Former AFL Player Says Recurring Indigenous Welcome Ceremonies Should End

Former AFL player Sam Newman at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Australia on March 30, 2022. Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

Former Australian rules footballer and commentator Sam Newman has criticised the Acknowledgement of Country, an Indigenous welcome, in public settings saying it discredits the contribution of non-Indigenous Australians.

“I find it insulting and demeaning to be welcomed to the country that I live in. I’ve lived all my life here, I’ve paid taxes, I’ve contributed to it, and like everyone else we want to be united as one country. I don’t know why we try to divide each other based on race,” he said on a Rebel News podcast on Sept. 21.

“To say that I have to be welcomed to every single place I step into, restaurants, churches, creches, fetes. It is out of control, it’s exponentially getting worse and worse because no one will push back against it.”

Mr. Newman also criticised racial division in society.

“No one seems to see that the most divisive thing you can do is pit different-coloured skinned people against different-coloured when they live in the same country. No other country in the world does this.”

Mr. Newman’s comments come in the lead-up to the referendum in mid-October surrounding the Albanese Labor government’s proposal for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. 

The referendum, which will be held on October 14th, will allow Australians to vote on whether an Indigenous advisory body should be incorporated into the nation’s Constitution.

The referendum has sparked intense debate between both the “Yes” and “No” camps, both of whom believe The Voice will be consequential but for different reasons. 

Noel Pearson Says Welcome to Country Becoming Overused

Leading Yes campaigner and academic Noel Pearson said such a mechanism could break the cycle of welfare dependency in Indigenous communities.

Mr. Pearson has, however, stated that the Acknowledgements of Country has become overused. 

“We in Australia are still learning. We’ve got to adopt a sensible approach to rituals in our public life and in our private life in the community,” Mr. Pearson told 2GB earlier this month. 

“In the wake of this referendum, I think we ought to come to a consensus about the occasions upon which we use the Welcome. When someone uses it to begin a meeting or ceremony, that’s fine, but then often I see every speaker then subsequently conducts their own Welcome and it cuts into the meeting.” 

The official model proposed for The Voice would allow two members from each state and territory as well as five from specified remote communities be elected by the local Indigenous community. 

Members would serve four-year terms, with a limit of two consecutive terms. Two co-chairs of a different gender will be selected by the body’s elected members every two years. 

Indigenous Law Student Backs ‘No’ Vote

Myles Jerrard, a 22-year-old Indigenous law student at the University of New South Wales, recently stated why he would be voting No.

“This voice is predicated on the principle that Indigenous people are inherently disadvantaged. To enshrine that in our founding document, our Constitution, is setting us up for a future of failure,” Mr. Jerrard told the Institute of Public Affairs.

“It sets us up for a future of self-segregation. It’s setting us up for a future that tells us that Indigenous people think alike and have one mind,” he said.

“The term ‘Indigenous’ has been used as a term to put us together as a collective group. There’s not just one voice. My people, the Kamilaroi people or the Djangadi people, have very different experiences and disadvantages to the people that live in remote communities in the Northern Territory. It’s very different. To class us into one subset of governance is wrong.”