A “welcome to country” humiliation ritual at an AFL Women’s game has come under fire after an aboriginal performer went off on an extended political rant and promoted her own business.
Louisa Bonner, the CEO of Ngaran Goori Ltd, was hired to deliver the ceremony ahead of the AFLW preliminary final between the Brisbane Lions and Carlton Blues in Ipswich, southeast Queensland, on Saturday.
She started off in typical fashion, but then began talking about aboriginals in youth detention, calling it a “national crisis” and blaming discrimination for the disproportionate number of indigenous criminals in jail.
Professional aboriginal performing a “welcome to country” humiliation ritual at an AFLW game starts ranting about “systemic racism” and promotes her own business.
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“The drivers of this crisis are well known, the ongoing impacts of colonisation and systemic racism, limited recognition of sovereignty, resistance to indigenous leadership and continued land and economic dispossession,” she said.
“These issues are a matter of social justice, human rights and legal responsibility. There are other countries such as New Zealand and American native indians that are leading in these areas and addressing issues in their own country.”
Ms Bonner then went on to spruik her business, saying that her organisation’s programs were aligned with United Nations initiatives related to “self determination and self government”.
“I would also like to say that every time I’m invited here by the Lions to do a welcome to country, that they’re also supporting me to run those programs,” she said.
“If you wish to discuss us, catch up with me afterwards. Here’s my business card.”
She then held her business card up in the air.
3AW radio host Tom Elliott responded to the ceremony by calling it “completely inappropriate” and said the AFL needed to have a “good, long, hard look at itself”.
“It was extraordinary. It was a diatribe about Indigenous children in custody and colonisation and structural racism and all these sort of touch points,” he said.
“The woman who gave the so-called Welcome to Country even offered people her business card if they wanted to take the discussion further. It was wrong.”
Indigenous former politician Warren Mundine, who campaigned against the Voice to Parliament in 2023, told 2GB that politicised welcome to country ceremonies were “driving people mad”.
“It started out as a Welcome to Country. Then it lost its way and went into a political statement and then it went into an advertisement for her business,” he said.
A poll conducted after nationalist activists allegedly booed a welcome to country at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance on Anzac Day found that seven out of 10 Australians want them “completely stopped”.
Header image: Louisa Bonner during the ceremony (7Plus).
