A conservative Christian minister says he is being persecuted for refusing to include a “Welcome to Country” ceremony at the start of his religious lectures and is prepared to go to jail to defend his rights.
Dave Pellowe said he had been taken to the Queensland Human Rights Commission after a complaint was made about his failure to include the Indigenous ritual – or smoking ceremony – at his national “Church and State” conferences.
The right-wing preacher said he decided to forego the ceremony because “you cannot mix Christianity, a true religion, with something made up.”
He said the man who filed the lawsuit against him had paid for a ticket to one of his lectures and attended the event, only to complain that “I have racially vilified and humiliated him on the basis of his race and religion.”
“I don’t know if he belongs to another religion or why he came to a Christian event to listen to a Christian teacher about Christian doctrine,” he told online news channel ADH TV.
‘The ubiquity of these welcome-to-country rituals that are imposed on Australians of all faiths and non-faiths at sporting events, when you land on a plane, when you enter a government building, when you visit a website or when you start a Zoom meeting.
‘These are religious rituals in which Christians, in particular, should not participate.
“And in a democratic, supposedly secular and pluralistic society, it should also be something that the taxpayer does not finance and the government does not impose.
Conservative Christian minister Dave Pellowe says he is prepared to go to jail to defend his right to exclude welcome-to-the-country ceremonies from his church conferences.
“It is the duty of Christians to preach the truth and the gospel and not to mix Christianity with false religions, such as traditional Aboriginal religion, which bears all the hallmarks of paganism… inherently false beliefs,” he said.
“I don’t care if the fine is $2.50 on principle. I’m not going to apologize for preaching the gospel.”
Mr Pellowe spoke to controversial former Christian lobbyist and ADH TV host Lyle Shelton, who has been engaged in a four-year fight with authorities over comments he made relating to his religion.
This comes after a long-serving mayor also criticised the welcome-to-country ceremonies earlier this week, calling them “nonsense”, as debate continues over their appropriateness at council meetings.
Trevor Pickering, 54, was first elected mayor of Croydon Shire Council in north Queensland in 2012, before winning subsequent elections in 2016 and 2020.
Mr Pickering has questioned the changing political climate, noting that there has been a growing fixation on “assessed risk management plans”, preferred pronouns and phrases such as “inclusion” and “resilience”.
Having served on the council since 2000, the fourth-generation rancher said he is “fed up with all this bullshit” and will not stand in the upcoming election.
Pressed on his opinion on welcome ceremonies, Mr Pickering said he refused to hold them at his council meetings.
“I have a nephew who is Aboriginal, I have other family members who identify as Aboriginal, I grew up with Aboriginal people, I made friends with Aboriginal people,” he told the Courier Mail.
“All that Welcome to the Country stuff is pure bullshit.”
Welcome to Country and Recognition of Country ceremonies have been a hot topic for councils across the country.
The mayor of Croydon Shire Council in North Queensland, Trevor Pickering (pictured), will not be standing for office at the next election after frustrations over the “woke” culture
In November, the Northern Areas Council in South Australia dropped its Recognition of Country, while the Shire of Harvey in Western Australia was divided over its need, with one councillor calling it “tokenistic”.
The country’s welcome ceremonies have also been the subject of attention in the corporate world.
In May, an Australian applying for a customer service position at an insurance company was surprised when the hiring manager opened the interview with an acknowledgement.
The following month, civil servants lashed out at the Department of Justice and the Queensland Attorney-General’s office after staff were told to take off their shoes and wiggle their toes.
Mr Pickering said most Australians would struggle to be regularly “welcomed” back to land their families have lived on for 100 years.
Prominent “No” campaigner Warren Mundine argued the ceremony had been hijacked despite being originally designed to unite Australians.
“It’s become divisive in the sense that, you know, ‘what about us? We’ve been here for a while too, this is our country’ and all that,” Mundine said in March.
“I think the problem is the trivialisation of the issue. We should welcome people properly and we shouldn’t have to do it at every meeting.
‘I go to some conferences and you spend half the day doing Welcome to Country.’
Mr Pickering took issue with welcome-to-country ceremonies (file image) that would be confrontational for Australians whose families have lived on the land for 100 years.
Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council chief executive Nathan Moran argued that the ceremonies still focus on inclusion, but expressed concern that this could be trivialised.
“I don’t think it’s a question of division, but rather of inclusion. I’m concerned that it’s being trivialised, that it’s not being respected or taught properly,” Moran said.
‘I just hope it’s delivered in the right way and by the right people. In my case, as a representative of the Aboriginal community, we are a democratic community and we have elected representatives who come out and represent us.
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