ANZAC Day 2026.
Dawn was breaking over Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth. Thousands gathered in the cold morning air for one of our nation's most sacred observances. The Last Post would sound. A minute of silence would be observed. Wreaths would be laid. Stories of service and sacrifice would be honoured.
But before any of that could happen, Indigenous veterans stood to perform Welcome to Country.
And they were booed. Like they were in 2025.
Indigenous people who served this country, who wore the same uniform, who risked their lives in the same conflicts, stood to extend ancient protocols of hospitality on the very lands their ancestors have cared for since time immemorial. And sections of the crowd jeered, disrupted, and booed them.
On ANZAC Day. Again.
This wasn't an accident. This wasn't a spontaneous expression of frustration. This was the predictable result of years of deliberate misinformation, coordinated undermining, and manufactured confusion about what Welcome to Country actually is and means.
Political leaders quickly condemned it as "un-Australian," "disrespectful," and "disturbing." They were right. But here's what needs saying more loudly: those boos didn't come from nowhere. They were cultivated. Nurtured. Given permission to exist by years of media commentary and statements from these same political leaders suggesting these ceremonies are "overused," "tokenistic," "modern inventions," "divisive."
So, let's sit down together and have a proper yarn about what really happened on ANZAC Day 2026, what Welcome to Country is, and how we got to a place where Indigenous veterans could be booed while extending hospitality on their own ancestral lands during a ceremony meant to honour service and sacrifice.
Because once you understand what's really going on, you'll never be able to unsee it.
ANZAC Day 2026: When the Mask Slipped
What happened at those dawn services in Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth wasn't just disappointing. It was a stark, painful revelation of exactly how successful the campaign to undermine Welcome to Country has been.
These weren't protesters disrupting a ceremony. These weren't activists making a political statement. These were Traditional Owners and Indigenous veterans performing their cultural obligations at one of Australia's most solemn national commemorations. And they were met with jeers and boos.
Those same people booing the Welcome to Country stood silently and reverently for every other part of the dawn service. The Last Post. The minute of silence. The national anthem. The prayers. The speeches about the fallen. Every single protocol was observed with the solemnity it deserved.
Except the Welcome to Country.
Except the oldest protocol on this continent.
Except the one performed by Indigenous veterans honouring their ancestors and their Country while simultaneously honouring fallen servicemembers.
That's not about "overuse." That's not about people being "tired" of ceremonies. That's about which protocols, which people, which histories you believe deserve respect.
And that belief didn't spring up overnight. It was carefully, deliberately cultivated.
The Seeds Were Deliberately Planted
This is the logical endpoint of years of coordinated misinformation. When media commentators repeatedly claim Welcome to Country is "overused," when they suggest it's a modern political invention rather than ancient protocol, when they frame generous acts of hospitality as divisive impositions, they create permission structures for exactly this kind of behaviour.
News.com.au reported that would be Australian Prime Minister Angus Taylor called the booing inappropriate, which is the bare minimum response. But in the same breath, he suggested that the "perceived overused frequency" of Welcome to Country contributed to the tension.
No. Absolutely not.
You don't get to spend years undermining and dismissing these ceremonies and Aboriginal and Torres Strait people, calling them tokenistic and overused, blurring the lines between truth and misinformation, and then act surprised when people feel emboldened to boo Indigenous veterans on ANZAC Day.
This didn't happen in a vacuum. Every article suggesting Welcome to Country is a modern invention. Every commentary saying First Nations peoples take more than their fair share. Every complaint that there is too much ‘Aboriginal stuff’ recognised today. Every time the lines between Native Title and land rights were deliberately blurred to create confusion. Every time someone suggested there are no ‘real’ Aboriginal people alive today, erasing Aboriginality and self-determination. Every no vote in The Voice referendum.
All of that laid the groundwork for what happened on ANZAC Day 2026.
The Deliberate Campaign of Confusion
There is a strong and deliberate drive in certain segments of Australian media, politics, and so-called "history specialists" to confuse, omit, lie about, and distort the truth about Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement of Country.
Why? Because these ceremonies do something powerful. They assert the ongoing sovereignty and presence of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. They remind everyone present that colonisation didn't erase Indigenous peoples or their connection to Country. They centre Indigenous voices and protocols in public spaces.
For those invested in maintaining the colonial status quo, that's threatening.
Claiming ceremonies are "modern" or "recent" disconnects them from 85,000 years of continuous Aboriginal presence in Australia. If they can make people believe it's a 1970s invention, they can dismiss it as political correctness gone mad rather than ancient law and protocol.
Blurring the lines between Welcome and Acknowledgement creates confusion and makes it easier to dismiss both as meaningless bureaucracy.
Suggesting any Aboriginal person can perform a Welcome erase the distinct sovereignties and protocols of hundreds of different nations, flattening Indigenous identity into a monolith.
Calling it "divisive" flips the script, making Traditional Owners extending hospitality into the problem, rather than addressing why some people find acknowledgement of truth so uncomfortable.
Complaining ceremonies are "overused" suggests that Indigenous visibility and recognition should be kept to a minimum, that it's fine in small doses but becomes a problem when it's normalised.
These tactics aren't new. They're part of a long history of erasure, dismissal, and undermining of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, cultures, and sovereignty.
The colonial version of Australian history wants you to believe that Aboriginal peoples were a "dying race," that colonisation was inevitable and largely peaceful, that Indigenous cultures are relics of the past, that modern Australia is a nation built from scratch by European settlers.
The truth, the Aboriginal version of Australian history, is that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been here for at least 65,000 years, with new discoveries pushing that back to 85,000 years. Colonisation was violent invasion and dispossession. Indigenous cultures are living and thriving. Sovereignty was never ceded. Everything built in this country since 1788 has been built on Aboriginal land. Stolen, Aboriginal land.
Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement of Country ceremonies make that truth unavoidable. They centre it. They celebrate it. They invite everyone to participate in it.
And that's precisely why some people are so determined to undermine them.
What ANZAC Day 2026 Teaches Us
We are at a crossroads.
The booing at those dawn services wasn't an aberration. It was the predictable result of a sustained campaign to undermine Indigenous sovereignty, visibility, and cultural protocols.
ANZAC Day is meant to honour service and sacrifice. The Returned and Services League, veterans' organisations, and the Australian Defence Force all recognise the vital contributions of Indigenous servicemembers. They also all state that the use of Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement of Country ceremonies on ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day is required. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have served in every conflict Australia has been involved in, often despite being denied basic citizenship rights and facing discrimination at home.
They served anyway.
And when their descendants, when Indigenous veterans themselves, stand to perform Welcome to Country at ANZAC Day services, they're doing something profound. They're connecting military service to something even older and deeper: the continuous care for and connection to Country that stretches back 85,000 years.
They're saying: this land you're standing on, this land our servicemembers fought for, has always been cared for. We welcome you to remember, to honour, to participate respectfully in that truth.
Booing that ceremony isn't just disrespectful to the individual performing it. It's disrespectful to every Indigenous person who has served. It's disrespectful to the oldest continuous culture on Earth. It's disrespectful to truth itself.
It’s disrespectful to every decent Australian.
First Things First: What Actually Is Country?
To understand Welcome to Country, you need to understand Country. And no, I don't mean the nation-state of Australia with its neat little borders drawn up in the 1800s.
When Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples talk about Country, we're talking about something the English language simply doesn't have words for. Not property. Not real estate. Not even just "land" in the way you might think of it.
Country encompasses everything. The land, the waters, the sky, the seasons, the stories, the creation spirits, the plants, the animals, the rocks, the ancestors. Culture, spirituality, language, law, kinship, and identity all woven together in a relationship that stretches back thousands upon thousands of years. A living, breathing relationship of reciprocity and respect.
Aboriginal peoples didn't "own" land as property in the colonial sense. And no that isn’t a ‘gotcha’ for Native Title and land rights. The relationship was, and is, much deeper than that. Country provides identity, purpose, and belonging. And in return, we care for Country, nurture it, sustain it through cultural knowledge and practice. When Aboriginal people are disconnected from Country, it impacts health and wellbeing in profound ways. This is why phrases like "caring for Country" or "living on Country" carry such weight, and why land rights and native title matter so deeply.
This understanding was legally recognised in the Mabo judgment and the Native Title Act 1993, which finally acknowledged that Aboriginal peoples' relationship with Country existed long before colonisation and continues to exist under traditional laws and customs.
So when we talk about Welcome to Country, Traditional Owners are welcoming you to their specific ancestral Country. The land they have cared for, been sustained by, and held deep spiritual and cultural connection to for millennia.
This is what those Indigenous veterans were doing on ANZAC Day 2026. They were acknowledging the fallen while simultaneously honouring the ancient relationship with the very ground everyone stood on. Two forms of deep respect, woven together.
The Real History: Ancient Protocol, Not Modern Invention
Here's where the deliberate muddying begins, and here's where the misinformation that led to ANZAC Day 2026 really took root.
Critics love to claim that Welcome to Country is a recent political invention, something cooked up in the 1970s by activists looking to make white Australians feel guilty.
Let me be crystal clear. That's absolute rubbish, and it's one of the most damaging lies being spread.
What happened in the 1970s wasn't the invention of welcoming ceremonies. What happened was the formal public recognition and naming of a protocol that had existed for thousands of years.
Before European settlement, before colonisation disrupted everything, Aboriginal peoples across this continent had protocols for entering another clan's Country. Each clan's survival depended on their deep understanding of food, water, and resources within their own discrete area of land. When people from one group needed to travel onto another group's land, ceremonies were performed to show the travellers came in peace and to formally welcome them.
These weren't just pleasantries. They were vital diplomatic protocols that maintained relationships, ensured safety, and showed respect for the sovereignty of Traditional Owners over their Country. Sometimes smoking ceremonies were used to transfer the scent of the host group onto visitors, marking them as welcomed guests, both to other people and to the land itself, so animals wouldn't flee at an unfamiliar scent.
This is ancient law. Ancient practice. Ancient respect.
What changed in the 1970s was that these ceremonies began to be performed publicly in the coloniser's spaces, in ways that non-Indigenous Australians could witness and participate in.
The first publicly documented Welcome to Country happened at the 1973 Aquarius Festival in Nimbin, New South Wales. When the Australian Union of Students wanted to hold this massive alternative lifestyle festival (think Australia's Woodstock), Indigenous activist Gary Foley challenged the organisers. If you're going to hold this event on Aboriginal land, you need to seek permission from Traditional Owners. Uncle Lyle Roberts and songman Uncle Dickee Donnelly performed the ceremony. It wasn't called "Welcome to Country" yet, but that's what it was.
In 1976, Richard Walley and Ernie Dingo developed a formal ceremony to welcome Māori performers to the Perth International Arts Festival. The Māori artists, coming from their own strong cultural protocols, were uncomfortable performing without acknowledgement from the Traditional Owners of the land. Walley recalled asking "the good spirits of my ancestors and the good spirits of the ancestors of the land to watch over us and keep our guests safe while they're in our Country. And then I talked to the spirits of their ancestors, saying that we're looking after them here and we will send them back to their Country."
Beautiful, isn't it? This is deep cultural reciprocity and respect in action.
Rhoda Roberts, daughter of Uncle Frank Roberts who was involved in that 1973 ceremony, coined the actual term "Welcome to Country" in the 1980s. She helped develop and formalise both Welcomes and Acknowledgements, beginning each show she worked on with a Welcome.
So no, Welcome to Country is not a modern invention. The formalisation and naming of the ceremony for broader Australian society is relatively recent, but the practice itself? Ancient.
When commentators claim it's a 1970s invention, they're deliberately erasing tens of thousands of years of cultural protocol. They're creating the false impression that this is political theatre rather than ancient law. And when people believe that lie, they feel justified booing it on ANZAC Day.
When You're "Welcomed to Australia" vs Welcomed to Country
This misconception is one of the most common and one of the most deliberately exploited to create outrage.
A Welcome to Country doesn't welcome you to the nation-state of Australia. Nothing to do with immigration. Nothing to do with citizenship. Not a tourism greeting or a "welcome to our country" in the national sense.
Traditional Owners are extending a formal welcome to their specific ancestral land, their Country, with all the deep meaning that word carries.
When a Gadigal Elder welcomes you to Gadigal Country in Sydney, they're speaking as the custodian of that specific place. When a Wurundjeri Elder performs one in Melbourne, you're being welcomed to Wurundjeri Country. When a Noongar Elder does so in Perth, Noongar Country.
Each of these groups has their own distinct boundaries, their own cultural protocols, their own languages, their own relationship with their specific Country. There are hundreds of different Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations across this continent, each with sovereignty over their own lands.
The confusion here is deliberate. By framing it as "welcoming to Australia," critics can make it seem redundant or even offensive. "Why do I need to be welcomed to my own country?" they rage.
But that's not what's happening. Traditional Owners are generously extending their ancient protocols of hospitality to acknowledge that you're on their ancestral lands, lands they never ceded, lands they continue to hold deep cultural and spiritual responsibility for.
This respects the original and enduring custodians of the land. Sovereign protocol, not a tourism campaign.
On ANZAC Day 2026, those Indigenous veterans weren't welcoming people to "Australia." They were welcoming them to the specific Country where that dawn service was being held, connecting the commemoration to the deep, ancient relationship with that place.
Welcome vs Acknowledgement (They're Not the Same Thing)
Right, let's clear this one up because deliberately blurring this distinction is another tactic used to create confusion and undermine both practices.
Welcome to Country must be performed by a Traditional Owner or Elder of the specific Country where the event is taking place. Their ceremony to offer, their protocol to extend, their sovereignty to exercise. You cannot have a Welcome to Country without a Traditional Owner present to give it.
Full stop.
Acknowledgement of Country can be delivered by anyone. Indigenous or non-Indigenous. This practice shows respect for the Traditional Owners and their Country when those Traditional Owners aren't present to offer a formal Welcome, or when the Traditional Owners aren't known.
The Acknowledgement of Country is a more recent development, growing organically during the 1990s alongside the reconciliation movement and the creation of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation under the leadership of Yawuru man Pat Dodson. After the Mabo case overturned the legal fiction of terra nullius and recognised native title, there was a groundswell of grassroots communities wanting to engage meaningfully with reconciliation.
Yorta Yorta and Dja Dja Wurrung man Tiriki Onus, head of the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development at the University of Melbourne, has said that after Mabo, Acknowledgement of Country took root in communities concerned with reconciliation. Wiradjuri woman Linda Burney, a member of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation in those days, has said there was no formal strategy to bring Acknowledgements into Australian life. It just grew organically as people recognised its importance.
Both practices matter. Both serve a purpose. But they're not interchangeable and treating them as such disrespects the specific authority and sovereignty of Traditional Owners.
When critics blur these distinctions, they make it easier to dismiss both as empty ritual. When people don't understand the difference, they're more likely to view them as tokenistic rather than meaningful exercises of sovereignty and respect.
The Indigenous veterans performing Welcome to Country on ANZAC Day 2026 had the cultural authority to do so as Traditional Owners of those lands. They weren't delivering an Acknowledgement. They were extending their sovereign protocols of hospitality. Understanding that distinction matters.
Why Any Aboriginal Person Can't Just Perform a Welcome
Just because someone is Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander doesn't mean they can perform a Welcome to Country anywhere. A Welcome to Country should only be performed by a Traditional Owner or authorised representative from that specific area.
Australia's First Nations aren't one homogeneous group. There are hundreds of distinct nations, each with their own Country, languages, cultural practices, and protocols. A Bundjalung person from northern New South Wales doesn't have the cultural authority to perform a Welcome to Country on Wurundjeri land in Melbourne any more than a French person could perform a Japanese tea ceremony.
Asking an Aboriginal person from a different area to perform a Welcome to Country can be culturally inappropriate and disrespectful, both to that person and to the Traditional Owners of the land you're actually on.
This misconception stems from the colonial tendency to lump all Aboriginal peoples together as one group, erasing the rich diversity, distinct sovereignties, and specific cultural protocols of hundreds of different nations. Part of the broader project of flattening Indigenous identity into something more manageable for the coloniser mindset.
When people believe any Aboriginal person can perform a Welcome anywhere, they fundamentally misunderstand Indigenous sovereignty. They see Indigeneity as an ethnic identity rather than as hundreds of distinct nations with their own territories and laws.
This erasure makes it easier to dismiss Welcome to Country as performative rather than as an exercise of specific, place-based sovereignty.
If you're organising an event and want a Welcome to Country, you need to contact the Traditional Owners of the specific land you're on. Every state and territory has protocols and contacts for arranging this respectfully.
How Hospitality Became Controversial
Traditional Owners are extending their ancient protocols of hospitality to newcomers, protocols that predate colonisation by tens of thousands of years. They're offering safe passage, inviting respect for Country, and making a generous gesture of inclusion and acceptance.
How on earth is that divisive?
What's actually divisive is the deliberate campaign to undermine, diminish, and dismiss these ceremonies. Divisive is trying to erase 85,000 years of continuous culture and connection to Country. Divisive is the ongoing refusal to acknowledge the sovereignty and ongoing presence of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Divisive is booing Indigenous veterans on ANZAC Day.
Many Traditional Owners perform Welcomes dozens, even hundreds of times a year, often for little or no payment, as an act of generosity and bridge-building. They open their hearts, share their culture, and invite deeper understanding.
The Indigenous veterans who performed Welcome to Country on ANZAC Day 2026 could have refused after being booed. They could have walked away. They could have responded with anger or condemnation. Instead, many of them continued with grace and dignity, extending hospitality even in the face of disrespect.
That's the opposite of divisive. That's extraordinary generosity.
If that makes you uncomfortable, perhaps the question isn't "Why is this ceremony divisive?" Perhaps ask yourself why acknowledging the truth of this land's history, why honouring Indigenous veterans' service and their connection to Country, makes you squirm.
"It's Overused and Tokenistic" (Said While Singing the National Anthem for the 500th Time)
This argument was explicitly used to justify the booing on ANZAC Day 2026. News.com.au shared would be Prime Minister Angus Taylor suggested the "perceived overused frequency" contributed to the tension.
Let's be direct. That's rubbish, and it's dangerous rubbish.
Repetition doesn't equal meaninglessness.
You know what else happens regularly? National anthems. Oaths of allegiance. Minutes of silence. Parliamentary prayers. Corporate mission statements at every staff meeting. The Ode of Remembrance at every ANZAC Day service, at every Remembrance Day observance, at every military funeral.
"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them."
That gets recited hundreds of times a year across this country. Thousands of times. And nobody calls it "overused" or suggests we should stop because it's become tokenistic.
Why? Because we understand its importance. We understand that regular, repeated acts of remembrance matter. We understand that some things bear repeating, that ritual and protocol serve vital purposes in connecting us to what matters.
But somehow, when it comes to Welcome to Country, when it comes to acknowledging Traditional Owners and the 85,000 years of continuous culture, suddenly repetition is a problem.
Regular, genuine recognition of Traditional Owners is part of normalising Indigenous visibility and presence in Australian public life. For too long, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were excluded, erased, and denied. Reconciliation requires that we make space, consistent and ongoing space, for Indigenous voices, protocols, and sovereignty.
Are some Welcomes and Acknowledgements performed without genuine understanding or respect? Probably. Are some done badly, rushed through, or treated as box-ticking? Unfortunately, yes. But that's not an argument against the practice itself. That's an argument for doing it better, more meaningfully, with deeper understanding.
The solution to tokenism isn't to stop acknowledging Traditional Owners. The solution is to do it with genuine respect, to pay Traditional Owners appropriately for their time and expertise, to educate people about what they're actually participating in, and to follow words with meaningful action.
The "overuse" argument is cover for discomfort with Indigenous visibility. Nothing more. And on ANZAC Day 2026, that discomfort manifested as open disrespect toward Indigenous veterans.
"I Shouldn't Need a Welcome in My Own Hometown"
This one's tricky because it touches on people's sense of belonging and identity, and after ANZAC Day 2026, it needs addressing head-on.
Some non-Indigenous Australians, particularly those who were born here or have lived here for generations, feel affronted by the idea that they need to be "welcomed" to a place they consider home.
But here's what they're missing. Welcome to Country doesn't suggest you don't belong here. Doesn't say you're tourists in your own hometown. Doesn't deny your connection to the place you've lived, loved, and built your life.
What it does is acknowledge that underneath all of that, underneath the suburbs and the streets and the shopping centres and the schools, there is an older, deeper, continuous relationship with Country that has existed for tens of thousands of years and continues to exist today.
Traditional Owners have never ceded sovereignty over their lands. The fact that colonisation happened, that cities were built, that generations of settlers have made lives here, doesn't erase that underlying truth. Native title, as recognised legally since Mabo, acknowledges this.
A Welcome to Country is Traditional Owners exercising their sovereign protocols, extending their ancient laws of hospitality, and inviting everyone present, including those who've lived here for generations, to participate respectfully in a relationship with Country.
There's no exclusion happening. Everyone is being included in a deeper, more truthful understanding of this place we share.
On ANZAC Day, when we gather to honour those who served and sacrificed, including that acknowledgement of the deeper history and ongoing sovereignty of the land we're standing on adds depth and meaning to the commemoration. It connects military service to place, to Country, to the reality that Indigenous peoples have been caring for this land since time immemorial and continue to do so.
That's not an imposition. That's an invitation to fuller understanding.
The MCG Showed Us What's Possible
While some Australians were booing Indigenous veterans in Sydney, Melbourne CBD, and Perth, 95,000 people gathered at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and observed a Welcome to Country with profound respect and reverence.
Ninety-five thousand people.
They stood quietly. They listened. They participated respectfully in a ceremony that honoured both the fallen and the living, both the recent history of military service and the ancient history of this land.
It was described by those present as moving, powerful, and a perfect example of mutual respect.
So we know it's possible. We know that when people understand what Welcome to Country actually is, when they haven't been fed years of misinformation and deliberate confusion, when they approach it with open hearts rather than defensiveness, it can be exactly what it's meant to be: a generous act of inclusion that deepens everyone's connection to this place.
The contrast between those dawn services and the MCG couldn't be starker. Same day. Same ceremony. Vastly different responses.
What was the difference? Education. Understanding. Respect for truth rather than manufactured outrage.
The 95,000 people at the MCG prove we can do better. They prove that when given accurate information, when approached with education rather than manipulation, Australians can and do respond with respect and reverence.
They prove that the "overuse" argument is hollow. They prove that when people understand the depth and meaning of Welcome to Country, they find it enhances the experience rather than detracting from it.
They prove that the problem isn't the ceremony. The problem is the misinformation campaign designed to undermine it.
The problem is the racism that infects our Nation like a cancer.
We Can Do Better. We Must Do Better.
Look, I'm disappointed. Deeply disappointed. But I'm not surprised.
This article was written off the back of the vitriol and hate we received from posting an article just last week about the 2025 booing at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne. Most of the comments (that weren’t encouraging us to die or shut up) were at least one of the misinformation statements we have debunked above. It was meant to be a piece sharing the truth, and yet here we are, again, talking about the most disrespectful thing that could happen on ANZAC Day.
The 95,000 people at the MCG prove Australians can do better. They prove that when given accurate information, when approached with education rather than manipulation, Australians can and do respond with respect and reverence.
So what do we do now?
We push back harder against the misinformation. We call it out every single time. We educate ourselves and others about what Welcome to Country actually is, where it comes from, why it matters. We refuse to accept the "overuse" framing. We centre Indigenous voices and experiences. We follow words with action.
And we remember that those Indigenous veterans who were booed still extended their protocols of hospitality anyway. They still welcomed people onto Country. They still invited respectful participation. They still offered generosity in the face of disrespect.
That's the standard. That's the example. That's what reconciliation requires of all of us, not just Indigenous peoples extending endless patience and generosity, but non-Indigenous Australians finally, finally doing the work to understand, respect, and reciprocate.
Welcome to Country is ancient protocol made visible in contemporary Australia. Traditional Owners are generously extending their laws of hospitality and inviting everyone to engage respectfully with the truth of this land.
The more you understand about Country, about the deep and living relationships Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have with their ancestral lands, about the specific sovereignties of hundreds of different nations, the more meaningful these ceremonies become.
And when someone stands up to deliver an Acknowledgement of Country, whether they're Indigenous or not, they're participating in something equally important. The work of truth-telling, of making Indigenous presence and protocols visible and normal in Australian public life, of contributing to reconciliation through recognition and respect.
Both practices matter. Both deserve our genuine engagement, not our cynicism.
If you're going to deliver an Acknowledgement of Country, take the time to learn about the Traditional Owners of the land you're on. Learn how to pronounce their name correctly. Understand a bit about their history, their Country, their ongoing presence. Make it meaningful, not a rushed box-ticking exercise.
If you're organising an event and want a Welcome to Country, reach out to Traditional Owners early, pay them appropriately for their time and expertise, and create space for their Welcome to be heard and respected, not rushed or treated as a formality.
If you hear someone spreading the misconceptions we've discussed today, gently correct them. Share what you've learned. Push back against the deliberate campaign of confusion and erasure.
And most importantly, understand that these ceremonies are invitations. Invitations to deeper relationship with Country, with truth, with the world's oldest continuous living cultures, with reconciliation.
You don't have to feel guilty. You don't have to feel defensive. You just have to be willing to listen, to learn, and to participate respectfully in something much bigger and older than any of us.
When you attend an event that begins with a Welcome to Country, you're witnessing something profound. The continuation of cultural practices that stretch back thousands of generations, performed by peoples who have survived genocide, dispossession, forced removal, stolen generations, and ongoing discrimination. And who still, with extraordinary generosity, welcome newcomers and invite them into relationship with Country.
That's not divisive. That's not tokenistic. That's not modern political correctness.
That's strength. That's survival. That's culture. That's sovereignty. That's the truth about Welcome to Country.
That’s being Australian.
ANZAC Day 2026 showed us both the worst and the best of what we're capable of as a nation. The booing at dawn services in Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth. The reverent respect of 95,000 people at the MCG.
Which Australia do we want to be?
The choice has always been ours to make.
Looking for resources and further reading?
Check out our previous article "Beyond the Dawn: First Nations ANZACs and the Contradictions We Must Finally Confront" that explores the 2025 booing in Melbourne as well as the stories of individual First Nations veterans, the specific policies that excluded them, the units they formed, and the ongoing fight for justice and recognition.
Access the Koori Curriculum free downloadable Welcome to and Acknowledgement of Country Guide for Educators here.
Learn directly with Jessica Staines, Director of the Koori Curriculum who understands both the cultural protocols and the practical realities of early childhood settings in our Acknowledgement of Country pre-recorded webinar. Her approach ensures you're not just learning about Aboriginal cultures but learning from Aboriginal knowledge with appropriate cultural guidance.
