Acknowledgement of Country

Aboriginal Flag, yellow circle in the centre with a black background for the top half and a red background for the bottom half.

As a child I was taught respect, to show it and feel it. It’s personal for me to show respect in our community and in this vein I’m adamant that I will always perform an acknowledgement of country. As a relatively new Australian, arriving here in 1976 as a child, seeing the cultural divide between the First Nations People and those who came much later, I feel it is critical to our nation’s wellbeing to acknowledge the land we stand on as that of our First Nations People.

This is so important to me that I won’t exclude it from any ceremony, so if you don’t want this in your ceremony then I’m not going to be the Celebrant for you.

If you don’t know which of the First Nations land you are having your ceremony on that’s ok because I’ll find out for both of us. For example I know that my registered office in Fulham, Adelaide’s western suburbs is home to the Kaurna People, it’s on Kaurna Land.

As a largely multicultural nation these days made up of people from all over the globe, I would love to see us all embrace a more inclusive and accepting society. I love learning about their ancient history and truly believe that Aboriginal cultures are the oldest continuous cultures on Earth. I encourage anyone to sit down and listen to their stories and learn their history and get to know one of our First Nation’s peoples.

If you’re not sure which land you are on, have a look at this website: https://aiatsis.gov.au/