Abbott sparks row over indigenous owners

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has sparked a war of words over the need to
acknowledge traditional owners of land by claiming it was "out-of-place tokenism".

In a criticism of the government, he accused Labor politicians of feeling obliged to
observe the practice regardless of the situation.
"There's a place for this in the right circumstances, but certainly there are many
occasions when it does look like tokenism," Mr Abbott said on Monday.
"To do it as a matter of course, to do it automatically, it does just look like
formalism."
He said Labor politicians were overburdened with a sense of political correctness,
telling News Limited it was the type of genuflection "these guys feel they have to
make".
But critics rounded on the opposition leader, labelling his comments "totally
disrespectful" and disappointing, although they have also since sparked debate about
what function such acknowledgments serve.
"It's about showing respect for the people who have lived here for thousands of
years," Ngunnawal elder Glenda Hyde told AAP.
"It's really disappointing for him to have made those comments. I think Tony Abbott
needs to go to a cultural awareness course."
As an example, Mr Abbott said Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's acknowledgment before an
address to an Australian Medical Association dinner was inappropriate.
But Ms Hyde said there could never be such a thing as acknowledgment overload.
"It's never going to be too much to us."
Meanwhile, the government was targeting what appeared to be another Liberal backflip.
Former opposition leader Brendan Nelson had once promised, in 2008, that "so long as
I have anything to with it, that we will have a welcome from Ngunnawal and their
descendants".
Mr Abbott was moving away from that position, a spokesman for Indigenous Affairs
Minister Jenny Macklin said.
This was disappointing given that "Welcome to Country acknowledgments can play an
important role for many Australians".
Fellow Liberal MPs were backing their boss on Monday, with Liberal frontbencher Eric
Abetz calling the acknowledgment paternalistic and questioning why God didn't also
deserve a mention.
Veteran backbencher Wilson Tuckey was much more inflammatory, labelling Aboriginal
recognition a "farce".
"I have never thanked anyone for the right to be on the soil that is Australian," he
told reporters.
He also criticised some performers of Welcome to Country as "grossly overweight" and
said life had gone downhill for Aboriginal people since the 1967 referendum.
Independent MP Rob Oakeshott and Australian Greens leader Bob Brown both called for
a formal acknowledgment of the traditional land owners to be made at the start of
every parliamentary day.