A “moderate” Liberal senator wants immigrants and the British included in indigenous land acknowledgements and “welcome to country” humiliation rituals.
Andrew Bragg, who is pro-homosexual, pro-multiculturalism and was in favour of Labor’s failed Voice to Parliament, will make the argument in a speech to centrist think tank the Centre for Independent Studies on Monday, despite the vast majority of Australians wanting the ceremonies stopped completely.
Mr Bragg’s speech comes after another Liberal senator, Andrew McLachlan, told colleagues this week not to use the term “mass migration”, and amid pressure on party leader Sussan Ley to take a harder line on immigration as voters concerned about demographic replacement desert the Coalition for One Nation.
“Sometimes a welcome or an acknowledgment occurs without the national anthem or any other words, and so we only hear part of the rich Australian story,” the NSW senator will say, according to a draft seen by The Sydney Morning Herald.
“I worry we have lost a love of our country and this loss means trouble ahead for Australia. We need more to coalesce around. We need to do more to bring Australians together.
“We should also acknowledge that the British laid the groundwork for the most successful democracy on earth … we should also acknowledge that Australia is the most successful diverse nation on earth. “There should be something for every Australian at our civic occasions. We are all part of the Australian story.”
Last month Mr Bragg said that while he supported lowering net overseas migration, he did not support linking Australia’s record-high immigration levels to the housing crisis, saying there would be “economic consequence, moral consequence and maybe a political consequence”.
West Australian Liberal senator Andrew Hastie, who has been calling for his party to focus on cutting immigration, told 2GB he “didn’t agree” with Mr Bragg and thought major immigration policy reforms were needed, while LNP MP Garth Hamilton also said housing and migration should be linked.
“Welcome to country” performances and indigenous land acknowledgments are widely unpopular, and the largest ever poll conducted on the issue after nationalist activists booed a professional aboriginal on Anzac Day found that seven in 10 Australians want them scrapped.
Last month Federation Council in the NSW Riverina region voted in favour of a proposal to require council approval for the ceremonies, and to stop flying aboriginal and Torres Strait islander flags on official flagpoles.
Header image: Left, Mr Bragg at an aboriginal ceremony on Australia Day. Right, with a “drag queen” (Facebook).
