To the organisers of Anzac Day Dawn Services across Australia – including the RSL, local councils, state governments, and all committees responsible for the national Dawn Service in Canberra and every local service:

We, the undersigned Australian citizens and veterans’ families, respectfully but firmly demand that the “Welcome to Country” ceremony be removed from every Anzac Day Dawn Service starting with Anzac Day 2027.

Anzac Day is not a political or cultural festival. It is a solemn day of national remembrance for the more than 60,000 Australians who died in war and the hundreds of thousands who served. The Dawn Service and its two-minute silence are sacred. They exist so that every Australian – regardless of background – can stand together in silence and gratitude for those who gave their lives so we could live in a free country.

Yet in recent years, many Dawn Services have inserted a “Welcome to Country” by an Indigenous elder immediately before the two-minute silence. This practice has deeply offended a very large number of Australians for the following reasons:

1. We were born here. Millions of us are fifth-, sixth-, or seventh-generation Australians. Our families have lived, worked, fought, and died on this soil for well over a century. To be formally “welcomed” to the country of our birth by anyone feels insulting and absurd. It tells us we are guests in our own home.
2. It undermines the meaning of the day. Anzac Day is about shared sacrifice and national unity. The “Welcome to Country” turns the focus onto one group’s prior occupation of the land rather than on the men and women who died wearing the Australian uniform – including the thousands of Indigenous Australians who also served and died for this country.
3. It creates division where none should exist. The two-minute silence is meant to be a moment of pure, undivided reverence. Placing a political/cultural acknowledgment immediately before it forces every attendee to confront a divisive modern ritual instead of simply remembering the fallen. Many people now feel they cannot attend their local Dawn Service without being made to feel like outsiders.
4. It is performative tokenism, not genuine respect. Most Australians support practical reconciliation, but compulsory welcomes at every public event – especially on the one day set aside purely for remembrance – have come to feel like mandatory ideological theatre rather than heartfelt tradition. Public sentiment against this practice at Anzac Day events is strong and growing.
5. It disrespects the wishes of many veterans and their families. The Anzac tradition was built by soldiers who fought under one flag for one nation. They did not ask for, nor would they have wanted, their day of remembrance to become a platform for contemporary identity politics.

We are not asking for the removal of Indigenous participation from Anzac Day – Indigenous servicemen and women are proudly honoured every year as equal Australians. We are simply asking that the Dawn Service return to its core purpose: the Last Post, the Ode, the two-minute silence, and the laying of wreaths – nothing else inserted before the silence.

Organisers have repeatedly claimed these ceremonies are “inclusive.” For a great many born-and-raised Australians they are the opposite. This petition is the clearest way for us to show you, with our names and our numbers, exactly how seriously we feel about this.

We therefore call on every organiser of every Anzac Day Dawn Service in Australia to:

• Remove the “Welcome to Country” from the official program for Anzac Day 2027 and all future years.
• Keep the Dawn Service focused solely on remembrance, gratitude, and national unity.

The Australian public is watching. The veterans’ families are watching. The men and women buried at Lone Pine, Fromelles, Kokoda, and in a hundred other battlefields are watching.

Sign this petition to send an unmistakable message: Anzac Day belongs to all of us. No one needs to be welcomed to the country they were born in, fought for, and love.

Petition Creator: Australians Against Welcome To Country.

Target: Organisers of of Anzac Day Dawn Services (RSL National, state RSL branches, federal and state governments, local councils)

Goal: 100,000 signatures