The Welcome to Country at Melbourne’s Anzac Day Dawn Service was booed by a group of protesters, some of whom are allegedly neo-Nazis.
Hushed whispers had earlier filled the air as masses of people turned out under the cloak of pre-dawn darkness in Melbourne on Friday to commemorate those who paid the ultimate sacrifice.
But the air of reverence for Australia and New Zealand’s fallen servicemen and women was broken during Bunurong elder Mark Brown’s Welcome to Country, when heckles and boos came from a group of around six to ten people near the front of the crowd.
Their voices were picked up by microphones and loudspeakers, making the disturbance clearly audible to the rest of the crowd.
‘It’s our country!’ one yelled.
‘We don’t have to be welcomed,’ screamed another.
The boos and shouts lasted the entire five minutes of the Welcome to Country, as Mr Brown carried on with his address in his sonorous voice.
Bunurong Uncle Mark Brown elder delivers the Welcome to country during the Anzac Day dawn service at Shrine Of Remembrance in Melbourne that was booed
Neo Nazi Jacob Hersant was allegedly one of the men who took part in the booing
A woman reportedly shouted ‘always was, always will be’ – before the crowd erupted with applause and helped drown out the disquiet.
After the Welcome to Country, Victorian Governor Margaret Gardner delivered the official Anzac Day address, which acknowledged Aboriginal Australians.
This prompted yet more boos.
‘How many more? This is s***,’ one man reportedly shouted.
Jacob Hersant, a prominent neo-Nazi figure, was allegedly among those loudly booing.
‘This is a day for the Anzacs, it’s not for Aboriginals,’ he told media after the service.
Defence Minister Richard Marles described the booing as ‘outrageous and appalling’, and branded those responsible as ‘just idiots’.
‘It should be condemned in the strongest possible terms,’ Mr Marles told Sky News.
Protesters’ boos echoed through loudspeakers during Uncle Mark Brown’s Welcome to Country at the Anzac Day service
3AW’s Madelaine Burke says the protest began as soon as the Welcome to Country started, lasting the full five minutes
‘It was a small number of people. The vast majority of people who were here this morning were wanting to commemorate and acknowledge Anzac day in the ways we should expect.’
Victoria Premier Jacinta Allan also unleashed on the act of disrespect.
‘[It] runs counter to why we gather at the Shrine at dawn [with] hundreds of thousands people across the country simultaneously,’ she said on ABC radio shortly afterwards.
‘They gather to never forget what war is like and why it is so important so we can gather peacefully today because of that sacrifice.’
Ms Allan said education about Gallipoli, the ANZAC tradition, and wartime history was essential in countering displays of disrespect.
‘As we were taking our places this morning… [the MC Justin Smith] was reading out letters that young men had written to their mums from war zones,’ Ms Allan said.
‘That is what is being dishonoured. That is why we cannot give up educating, helping people understand why not only is that behaviour disrespectful, it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t change the past.’
Anzac Day marks the moment thousands of Australian and New Zealand soldiers rowed towards the desolate shores of Gallipoli at half light during World War I.
Over 600 were killed on April 25, 1915, alone, with nearly 9,000 Australians and almost 3,000 New Zealanders killed during the bloody Gallipoli campaign.
A Welcome to Country is a traditional ceremony performed by Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander elders to formally welcome visitors to their land and to give their blessing for events taking place on their traditional lands
While the small ceremonies are intended to be friendly and inclusive, it has proved divisive, with some claiming it is a token gesture and a symbol of woke culture.
Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price previously said Australia was ‘saturated’ with it, which was ‘removing the sacredness of certain traditional culture and practices’.
‘It’s just become almost like a throwaway line. We don’t want to see all these symbolic gestures. We want to see real action,’ she said.
The incident has been quickly condemned by RSL Victoria, which said the heckling was completely out of keeping with the intention of the solemn event.
Service men and women and their descendants will later march from Princes Bridge near Federation Square to the shrine before commemorations end with a wreath-laying service.
