Sky News presenter Chris Kenny has slammed Pauline Hanson’s impolite and disrespectful behaviour during Parliament’s Acknowledgement of Country.
The four One Nation senators turned their backs in protest in the chamber when the statement of respect for Indigenous Australians was read out as part of the traditional ceremonial opening of Parliament on Tuesday.
Hanson defended the action on Wednesday, saying she had been doing it for three years because she had had a ‘gutful of this Welcome to Parliament every morning.’
‘I have had enough and I do not want a Welcome to Country and to be disenfranchised from my own country that I was born here,’ she said on Sky News.
But Kenny jumped in, interrupting Hanson to say that he believed the ceremony was ‘overdone,’ but that turning her back was ‘impolite.’
‘I think it’s a really good initiative in the right place, at the right time,’ he said, as Hanson sighed deeply.
‘When you’re opening Parliament… it’s just a respectful way to acknowledge the land that we all live on, and the people that were here first, and the culture that is ongoing. It’s just polite.’
But Hanson, visibly shaking in fury, repeatedly said ‘No’ to Kenny, adding that she was ‘past being polite when I feel disenfranchised from my own country.’
Senator Pauline Hanson (pictured) was furious when questioned on her ‘impolite’ protest of an Acknowledgement of Country in parliament this week
The four One Nation senators turned their backs during the ceremonial opening
Kenny pushed back, interrupting again to ask the senator how she is disenfranchised ‘just to recognise our history.’
The senator claimed it was ‘divisive,’ diverting onto a tangent that children are ‘indoctrinated’ with the ceremony in schools.
‘This is causing division, it’s divisive. I’m not turning my back on the Australian people. That’s why I’m doing it and that’s why Australians are backing me – because they’ve got someone who has the guts to say we’ve had enough of this.
‘This happens every morning before Parliament is sitting – if it’s just the opening of Parliament I would accept that.’
Hanson said she was not being disrespectful.
‘I’m not turning my back on Australians. I’m turning my back on these policies and ideologies that are dividing our nation and the tokenism that’s going on.
‘I’ve been speaking about this for the last 30 years and look at the state of this country, it’s in one bloody hell of a mess. I’m not pulling a stunt. I’m sticking to my values, my principles and what I believe in. I want to see a country united as one nation, not this division that’s happening.
‘I am Australian and I welcome people that are born here and people who actually come from overseas to migrate here – I welcome everyone that has a right to this land.’
Sky’s Chris Kenny (pictured) called out the hypocrisy that there was no protest against the Lord’s Prayer which also was read in Parliament despite not all members being Christian
Later in the interview, Kenny raised the issue of hypocrisy, noting Hanson did not protest the Lord’s Prayer, which was also read in the Senate on Tuesday.
‘Not everybody in the Senate is Christian, yet people show their respect to that tradition,’ Kenny said.
But Hanson insisted that the Christian prayer is ‘tradition.’
‘(It’s) something that’s done right from the educational system and it’s been part of our history, Christian values that we have, and that’s been part of it,’ she said.
‘(It’s) not something that’s been made up, that’s been pushed down our bloody throats.
‘It’s saying that we acknowledge these people as the traditional owners to repay them respect as the past, present and emerging. Why should I pay someone respect if I don’t know who they are – because some of these elders I wouldn’t give them the time of day. People have to earn respect.’
Yawarllaayi/Gomeroi elder Barbara Flick Nicol told NITV in 2020 that a protocol to welcome and acknowledge visitors has existed among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities for thousands of years.
‘It’s always been something that we did as a people, understanding and observing the fact that when you are in somebody else’s country, that you acknowledge them,’ she said.
Welcome to Country ceremonies and land acknowledgements have been at the centre of a right-wing culture war after a group of neo-Nazis booed a Welcome to Country address during an Anzac Day dawn service in Melbourne earlier in 2025.
Labor has backed Welcome to Country ceremonies, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday celebrating the tradition as a powerful way to begin the new parliament and reflect on Australia’s history.
Albanese also took a veiled swipe at the stance of former Opposition leader Peter Dutton and some coalition MPs who branded Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement of Country proclamations as divisive and overdone.
‘Like a lot of the more positive things about our nation, we shouldn’t take it for granted,’ Albanese said.
‘It is not controversial today.’
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said the ceremony ‘set the tone as we re-commit ourselves to the taking of practical action to improve lives and expand opportunity for Indigenous Australians in every part of our great country’.
Welcome to Country is conducted by Traditional Owners, while Acknowledgement of Country is a statement of respect for Traditional Owners and connection to land, which can be given by an Indigenous or non-Indigenous person.
