Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

As a servant to the great state of Queensland and Australia, I stand to speak to this matter and to again congratulate the Australian people on their overwhelming rejection of the divisive Voice to Parliament at the October referendum. It was more than a rejection of the Albanese Voice referendum. It was a rejection of the entire Uluru statement—all 26 pages of it. It was a rejection of a treaty and so-called truth-telling—or, more accurately, a rewrite of history with an eye on financial settlements funded by non-Indigenous taxpayers. It was a rejection of identity politics, grievance politics, virtue signalling and the activist cult of victimhood. Primarily, it was a rejection of racial division.

One of the most racially divisive features of modern discourse in Australia is welcome to country ceremonies, along with acknowledgements of country. Australians, including many Indigenous people, are sick and tired of them. We've had a gutful. People are sick of being told Australia is not their country, which is what these things effectively do. Supposed welcomes and acknowledgements deny the citizenship and sovereignty held equally by all Australians. They perpetuate the falsehood that nations existed on this continent prior to 1788. They didn't. This is a foreign notion, an activist device imported from Canada that does not reflect the reality of Australian history. The High Court confirmed that with a similar statement in 2020.

I remind the Senate of the promise made by leading Voice campaigner Marcia Langton: no more welcomes to country if the Voice was rejected. We can only hope this promise is lived up to. Federal taxpayers forked out at least $45,000 for these rituals in the previous financial year, although I understand the figure could be much higher, as not every government department has come clean on what they spend. It's not even a pre-settlement ritual for most Aborigines. It was invented in 1976 by Ernie Dingo and Richard Walley. I acknowledge Narungga elder Kerry White, from South Australia, a great contributor to the 'no' campaign, who said these rituals are not even being used correctly. She said last year that they should be reserved for Indigenous people welcoming other Indigenous people to local country and that their use by non-Indigenous Australians was just virtue signalling. She wasn't wrong about the virtual signalling, that's for sure. Ms White said:

… they've taken our ceremonial process and demeaned it by throwing it out there every day in every aspect of what Australian people do. And I think that is culturally wrong.

That was an Aboriginal woman saying that. She even said welcomes to country were an attack on Indigenous culture and disrespectful of Aboriginals and their culture, and that it was patronising and paternalistic to adopt them without understanding them. People saying this do not even understand what it means.

I also acknowledge another Indigenous leader of the 'no' campaign, Senator Nampijinpa Price, who said recently that welcomes to country were 'definitely divisive'. Those are her words: 'definitely divisive'. I'm confident there's a complete lack of care and a contempt for Aboriginals. People are too lazy to bother to listen and understand the needs of Aboriginals. That has to set back the Aboriginal movement. I am confident I speak for the majority of Australians in saying I wish Professor Langton had included acknowledgements of country too. They're recited at the beginning of every parliamentary sitting, every council meeting and every Zoom meeting held by public servants. We hear them at the conclusion of every domestic flight. You can hear the groans in the cabin every time. They have effectively lost all meaning for their constant repetition. At a conference in Mackay, an interstate speaker stood up and said a welcome to country for the people in Canberra because she came from Canberra and a welcome to country for the people in Mackay.

To foster national unity and to help put an end to racial division in this country, it's time to leave Aboriginal rituals to Aboriginal Australians. One Nation is supremely confident we speak for the majority of all Australians, regardless of race, when we call for an end to welcomes to and acknowledgements of country. We know that, for many, the promise of an end to them motivated their vote in the Voice referendum. We call on this parliament, all other Australian parliaments, all government departments and every local government in this nation to stop signalling the virtues you don't possess and stop dividing this country by abusing these Aboriginal rituals. Start showing respect for the Aboriginal culture in Australia. Australians don't want this virtue signalling. Australians don't want racial division. They said that most emphatically on 14 October at the referendum. Let's move forward together under one flag as one people in one nation.