Tony Abbott says he’s tired of Welcome to Country ceremonies as he calls Aboriginal flag ‘division’
Tony Abbott says he’s tired of Welcome to Country ceremonies as he calls Aboriginal flag ‘division’
- Tony Abbott sick of ‘Welcomes to Country’
- He called being ashamed of Australia ‘junk’
Tony Abbott has consistently held Welcome to Country ceremonies and called the Aboriginal flag “divided” while campaigning against the Voice.
The former prime minister made the comments Monday at a forum in Melbourne promoting the no vote in the upcoming Indigenous vote referendum to parliament.
Mr Abbott, who was appointed Special Envoy for Indigenous Affairs by then Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison in 2012, told the audience that he was ‘getting a bit fed up with Welcome to Countrys’.
The former prime minister was forced to pause as the audience, who paid $15 per ticket to attend, erupted in appreciative laughter and applause.
Former Liberal Prime Minister Tony Abbott says he is tired of ‘Welcome to Country’ ceremonies
After the sound died down, Mr. Abbott explains that the reason he grew tired of the ceremony was that Australia ‘belongs to all of us, not just some of us’.
βAnd I get a little tired of seeing the flag of some of us flying at the same time as the flag of all of us,β Mr. Abbott continued.
“And I just think the longer this goes on, the more divisive and the harder and the more dangerous it gets right now.”
He was scathing about the way Australia’s history was portrayed by those who advocated for The Voice.
βWhat the authors of this Voice are putting before us is that we are essentially a racist country, we are essentially a country that should be ashamed.β said Mr. Abbott.
“We are essentially a country paying the price for 240 years of exploitation and oppression and I’m a damn good vote no to all that nonsense.”
Mr Abbott argued that having a voice would not solve the problems of Indigenous Australians, especially in more remote areas.
“The problem in these places is that the children don’t go to school,” he said.
Mr Abbott said ‘Welcome to Country’ rituals gave the impression that Australia is not ‘one of us all’ (pictured FIFA Women’s World Cup Welcome to Country before France v Morocco match
Appearing on Sky News later in the week, Mr Abbott said: ‘Too many Australians have been led to believe there is something illegitimate about the country we are.’
Mr Abbott told host Peta Credlin, who was his chief of staff when he was prime minister from 2013 to 2015, that he accepted that ‘not everything about our country is perfect’ and that it had the ‘strange blemish’ with ‘serious mistakes being made in the past’.
“Nevertheless, the country we are is something that everyone or we can be proud of on balance,” he said.
“I want us to move forward as one united people, not as a divided country where, depending on how long your ancestors have been here, you get more or less say in how the government works.”
Monday night’s forum was hosted by Victorian Liberal MPs Kim Wells and Nick McGowan at Rowville’s Polish club in south-east Melbourne.
Leading No campaigner Warren Mundine was also one of the speakers.
Mr Mundine claimed that because of his advocacy against the Voice, his role as director of the conservative think tank the Center for Independent Studies (CIS) was in jeopardy.
“You know that today I received a threat about my position in the CIS from a very high-ranking wealthy businessman,” Mr. Mundine said.
“I’ll name him in a few days, but he’s threatened to get rid of the CIS.”
Mr Abbott also said the Australian flag ‘belonged to all of us’, which contrasted with the Aboriginal flag (pictured in the center for Australia and New Zealand’s FIFA Women’s World Cup last month)