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The 48th Parliament of Australia opened with a Welcome to Country, which the Prime Minister claimed is above debate. But do Australians really want to be welcomed to their own country?

It was cold in Canberra Tuesday morning, 10 degrees and chilly. Inside the Great Hall of Parliament House, an Aboriginal woman, Ms Violet Sheridan, stood before the nation’s elected representatives and delivered a Welcome to Country. As she spoke of ancestral spirits and sacred obligations, the stage was set.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese took to the microphone and declared, with smug certainty, that Welcome to Country “is not controversial. Nor should it be.”

That’s when the mask slipped.

The mask slipped because outside, after that black armband theatre, politicians would march through a smoking ceremony on the forecourt of the parliament, ritually purified like actors in a performance none of them dared question. The symbolism was thick. The message? You are a guest here.

Undermining the Legitimacy of the Nation-State

Let’s be blunt: Welcome to Country is controversial. Deeply. It divides Australians by ancestry, not allegiance. And Albanese knows it. He just doesn’t care.

He called it a “a hand warmly and graciously extended,” a symbol of unity. But how is it unifying to be told, day in and day out, that you need permission to enter your own country? How is it respectful to redefine Australians as tenants on ancestral land they supposedly never had a right to?

This isn’t some harmless courtesy. It’s a rhetorical landmine, paving the way for treaty, reparations, land vetoes, and perpetual grievance.

“Always was, always will be.”

That’s how the slogan goes. That the land upon which the nation of Australia was built has forever been and forever will be under Aboriginal ownership.

But that’s not history. Rather, it’s a political claim of ongoing Indigenous sovereignty, directly contradicting High Court precedent and undermining the very legitimacy of the Australian nation-state. The Crown’s sovereignty is the foundation of our law. And yet we now begin our parliamentary business by implying it never existed.

And Albanese calls this uncontroversial?

Australians Have Had Enough

Aboriginal woman and Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price put it best: “Everyone’s getting sick of Welcome to Country.” It tells ordinary Australians they’re outsiders in the country they built, defended, and passed down through generations. The public agrees. Polling shows a clear majority now see these rituals as divisive.

A major poll of over 1,000 Australians conducted for the Institute of Public Affairs just last month confirms the shift: 56% of Australians now see Welcome to Country as divisive, while just 17% disagree. Fewer than one in three support the practice at events like ANZAC Day or sporting matches, and even among young Australians who normally support progressive fads, opinion is split.

Yet, despite the majority view, these rituals are conducted everywhere: before sports games, school assemblies, corporate webinars, and even weather forecasts. What used to be occasional is now obligatory. And like all forced rituals, its meaning has rotted into performance.

Let’s not pretend it’s “ancient” either. The modern Welcome to Country, body paint, didgeridoos, and scripted lines, is largely a 1970s invention, created by famous Australian Aboriginal Ernie Dingo and refined during the tourism boom.

And when we do these ceremonies, are we even sure that the so-called “traditional owners” are even the right one? Canberra’s “traditional ownership” is disputed between Ngunnawal and Ngambri groups, proving how shaky the whole edifice is. Look to just about any region in the country and I can show you warring groups of Aboriginals who claim that they are the rightful “traditional owners” over the other mob who claim the same thing.

The Financial — and Spiritual — Cost

If you’re Christian? Tough luck. Smoking ceremonies invoke spirits. They’re religious rites, not “cultural displays.” The Presbyterian Church has told its congregations not to participate. Yet we now open Parliament with them, as if the separation of church and state has been tossed into the firepit along with the gum leaves.

And the cost? It’s not just spiritual. The whole Welcome to Country farce also comes with a financial price tag. Freedom of Information documents show single ceremonies cost up to $6,600. Government departments are burning through taxpayer cash for smoke and theatre while remote schools rot and Indigenous literacy flatlines. One smoking ceremony could air-condition a classroom in Arnhem Land. But priorities, right?

Let’s not forget: Australians already voted on this nonsense. In the 2023 Voice referendum, they overwhelmingly rejected the entire race-based agenda. Sixty percent said no. Every state bar the ACT — the same bubble that hosts Parliament — voted it down.

But none of that matters to the elites. It’s not about truth. It’s about control. This is coercive speech. Refuse to recite it and you’re a bigot. Go along with it, and endorse a racial hierarchy where whitey is right at the bottom.

So when Albanese tells you there’s no controversy, he’s not speaking for you. He’s speaking to Canberra, to the elite, to the bureaucrats and boardrooms who recite the lines without believing them.

What we need is a national reset.

Start our events with this: “We gather as free and equal citizens of one Australia.”

And then acknowledge those who have fought and died for our nation.

No smoke. No spirits. No submission.

That’s unity. That’s patriotism. That’s truth.

And that, Prime Minister, is not controversial.

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Republished with thanks to Nation First. Image via Nation First.