Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (NT, Country Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Leave granted.

What concerns me, as an Indigenous Australian, as a member of this parliament, as to the issues that we are talking about right now, is the ideological way in which Indigenous Australians are objectified—and I mean, in such a way that we are used as a political token for political pointscoring. The idea of welcome to country has become exactly that.

Senator Hanson is correct to say that welcome to country is not traditional culture. It isn't. And what we do need to recognise is—and it is important for all of us, as leaders of this nation, to recognise—the reinvention of culture, which diminishes traditional culture.

For those who still live close to traditional culture, within cultural confines, their day-to-day lives are dictated by it. They speak their language. They are often spoken about in very romanticised terms. And the use of acknowledgements really does absolutely nothing to improve their lives and has done nothing to improve their lives.

To be quite honest, as a woman of Indigenous heritage but, first and foremost, as an Australian, I am absolutely done with the virtue signalling that takes place. I am of the belief that it is not necessary to have an acknowledgement, because we are all Australians. Every single one of us—including the Ngunnawal and the Ngambri—is Australian. We are here to serve all Australians equally in this country, not to praise or acknowledge one group above others. Truly, I don't think you really want to acknowledge my existence because of my indigeneity more than anybody else's. I am equal to you and to everybody else here and to everybody in this country.

So this is the main issue at heart. It's not standing up as a person of Indigenous heritage to say how we do things differently. We are people; we are human beings. We need to stop the infantilisation of who we are as a group of people, as though we're somehow different. We are not different. We are the same. We are Australian. And that is the sentiment that we need more of in this chamber, in this building and more broadly across this country, because it's no wonder our children are afraid to be proud to call themselves Australian.

I understand the significance of the conduct of One Nation, perhaps towards the chamber, towards the President. I acknowledge that. But, more broadly, when it comes to this concept of acknowledgment of country—'First Nations' isn't even Australian terminology, for crying out loud! It's been adopted from Canada, from America. It's just reinvention, which is actually belittling and watering down traditional culture and what it's really about.

But we can ignore traditional culture in this chamber—there are elements of it that every single one of you across from me ignore—because it's detrimental to the most marginalised in remote communities. If you speak up against it, if you mention it, you are painted as a racist or somebody who is a coconut or somebody who is a traitor. Imagine if we treated every single racial group in this manner in this country—it's horrendous.

It begins with virtue signalling—the politicisation of a group of people in this country, because of our racial heritage. And I'm sick to death of it, as a woman, as a mother, as a soon-to-be grandmother and as an Australian of proud heritage, whether it's my convict ancestors or my Warlpiri ancestors. I'm proud of it all, and we should all be. We should all encourage that in Australia in 2025.