Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has labelled critics of the Melbourne Storm infantile, defending the NRL team for cutting down on Welcome to Country ceremonies.
The Storm made the decision last week, which led to backlash particularly from high-profile Indigenous rapper Adam Briggs, a former fervent supporter of the club.
Senator Price, who is the Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians, responded with an article in Nine newspapers on Thursday where she said those demanding a Welcome to Country at every occasion lacked ‘nuance’ and ‘rational thought’.
She questioned the mindset of Australians who believed it was racist if someone was ‘not willing to wholeheartedly implement a Welcome to Country at every occasion’.
‘It’s infantile and a nation cannot function properly or hope to be strong with that as its foundational rhetoric,’ Senator Price wrote.
Senator Price said the Storm was not doing away with Welcome to Country but instead was ‘engaging with Indigenous communities to consider the way in which they recognise Indigenous people and culture at home games’.
It’s believed the club will perform the ceremony on culturally significant occasions, such as the annual NRL Indigenous Round.
The Senator said it ‘saddened her’ that such a sensible approach could be brandished as an ‘oppressive force’.
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price says those criticising the Melbourne Storm’s decision to cut back on Welcome to Country ceremonies ‘infantile
The Melbourne Storm announced that they will not automatically perform a Welcome to Country before each home game
By contrast she said a nuanced approach would see the ‘legitimacy and significance’ of Welcome to Country ‘most clearly borne out when we limit their proliferation’.
Senator Price believed the best way to preserve the ‘sacred and genuine nature’ of the ritual was to ‘cease with the activism’ by not using them as a chance to ‘lecture in colonial guilt’.
‘Have the ceremony, but lose the extremism,’ she advised.
‘It only discredits the person performing it and risks alienating the broader community.’
Senator Price questioned what the ‘Indigenous recognition’ offered by Welcome to Country did for disadvantaged Indigenous people living in remote areas and suffering high levels of violence and sexual assault.
‘I am not interested in pointing out race, or treating people according to their race, for the sake of it,’ she wrote.
‘So if that is the ultimate aim of recognition being promoted here, I want no part of it.
‘But if the aim of recognition is to address the disadvantage that our most marginalised Indigenous Australians face, I am all in.’
Following the Storm’s announcement they would not be automatically staging a Welcome to Country during home games, rap star Adam Briggs, otherwise known as Briggs or sometimes Senator Briggs, slammed the club he was once a member of.
‘See, the cost of living means cultural recognition is just not viable in this economy,’ he wrote on social media platform X.
‘There’s a price for cultural inclusion. Storm could do it if they wanted; if anyone knows how to work a salary cap – it’s them.’
He followed with post on Facebook.
‘Unsurprising & underwhelming,’ Briggs wrote.
‘What’s your identity @Storm? I could care less about pageantry but the thin veil of respect is finally gone.
‘We revealed a part owner $175,000 donated to the NO campaign. What’s a welcome worth when these are the people who are behind the decisions & identity of the club?’
The salary cap jibe is a reference to the Storm being caught deliberately flouting the salary cap by secretly overpaying players, which caused the NRL to strip all the club’s honours from 2006 and 2010 including two premierships in that time.
Briggs announced he would no longer support the Storm in 2023 after discovering a board member made a substantial contribution to the No campaign during the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum.
