The defiant Aboriginal elder whose controversial Welcome to Country speech sparked outrage across the nation this week has mocked ‘the absolute stupidity’ of his critics.
Brendan Kerin went viral after performing the ceremony ahead of the AFL semifinals match between GWS Giants and Brisbane Lions at Sydney Olympic Park on September 14 last Saturday.
As part of his performance, he addressed the sell-out crowd and told them that such rituals were not actually for ‘white people’.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson described the comments as divisive and said Mr Kerin’s comments had left footy fans ‘scratching their heads’.
‘If they (Welcome to Country ceremonies) are not to cater to white people than why are white people constantly subjected to them?’ she asked in the Senate on Tuesday.
Her thoughts were echoed by a string of high-profile commentators, with Mr Kerin, a cultural educator with Sydney‘s Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council, facing on-going calls to further explain his views.
He finally broke his silence on the controversy in an interview with NITV on Friday and used the opportunity to accuse four of his chief critics of being on the wrong side of history.
‘With all the feedback I think we can sit back and just look at the absolute stupidity and the ignorance of what people are saying,’ he said.
Brendan Kerin, a cultural educator with Sydney ‘s Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council, has called out the ‘absolute stupidity’ of his critics
Mr Kerin delivered a controversial Welcome to Country ceremony at the AFL semifinals on September 14 which prompted One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson to respond in parliament
‘Seeing people like Andrew Bolt, Pauline Hanson, Jacinta Price [and] Warren Mundine [speak out] confirms that I’m on the right path.’
Reflecting on the backlash he attracted in the wake of his controversial remarks, Mr Kerin said there was only one thing he would change about his speech.
‘If I was going to do it again I would go a little bit longer, but I wouldn’t have changed a word,’ he said.
Ms Hanson said Mr Kerin’s latest comments would only intensify the growing backlash against the controversial ceremony.
‘After watching this news report and hearing the doubling down, I believe even more Aussies will join us in calling out the harmful division these ceremonies are spreading,’ she said.
‘I am appalled that the genuine concerns of everyday Australians are dismissed as “ignorant” and “stupid”.
‘We should not be lectured about our own home.’
Ms Hanson has been a long-running critic of the Welcome to Country ritual and has previously called for them to be cancelled at taxpayer-funded events, maintaining Australians do not need to be welcomed to their own homeland.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson describes Mr Kerin’s claim that the Welcome to Country is ‘not for white people’ as ‘divisive’ in the Senate on Tuesday
Mr Kerin said that if he could give the speech again he would have made it longer
It was that particular criticism that Mr Kerin addressed in his now infamous Welcome to Country ceremony last weekend.
‘Within Australia we have many Aboriginal lands and we refer to our lands as “country”. So it’s always a welcome to the lands you’ve gathered on,’ Mr Kerin said.
‘A Welcome to Country is not a ceremony we’ve invented to cater for white people.
‘It’s a ceremony we’ve been doing for 250,000 years-plus BC – and the BC stands for Before Cook.
‘Prior to colonisation, you could get yourself in a lot of trouble for walking on someone else’s lands without being welcomed onto those lands.
‘So for me it’s always an honour to perform this ceremony.’
Andrew Bolt described the address as ‘the most unwelcoming welcome’ he had ever heard
The speech received a round of applause before Mr Kerin played a short piece on the didgeridoo and then Mimi Velevska sang Advance Australia Fair and the game began.
Besides Ms Hanson, each of the critics that Mr Kerin called out by name appeared on various media outlets to decry his rendition of the ceremony.
‘This man gave a Welcome to Country at Saturday’s AFL semifinal that just showed that this supposed “traditional ceremony has become an insult to our intelligence,’ Mr Bolt said on his broadcast which aired on Tuesday.
‘[It] was the most unwelcoming welcome I’ve ever heard.’
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price tells Sky News she is ‘over’ the Welcome to Country
Warren Mundine says the controversial ceremonies are beginning to ‘go a bit overboard now’
Shadow minister for Indigenous Affairs, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, told Sky News that she was ‘over it’ on Sunday.
‘There’s a whole lot of reinvention of culture taking place [and] it’s turning into a bit of a fantasy,’ Ms Price said.
‘It’s got beyond ridiculous and we need to just get back to being Australian again.’
Mr Kerin’s final critic that he called out by name, advocate for Indigenous affairs, Mr Mundine, told Melbourne’s 3AW Welcome to Country ceremonies were beginning to lose ‘their shine’.
‘I think this has gone a bit overboard now … it’s just gone crazy,’ Mr Mundine said.
‘It’s been done to death now and it’s starting to lose its shine.’
Mr Mundine noted that he had delivered various Welcome to Country addresses himself but that they had been to people who did not live in the country or at nationalisation ceremonies.
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