wrong. We are all Australians and we share this great land.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said \u201caround the country\u201d there were some people whose \u201conly role, their only source of income, is delivering Welcome to Country\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEveryone\u2019s getting sick of Welcome to Country,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victoria Police have confirmed the man who led the booing in Melbourne expected to be charged on summons with offensive behaviour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is no place in Australia for what occurred in Melbourne,\u201d Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA neo-Nazi disrupting Anzac Day is abhorrent, un-Australian, and disgraceful. The people responsible must face the full force of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: News.com.au<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tens of thousands of Aussies have made their opinion clear on Welcome to Country ceremonies following the Anzac Day booing controversy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":206491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[273,999,35],"tags":[5905,16502,8728],"class_list":["post-206489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-australia-politics","category-breaking-news","tag-aboriginal-affairs","tag-anzac-day","tag-welcome-to-country"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=206489"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206492,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206489\/revisions\/206492"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/206491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=206489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=206489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=206489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}