A long-serving mayor has slammed Welcome to Country ceremonies as ‘bulls***’ as debate continues to swirl around their appropriateness at council meetings. 

Trevor Pickering, 54, was first elected as mayor of Croydon Shire Council, in north Queensland, in 2012 before winning the following elections in 2016 and 2020.

Mr Pickering has taken issue with the shifting political climate, noting there has been a growing fixation on ‘risk assessed management plans’, preferred pronouns and phrases like ‘inclusion’ and ‘resilience’.  

Having served on the council since 2000, the fourth-generation cattle farmer said he has ‘had a gutful of the bulls**t’ and that he won’t contest the next vote.

When pressed on his views on Welcome to Country ceremonies, Mr Pickering said he refused to hold them at his council meetings.

‘I’ve got a nephew who is Aboriginal, I have other family members who identify as Aboriginal, I grew up with Aboriginal people, I befriended Aboriginal people,’ he told the Courier Mail.

‘That Welcome to Country stuff is all pure bulls**t.’

Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement of Country ceremonies have been a hot topic for councils around the country.

The mayor of north Queensland’s Croydon Shire Council, Trevor Pickering (pictured), will not contest the role at the next election after frustrations over ‘woke’ culture

In November, the Northern Areas Council, in South Australia, ditched its Acknowledgement of Country while the Shire of Harvey, in Western Australia, was left divided over its necessity with one councillor calling it ‘tokenistic’.

Welcome to Country ceremonies have also been under the spotlight in the corporate world. 

In May, an Aussie applying for a customer service role at an insurance company was left shocked after the hiring manager opened the interview with the ceremony.

Civil servants lashed out at Queensland’s Department of Justice and Attorney-General office the following month after staff were told to remove their shoes and wiggle their toes.

Mr Pickering said a majority of Aussies would be confronted by having someone regularly ‘welcome them’ to the land their families have lived on for 100 years.

Prominent ‘No’ campaigner Warren Mundine argued the ceremony had been hijacked despite it originally designed to bring Australians together. 

‘It has become divisive in the sense that, you know, “what about us, we’ve been here for awhile as well, this is our country” and everything like that,’ Mr Mundine said in March.

‘I think the trivialisation of it, that’s the problem. We should be doing proper welcomes and you shouldn’t have to do it at every meeting.

‘I go to some conferences and you spend half the day doing Welcome to Country.’

Mr Pickering took issue with Welcome to Country ceremonies (file image) which would be confronting to Aussies whose families have lived on the land for 100 years

Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council CEO Nathan Moran argued the ceremonies still centre around inclusivity but aired concerns it may become trivialised. 

‘I don’t think it’s about divisive, I think it’s about inclusion. I am concerned about trivialising it, it not being respected, delivered in an appropriate way,’ Mr Moran said.

‘I just hope it’s delivered in the right way by the right people, for myself who’s a representative of the Aboriginal community, we’re a democratic community, we have elected representatives who go out and represent us.