A “welcome to country” planned for the Melbourne Storm’s Anzac Day NRL match has been scrapped at the last minute, hours after dawn service attendees booed during an indigenous ceremony at the Shrine of Remembrance.
Several members of the crowd booed professional aboriginal Mark Brown as he welcomed them to their own country early on Friday morning, attracting criticism from the corporate media and political establishment but widespread approval from everyday Australians.
Another “welcome to country” performer, Joy Murphy, was due to conduct one of her ceremonies before the Storm’s match against the South Sydney Rabbitohs at AAMI Park when she was told the club’s board no longer wanted it to go ahead, The Age reported.
A Maori group and an indigenous dance troupe which were also set to perform alongside Ms Murphy decided to sit out also as a result
Ms Murphy said the Storm then backflipped and apologised, but the groups decided not to go ahead with their performances.
A Storm spokesperson said there had been a “miscommunication of expectations regarding the use [of] Welcome to Country at Melbourne Storm events throughout the year” and that the “timing and miscommunication was not ideal”.
Last year the Storm was the subject of media reports it was planning to abolish its “welcome to country” events, but then came out and said it was actually going to add acknowledgements to other cultural groups, including Maoris and Pacific Islanders, before games.
Earlier on Friday Victoria Police arrested Australian nationalist Jacob Hersant for booing during the dawn service, and said he would likely be charged with “offensive behaviour”.
As Mr Brown talked at length about the “Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation” voices could be heard shouting “what about the Anzacs”, “we don’t have to be welcomed”, and “this is our country”, and the crowd also heckled Victorian Governor Margaret Gardner when she too paid lip service to indigenous people.
“Welcome to country” ceremonies, which are a modern invention and unpopular with most Australians, led to calls for a boycott of the AFL Grand Final last year after a controversial semi-final performance
Indigenous performer Brendan Kerin was slammed for making the ahistorical claim that that indigenous people have been performing the ritual for 250,000 years at the game in September.
He was also criticised for calling BC “Before Cook” during his presentation, for falsely claiming that “welcome to country” ceremonies were been invented to cater for White people, and for alluding to violence.
Header image: A “welcome to country” ceremony held at a previous NRL game (Nine).
