Pauline Hanson has called on other political leaders and ordinary Australians to follow her lead and turn their backs on welcoming ceremonies.
Senator Hanson’s comments come after a fresh controversy over ceremonies sparked by a speech by Metropolitan Sydney Aboriginal Local Land Council member Brendan Kerin ahead of an AFL semi-final last weekend.
Before the match, Mr Kerin said that indigenous people have been celebrating welcome to the country for 250,000 years, even though there is no evidence that Aboriginal people were on the continent that long ago, and that such ceremonies were not “invented to cater to white people”.
Addressing the Senate on Tuesday, the One Nation leader said Kerin’s speech had left football fans “scratching their heads”.
“If welcome ceremonies are not meant to please white people, why are white people constantly subjected to them?” he asked.
‘These welcomes are based on lies that Australia is not our home.
“A lot of people tell me they’re over it.”
Senator Hanson said the welcome-to-country messages were “divisive” and had been allowed to “spread for too long” and demanded an end to their use at almost all public events.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has made an impassioned speech in Parliament calling on public leaders and ordinary Australians to follow her lead and turn their backs on welcome-to-country ceremonies.
She had particularly harsh words about the practice being carried out in schools.
“Welcome to Country is simply racial antagonism disguised as racial reconciliation, imposed on children before they even get to school and in school,” he said.
‘Putting your hands on the ground is simply indoctrination.’
Senator Hanson argued that the ceremony implied that Australia was not home to non-Indigenous people.
“We do not need or want to be welcomed into our own home,” he said.
We have shed blood, sweat and tears to build our home and defend our home.
‘We have as much right to live in our home as anyone else.
Brendan Kerin (pictured), a cultural educator with the Sydney Metropolitan Aboriginal Local Land Council, divided fans with a blunt welcome to country speech on Saturday night.
‘If you give my house to someone else, I have nothing to fight for.
“If Australia is handed over to me, I will not defend it, and neither will my children.”
Ms Hanson said that just because someone is an Indigenous elder “doesn’t obligate them to have respect”.
“Respect is earned, not granted because of racial exceptionalism,” he said.
‘Being Aboriginal does not make someone exceptional.
«Being Australian is what makes you exceptional.»
He called on other public figures to turn their backs on the rituals of welcoming people into the country.
“It is a shame that so many other political leaders are too cowardly to follow the same principle, desperate not to lose votes to the radical left,” he said.
“I strongly encourage other Australians to do the same. Stop being trampled on and stand up for your homes.”