Indigenous activist says 'Welcome to Country' ceremonies are losing all meaning
Kiescha Haines-Jamieson and Senator Jacinta Price express concerns over diminishing significance and symbolic recognition.
A prominent Indigenous activist has slammed Welcome to Country ceremonies for becoming too mainstream.
Kiescha Haines-Jamieson said the ceremonies were now so ubiquitous that they had lost all relevance.
“It was never intended for opening football games or corporate and social events,” she said.
“It was actually a practice used for ensuring permission and safe passage to and through tribal boundaries and now it's being so mainstreamed it has made people be apathetic.”
More than a million people have viewed Haines-Jamieson’s TikTok videos where she discusses her opposition to the Voice to Parliament.
In the videos, she says Welcome to Country has become so omnipresent that they have lost all meaning and have made the general public “apathetic” toward Indigenous people.
Haines-Jamieson slammed the oversaturation of Welcome to Country practices at everything from workplace staff meetings to national sporting events.
Her sentiments are similar to those shared by Indigenous Senator Jacinta Price.
Price has said that she was sick of being “symbolically recognised”.
She said she wanted to be recognised and respected for her character rather than for her race.
“I personally have had more than my fill of being symbolically recognised,” she complained after the Welcome to Country ceremony performed at the second State of Origin match.
She told 2GB's Ben Fordham the ceremonies were “a little bit narcissistic”.
“I'm sick and tired of these acknowledgements because of nothing more than my racial heritage," she said.
“It's every single day I acknowledge and pay my respects and recognise Indigenous First Nations people in the room what for?
"What for you don't even know everyone in the room and why are we being singled out purely, only because of our race it's divisive.”
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