Albanese’s re-elected government was already on the nose before Parliament returned, and yet one of its first acts was to engage in a deeply unpopular ‘Welcome to Country’ ceremony which the Prime Minister called ‘powerful’.

In an eye-roll-inducing video posted to X, Mr Albanese said in a voiceover:

‘Welcome to Country lets us touch the very beginning of the story. Our story. The Australian story. In the 48th Parliament, we write the next chapter. Let us do it with the same sense of grace and courage that First Nations people show us with their leadership.’

To name one of the many objections Australians have to modern Indigenous leadership, national parks are being locked up across the country and transferred to Indigenous groups who control access based on race.

What happened to these being a shared natural treasure of the Australian people?

It is routine for Australians to be denied a sacred connection to country because they are of colonial rather than Indigenous descent. This is fundamentally insulting to the children of Australia who have no other spiritual home.

‘Insulted’ is exactly how many people feel when they are welcomed to their own country.

In another example, Australian history is being erased and re-written from an activist viewpoint whose purpose appears to be the demonisation of innocent people. Many Australians arrived in chains against their will, forced to build their own prisons, and are still painted as oppressors in modern literature.

As a nation, we have to stop making excuses for blatant racism wearing the coat of social justice before it cements itself as a permanent enterprise.

It is predatory. Repulsive. Inexcusable. Lucrative. And expanding.

People are very very angry with those who seek to create a two-tiered social system based on skin colour.

Performing a ‘Welcome to Country’ in Parliament under these circumstances is an inflammatory statement by the Prime Minister which endorses a wider culture of legislative discrimination at both the state and federal level. At least, that is one way it is interpreted by people who are fed up with having their genuine grievances fall on deaf ears.

Worse, those who object to Welcome to Country are written off as ‘racist’ when their objection centres around opposing racism. That is the point.

The Prime Minister has remained silent while Labor state governments ignore the Voice to Parliament referendum and press ahead with treaty preparations and race-exclusive democratic roles and bodies within democracy. Equality? That’s laughable.

Multiple polls suggest the majority of Australians oppose ‘Welcome to Country’ as a concept, not only because it has become some sort of state-enforced religious doctrine, but because they reject the political movement as a whole.

One complaint, which the Prime Minister should care about, is that Australians are being made to feel like renters in their own country. A belief re-enforced by Members of Parliament who shout, ‘Pay the Rent!’ at the cameras during protest marches.

If the Prime Minister does not agree that non-Indigenous Australians have fewer land rights, he must move to stamp out discriminatory rhetoric from those in positions of power.

We are not ‘renters’ we are citizens.

This is why there has been wall-to-wall praise for One Nation’s decision to turn their collective backs on the Welcome to Country message at Parliament as a silent protest.

A statement released by Senator Pauline Hanson explaining her actions read:

‘This afternoon in the Senate, every One Nation Senator stood with me to turn our backs on the divisive and increasingly forced Acknowledgment of Country.

‘I’ve made this protest on my own for years, but today, our whole team made it clear: we’ve had enough of being told we don’t belong in our own country.

‘We took this stand because we’re listening to Australians, hardworking, decent people who are sick of being lectured to in their own country.’

‘They’re tired of being made to feel like outsiders,’ Senator Hanson continued.

‘Tired of tokenistic rituals shoved into every meeting, every ceremony, every public event, while real issues, like the cost of living and housing, are brushed aside. There were at least three acknowledgments performed in Parliament today that I’m aware of.

‘These divisive performances aren’t about respect anymore. They’ve become a political routine that divides rather than unites.

‘We’re not here to tiptoe around activist expectations. We’re here to speak for the people who’ve had enough.

One Nation will always stand up for everyday Australians and we won’t back down.’

At least One Nation knows what it is objecting to.