“If and when we can decide on the date and content of an inclusive national day then, hopefully, the Welcome to Country would take its place in that day’s ceremonies, alongside many other cross-cultural motifs that, in sum, make up our Australian identity,” writes columnist HUGH SELBY.

There’s a hole in the fabric of our national identity. 

The Americans have this pledge, recited from early school days, “I pledge allegiance… to the Republic… one Nation… indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”. 

Let’s put to one side that, for the moment, they are not following their pledge. It’s hibernating and aspirational. 

At last year’s Olympics the French mezzo-soprano Axell Saint-Cirel serenaded a worldwide audience with her rendition of France’s national anthem, La Marseillaise. She sang atop a building in the rain. Recall it here. 

The lyrics are bloody. It is a battle song. The gist of it is that the enemy is coming to cut our throats so let’s use their blood in our fields. It’s memorable.

Since 1928 (that is pre-independence) Indonesia has had a youth pledge that is a commitment to one motherland, one nation and one language. It inspired. It still does.

A future-looking nation-building pledge in 2025 would combine an intent to achieve ethical personal growth and community engagement. It would emphasise responsibility, respect, and the importance of contributing to a better future for all. Please keep that thought in mind.

We, proud Aussies, have a flag that still has the British Union Jack in it. That is despite two thirds of our population claiming non-English stock.

We have a national anthem that is memorable only for its forgettability. The current words are here. 

Outside of these lyrics the word “girt” is not used by any of us. Everything about the lyrics is old fashioned and out of touch with today.

Compare it to the NZ All Blacks’ haka chant:

All Blacks, let me become one with the land

This is Aotearoa, the land that rumbles

It’s our time! It’s our moment!

This is our Kapa o Pango, the All Blacks that rumbles.

Little wonder then that with an out-of-date flag, and an anthem passable as muted mood music for a high-society afternoon tea, that the contemporary mood (aka zeitgeist) allowed a traditional ceremony of uncertain antecedents and connected to only 4 per cent of the population to become a fill in. I refer to Welcome to Country.

The need for a Welcome to Country

Early this month a CityNews reader posted this comment: “People are tired of being welcomed to their own country. It’s time First Nations groups realised that they are even alienating their supporters”.

That’s a comment that deserves our attention, whatever one’s beliefs about the place of indigenous culture in today’s Australia.

The use of a Welcome to Country acknowledges that this land, our land, was inhabited when the British forcibly colonised it from 1788.

That colonisation destroyed an unknown and now unknowable plethora of knowledge and custom that had accrued over many centuries. That human and cultural carnage was achieved by killing, disease, forced relocation – the usual acts of invaders throughout human history, up to today. Think Gaza. Think Ukraine.

That the pre-1788 inhabitants and their descendants were treated badly is beyond debate.

That the legislation to protect surviving rights, such as to land, water, and ceremonial sites is a step in the right direction is also beyond debate.

That among today’s indigenous Australians there is too much deprivation as seen in their health, education and job prospects, numbers of incarcerated – this too is beyond question. 

Answers must be found to this condition of cross-generational disadvantage. There are numbers of indigenous folk who devote their lives to seeking those answers.

Maintaining knowledge of cultural traditions among indigenous Australians is as legitimate for them as it is for all those other cultures that now call Australian home.

But there is this difference that puts Australian indigenous people in a unique position vis a vis every other cultural presence: as custodians and preservers of the pre-colonisation human history of this continent they have the responsibility to keep that culture alive, and to ensure that it is appreciated by the rest of us who bring other cultural influences to the mix that is our Australian identity. 

Which raises the question, “Does the present widespread use of the Welcome to Country enhance or compromise respect for that indigenous culture”?

The time and place for a Welcome to Country 

At the 2025 Anzac Day dawn service in Melbourne a few people thought it appropriate to heckle the Welcome to Country. For most of us such heckling was not just disrespectful, but also evidence of the sick thinking of the hecklers.

Anzac Day is a celebration of life, community and governance made possible by the untimely deaths of all those who fought to defend the ideals of their times.

There are no bricks and mortar memorials to all those indigenous who perished because of colonisation; however, we should accept that there were many who died trying to protect their kin and their way of life.

That they lost is irrelevant. The Gallipoli campaign that gave birth to the Anzac tradition was a military disaster.

What then can be more fitting than a Welcome to Country at the Dawn Services? It is a special, enduring, living flame in their memory. 

If and when we can decide on the date and content of an inclusive national day (a day that is not tied to the arrival of an English invasion fleet) then, hopefully, the Welcome to Country would take its place in that day’s ceremonies, alongside many other cross-cultural motifs that, in sum, make up our Australian identity.

Until then, Welcome to Country should be used by indigenous groups as they see fit to open events that are of cultural significance to them

That said, the use of a Welcome to Country in mainstream daily affairs, such as conferences, parliaments, corporate and sporting events (outside of indigenous competitions and special events celebrating indigenous culture) is so ill-fitting as to degrade its meaning. In a few short years it has become tokenistic, even tiresome.

A pledge for us all

Which leads us back to filling the hole in our national identity, some words that reflect the sum of all our parts today.

Such pledges can never be timeless. They are not as immutable as are, for example, the Lord’s Prayer, or parallel statements within other, long- established religions.

The attempts to create our flag, our republic, and an anthem that mattered, all failed, largely due to a mix of indifference and our sheep-like acceptance of “it’s broke, but don’t fix it” on some issues.

For now and the next quarter century, if we were energetic, we might agree on such words as:

We Australians respect the rights, cultures, and histories that come from our many communities. We build that respect by tolerance and inclusion in everything we do. We are one nation, always advancing.

Those words reflect the aims stated early in the article.

But let’s be realistic. Those words are much too serious. We are more likely to agree on:

We Australians don’t need to think about the rights, cultures, and histories that come from our many communities. Putting aside our occasional deep prejudices and our ‘rusted on’ loyalty to sports clubs and political parties, we are pretty tolerant and inclusive in everything we do. We like to be winners, but we’ll always cheer for our side. ‘She’ll be right, mate’ is our core belief. It defines us. It makes us one nation.

Aussies mark Anzac memory of diggers young and old

Hugh Selby is a CityNews columnist, principally focused on legal affairs. His free podcasts on “Witness Essentials” and “Advocacy in court: preparation and performance” can be heard on the best known podcast sites.