Councillor Fights to Scrap Indigenous Ceremonies Before Council Meetings

Indigenous performers perform the Welcome to Country during a smoke ceremony prior to the state funeral service for Uncle Jack Charles at Hamer Hall in Melbourne, Australia on Oct. 18, 2022. Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images

Cumberland City councillor and former mayor, Steve Christou, has pledged to put a stop to Aboriginal “Welcome to Country“ Indigenous ceremonies if his party gains a majority in September’s council elections.

His stance has been met with criticism, however, from the NSW Aboriginal Land Council, who say he has “politicised the issue in the hope of winning votes.”

Council CEO Yuseph Deen said, “The candidate has got bigger issues to worry about if that is the case, when his point of difference to other candidates is race-based, rather than what positive initiatives he can bring to the Cumberland City Council"—located in western Sydney.

But Mr. Christou is standing firm, saying he sees the ceremony as alienating to new migrants to Australia.

“It ’s been so overdone and watered down, it’s lost its significance,” he told The Epoch Times.

“Originally, the majority of Australians accepted the fact that there might be a ‘Welcome to Country,’ at say, a major event [like] a citizenship ceremony.

“But now they’re being turned around, like confetti shoved down everybody’s throats. And when we get a Welcome to Country speaker that says this land was stolen ... that just that causes division.

He says his party, known as Our Local Community, want “something a bit more meaningful, and which is inclusive of everybody.”

Councillor Steve Christou Courtesy of Cumberland City Council

Risking Division, Says Aboriginal Leader

The Aboriginal Land Council’s CEO Mr. Deen has countered telling The Epoch Times that Welcome to Country ceremonies were based on protocols developed over a millennia of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, and that the essential elements remain today.

“In any event, Acknowledgement of Country should be delivered in a genuine and meaningful way rather than done in ignorance,” he said.  “It’s on par with the question, ‘Why do people sing the national anthem at events?’”

Mr. Deen also said Mr. Christou was “dividing the community,“ and what he proposed was ”divisive in itself and also demeans our Traditional Owners and Elders.”

Yet Mr. Christou does acknowledge that Indigenous land was taken from its original inhabitants.

“Nobody’s debating that. But this occurred over 200 years ago. We are living in a country where we are all equal. We all helped build this country, no matter what they do, whether it’s Indigenous, Anglo, or ethnic backgrounds.

“The Anglo population [might] say, ‘Well hold on a minute. Our ancestors, our great grandfathers, great grandmothers, grandfathers, fathers, mothers, they came out in 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s and helped build this country,” he said.

He says the increased emphasis on Indigenous issues is making people feel they are “not being acknowledged as citizens of this country, and making them feel unwelcome or that there’s a two-class divide.”

Mr. Christou said he was speaking based on feedback from the community.

He notes that people living within the Cumberland City Council area recorded one of the highest “No” votes in the recent federal Voice to Parliament referendum—around 64 percent. The councillor also noted that over the 240,000 people in the council area, only 1,500 were Indigenous—0.65 percent of the population.

When asked on whether a short Welcome to Country ceremony at the beginning of an event had any significant impact, Mr. Christou replied, “A lot of people think otherwise.”

“My group on council have made it a point to do an acknowledgement which is inclusive of everybody. At the moment the mayor will do her Welcome to Country speech at the beginning of a meeting.

“But my group, we go out of our way, and we rise to our feet. And we‘ll say something along the lines of, ’In the spirit of inclusiveness, we acknowledge the Indigenous people of our land, and the migrant families that make up 70 percent of Cumberland’s population, and all the pioneers that have endeavoured to make Australia the great nation we enjoy today.'”

Mr. Christou also said he was concerned about dual-naming Australian places with Indigenous names.

“The last square that was opened in our council [area], they’ve made it an Indigenous name, no consultation with the community [to] give them a few alternate names as well. No input was allowed from the councillors,” he said.

“You’re getting names of streets and suburbs and holiday destinations changed into Indigenous names. Like [holiday destination] Hamilton Island has been changed into an Indigenous thing, and all of a sudden [people are] just using the Indigenous name, so over time it gets watered down or worn out.”

Christou Says Stance Not About Electioneering

Mr Christou—Cumberland City’s mayor from 2019 to 2020—denies Mr. Deen’s assertion that he was using race to win back his seat at the top of the table.

“It’s going to be one of the issues people are going to consider, but not the only issue. Because when we were campaigning, we campaigned on rate rises [which we have] voted against, and certainly [against cost] increases to businesses and mums and dads building houses. So that will be part of our platform, as well as our Welcome to Country that will be advocating for.

“It’s not just an election pitch. I’m just putting it out there as a policy, an honest policy, not hiding it like our politicians do. If we get elected, elected in the majority, this is what we want to do,” he said.

He said he had not received any reaction to the policy from Indigenous leaders.

In light of the response, Mr. Christou believes the pushback against Welcome to Country could spread beyond Cumberland.

“The whole issue, since I brought it to light and indicated my intentions, blew up and went national [and] most of the major news outlets covered it. I think it'll trigger other local representatives and other councils to finally make a stand on something that a lot of people feel very strongly about”.

No Stranger to the Public Eye

This is not Mr. Christou’s first venture into a publicly contentious issue.

When mayor of Cumberland during pandemic, Mr. Christou was forced to apologise to the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies for likening the restrictions to Nazi Germany on social media.

In 2021, residents drew up a petition containing almost 11,000 signatures calling for him to be sacked over “racist and offensive” comments after he described the rejection of planning permission for a mosque as a “fantastic win” on social media, while issuing a press release saying the rejection served for “the greater betterment for the Granville community.”

Upon being elected mayor of Cumberland City, he used his acceptance speech to quit the Labor Party and announce the formation of Our Local Community. He was subsequently defeated for the mayoralty but remained a councillor.