Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s scathing takedown of Aussies outraged over NRL club’s Welcome to Country decision

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has branded critics of the Melbourne Storm as infantile and defended the NRL team for pushing back Welcome to Country ceremonies.

The Storm made the decision last week, sparking backlash in particular from high-profile Indigenous rapper Adam Briggs, a former avid supporter of the club.

Senator Price, shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, responded on Thursday with an article in Nine Newspapers saying those demanding a Welcome to Country at every opportunity lacked “nuance” and “rational thinking”.

She questioned the mentality of Australians who believed it was racist for someone “unwilling to wholeheartedly implement a Welcome to Country at every opportunity”.

“It is infantile and no nation can function well or hope to be strong with that as its foundational rhetoric,” Senator Price wrote.

Senator Price said the Storm was not axing Welcome to Country but was instead “engaging with Indigenous communities to consider the way they recognize Indigenous people and culture at home games”.

It is believed the club will perform the ceremony on culturally significant occasions such as the annual NRL Indigenous Round.

The senator said it made her “saddened” that such a common-sense approach could be labeled an “oppressive force.”

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price says those criticizing Melbourne Storm’s decision to cut back on Welcome to Country ceremonies are ‘infantile’

The Melbourne Storm have announced they will not automatically conduct a Welcome to Country before every home game

In contrast, she said a nuanced approach would make the “legitimacy and meaning” of Welcome to Country “most apparent as we limit its distribution.”

Senator Price believed that the best way to preserve the “sacred and authentic nature” of the ritual was to “cease the activism” by not using it as an opportunity to “teach about colonial guilt.”

“Follow the ceremony, but lose the extremism,” she advised.

“It only brings discredit to the person carrying it out and risks alienating the wider community.”

Senator Price questioned what the ‘indigenous recognition’ offered by Welcome to Country did for disadvantaged indigenous people living in remote areas and suffering high levels of violence and sexual abuse.

“I am not interested in highlighting race, or treating people based on their race, for the sake of it,” she wrote.

“So if that’s the ultimate goal of the recognition that’s being promoted here, I don’t want to be a part of that.

“But if the purpose of recognition is to address the disadvantage our most marginalized Indigenous Australians face, then I’m all for it.”

Following the Storm’s announcement that they would not automatically host a Welcome to Country at home games, rap star Adam Briggs, also known as Briggs or sometimes Senator Briggs, lambasted the club he was once a member of.

“Look, the cost of living means cultural recognition just isn’t feasible in this economy,” he wrote on social media platform X.

‘There is a price for cultural inclusion. Storm could do it if they wanted to; If anyone knows how to work with a salary cap, it’s them.’

He followed up with a message on Facebook.

“Unsurprising and disappointing,” Briggs wrote.

‘What is your identity @Storm? I can worry less about pageantry, but the thin veil of respect has finally disappeared.

“We revealed a co-owner who donated $175,000 to the NO campaign. What is a welcome value when these are the people behind the club’s decisions and identity?’

The salary cap joke is a reference to the Storm being caught deliberately ignoring the salary cap by secretly overpaying players, stripping the NRL of all club honors from 2006 and 2010, including two premierships in those time.

Briggs announced he would no longer support the Storm in 2023 after discovering a board member had made a substantial contribution to the No campaign during the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum.

Related Post