Welcome To Country in Parliament
In Federal Parliament, both houses start each day with the Lord's Prayer and the Welcome to Country.
The first Welcome to Country at an opening of Parliament was led by Matilda House in February 2008.
Vowing that Welcome to Country would be a permanent feature of future parliamentary openings, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told the nation:
It's taken 41 parliaments to get here. We can be a bit slow sometimes, but we got here. When it comes to Parliaments of the future, this will become part and parcel of the fabric of our celebration of Australia in all of its unity and all of its diversity.
In November 2010, Victorian Liberal Senator Julian McGauran called for the Indigenous Welcome to Country statement to be dropped from the opening of Parliament each day, saying the Welcome to Country is not a prayer and should not be given equivalent status. This was just a few months after Australia's first indigenous member of the House of Representatives, Ken Wyatt was honoured in a special Welcome to Country ceremony in the forecourt to Parliament House.
Read more about this topic: Welcome To Country And Acknowledgement Of Country
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