Politicians have condemned booing and heckling during Indigenous Welcome to Country ceremonies at ANZAC Day dawn services.
In Melbourne, reports suggest Jacob Hersant, a self-declared neo-Nazi was involved in the jeering at the Shrine of Remembrance while Indigenous elder Uncle Mark Brown performed the ceremony.
Brown is an elder of the Bunurong people. The Welcome to Ceremony is a ritual or formal ceremony performed at many events held in Australia—in recent years, the ceremony has extended in length and detail.
Veterans Affairs Minister Matt Keogh called the interruptions a “frankly disgraceful” act.
“We know now that booing was led by someone who’s a known neo-Nazi,” Keogh told ABC Radio National.
“And frankly, when we come together to commemorate on Anzac Day, we’re commemorating some of those soldiers who fell in a war that was fought against that sort of hateful ideology, and so it was completely disrespectful, and is not something that’s welcome at Anzac Day commemorations ever.”
Defence Minister Richard Marles said he felt a “sense of outrage” over the booing.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton likened it to an act of evil.
“Our Diggers fought against the Nazis and (that) this movement of neo-Nazis has any presence in our country at all is just an outrage and a disgrace,” he told the Today show.
“And you read the history of the Nazi regime and Hitler’s evil and those around him, and that it could be glorified by Australians here shows that these people are mentally unwell, and it should be condemned.”
A similar incident occurred in Western Australia and was condemned by the state Premier Roger Cook.
A spokesperson for the Victorian Police told The Epoch Times that people are aware of a small group of people disrupting the dawn service at the Shrine of Remembrance during the morning.
“Police identified a 26-year-old man from Kensington in relation to the behaviour,” they said.
“He has subsequently been interviewed for offensive behaviour and police will proceed via summons.
“The male has been directed to leave the Shrine of Remembrance.”
The Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement of Country has received scrutiny for becoming more and more pervasive in Australian public life.
In fact last year, one Queensland Indigenous group, the Juru people, voted against performing the ceremony on its ancestral land going forward.
NSW Memorial Vandalised
Earlier, New South Wales Police cautioned that “lots and lots of police” would be present in case of disruptions.NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Peter McKenna addressed media after a man and woman were charged for vandalising a Dorrigo war memorial.
The memorial had already once been rededicated after it was rammed by a car in 2020.
“We certainly are ramping up our patrols, our security, here in Sydney we have 24/7 security of our monuments leading up to Anzac Day because you can’t account for that 1 percent, can you?” he said.
“Those idiots who would want to get out there and do something like that, that’s really quite disgusting.”
