Hecklers boo Indigenous elder during Melbourne Anzac Day dawn service Welcome to Country
Sections of the crowd were heard booing during the dawn service marking Anzac Day at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne. Shouts of 'It's Australia', 'We don't have to be welcomed' and 'What about the Anzacs' rang out as Bunurong elder Uncle Mark Brown gave the Welcome to Country
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Daily Mail
02-06-2025
- Daily Mail
Stan Grant launches an explosive attack on the ABC
Stan Grant has revealed his deep 'sadness' over how the ABC failed in its 'duty of care' to him when he and his family were the target of relentless racist abuse and death threats. The veteran broadcaster and journalist also shared his thoughts on the failure of the Voice referendum, the future of treaties in Australia and the recent boing of the Welcome to Country ceremony at the Melbourne ANZAC Day dawn service in a wide-ranging and nuanced interview with TVNZ's Jack Tame. Grant, 61, quit his role as host of the ABC's Q+A in May 2023 after being subjected to 'relentless racial filth'. In a parting shot, he accused the ABC of 'institutional failure' over how he was treated when he was being bombarded with abuse during the Voice referendum. 'I became a target, my family became a target and the level of abuse just grew louder and louder and louder,' he said. 'Being misrepresented, hateful comments made to me, my wife, my children, my parents. And death threats against us. And a person arrested and charged. 'And throughout it all, I have to say with some sadness, a failure on the part of my employer to handle that and to be able to show proper duty of care to someone in my position who was exposed in ways that I couldn't control.' Grant said his decision to quit was to protect his family and his own sanity. But he insisted he held no one at the ABC personally responsible. 'I didn't feel protected and supported as I should have done with my employer. I don't necessarily blame them,' he added. 'I think they were swimming in waters that were far too deep for them.' After leaving the ABC, Grant said he retreated into Yindyamarra, an Aboriginal philosophy encompassing respect and sitting in silence as a way of trying to understand others and the world around you. The period of deep contemplation allowed him to change how he viewed the failure of the Voice referendum. 'There was something existential about this vote for us as Aboriginal people,' he said. 'It wasn't just a constitutional amendment, it felt like a vote on us. Inevitably, it does. 'We live in a country where we are three percent of the population. We are the most disadvantaged people, we are the most impoverished, we are the most imprisoned. 'We come out of very hard history. And that's almost unknowable to many Australians because Australia is a postcard, and it's beautiful, and it's rich and it's successful, and it's multicultural and it's peaceful. And they're phenomenal achievements.' He said he now saw the Voice as a a 'political failure, rather than a moral failure'. Grant also praised New Zealand for its approach to reconciliation with the Maori people. 'It's interesting being in New Zealand and the ease people move in out of the shared space. 'You know that you are in a place that is founded on something that is very vertical, very deep and very shared - contested, yes and not evenly distributed - and I think the treaty goes a long way to that,' he said. He was referencing the Treaty of Waitangi, the foundational document in New Zealand's history which established a relationship between the Maori and the British Crown. 'Australia doesn't have that. We don't have treaties. We don't have a constitutional recognition,' Grant said. 'There is still the overhang of Terra Nullius (meaning 'nobody's land' in Latin) that it was claimed because we simply weren't there in a legal sense. They are existential wounds that we have no dealt with.' Grant said that he was faced with a choice between having to 'imagine the Australia that I want or live in the Australia that I have'. 'To imagine a treaty, the likes of which you have here (in New Zealand), in the Australian context is just not possible. We are not made that way.' 'I navigate this now as more of a question of The Voice being a political failure rather than a moral failure.' Grant was also asked about the ugly scenes during the ANZAC Day dawn service in Melbourne where the air of reverence was broken during Bunurong elder Mark Brown's Welcome to Country, when loud heckles and boos threatened to drown him out. 'The wonderful thing about that is that the people who applauded the welcome and showed respect, far outweighed the small number of neo-Nazis, which is what they are, who had booed that Welcome,' Grant said. He said his immediate, gut reaction was to think 'Australia hates us' but his considered response allowed him to realise those who opposed the booing far outweighed the minority who were doing it. But he criticised Peter Dutton for trying to score political points by seizing on the national discussion to say he thought Welcome to Country ceremonies were sometimes 'overdone'. He accused the former Opposition Leader of a 'moral failure'. To take that and land that in the midst of a culture war where once again Aboriginal people were a political football and it backfired.' He added: 'The conservative side of politics sought to inflict a moral injury out of what was a very hateful act from a very small number of people.' Grant went further, claiming that opposition and criticism of Welcome to Country ceremonies was actually a 'failure of Conservatism'. 'What deeper conservative tradition could there be than a Welcome to Country that is thousands of years old? That is joined with an ANZAC service that is a solemn acknowledgment of sacrifice for the greater good,' he said. 'And to put those two beautiful traditions together creates a sacred space that we can all share in and any decent conservatism would seek to preserve that as a common good.' Grant also turned his sights on the media in general, which he claims is responsible for 'generating conflict and polarising debate'. 'I really had to confront what I was doing and what I saw, I thought, in the complicity of media in the conflicts of our age,' he said of his decision to quit the public broadcaster. 'I started to see that the media in many ways was the poison in the bloodstream of our society.' Since he quit the ABC two years ago, Grant has written a book about the failure of the Voice called Murriyang: Song of Time and has served as the Vice Chancellor's Chair of Australian-Indigenous Belonging at Charles Sturt University.
Glasgow Times
26-04-2025
- Glasgow Times
ANZAC Day service takes place in Glasgow Western Necropolis
The event was organised by the Commonwealth War Graves Committee and took place Glasgow Western Necropolis at around 5am. ANZAC Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia, New Zealand and Tonga to commemorate all of those who died while fighting for their country, particularly during World War I. It is observed on April 25 each year and the CWGC ensures those who were part of the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps who are buried in the Necropolis are remembered. There is a small section of Australians buried in the cemetery from World War I and the memorial ensures they continued to be remembered for their sacrifice during the Great War. Fortunate to attend ANZAC Day service in Glasgow Western Necropolis this morning organised by @CWGC colleague @SeharSardar4 grateful for work done by operational staff especially @Iaincraig9 who regularly maintains the areas to a excellent standard. — Iain Anderson (@IainGAnderson) April 25, 2025 Sehar Sardar, who organised the event, said: 'It was a pleasure being able to organise the ANZAC Service again! 'Thanks to all attendees as well as those who supported.'
Edinburgh Reporter
25-04-2025
- Edinburgh Reporter
Gallipoli remembered on Anzac Day at Scottish National War Memorial
Early morning international remembrance services marking the 110th anniversary of the Gallipoli campaign in the First World War, took place on Friday. Today is ANZAC Day, the annual Remembrance of all the Australian and New Zealand citizens who have served in conflicts and peacekeeping operations around the world. It coincides with landings on Gallipoli during the First World War, in which the two southern nations were involved. Today, representatives of Legion Scotland and Poppyscotland joined members of the Australian and New Zealand communities, as well as veterans and current servicemen and women in a wreath-laying ceremony at Comely Bank Cemetery, at 5am. The event was led by Rev Dr Karen Campbell and also featured Scots Guards piper Mark Macrae and bugler Iona Macfarlane. A similar dawn service took part at the same time at the Western Necropolis in Glasgow. Later at 11am, The Rt Hon Lord Provost, Robert Aldridge, and government representatives from Scotland, the UK, Australia, France, and Turkey took part in Legion Scotland's annual ANZAC and Gallipoli Day Service at the Scottish National War Memorial inside Edinburgh Castle. The ceremonies are a reminder of the events which took place at dawn on 25 April 1915, when the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC), together with British, French, and Russian forces landed on the Dardanelles Peninsula (now part of Turkey) at the start of the Gallipoli campaign. This ended in a stalemate, with troops withdrawing in January 1916, with a total of more than 100,000 soldiers killed over the nine-month period. Dr Claire Armstrong, OBE, Chief Executive of Legion Scotland, said: 'This annual event allows us the chance to remember the service and sacrifices of ANZAC servicemen and women through the years, as well as our own soldiers who fell during the Gallipoli campaign. It is our opportunity to also reflect on the extraordinary courage of our Armed Forces community, both past and present, as well as the enduring friendship between our countries.' The Rt Hon Lord Provost after laying a wreath Like this: Like Related
