A man is expected to be charged with offensive behaviour after a group including a “known neo-Nazi” booed and heckled during the welcome to country at Anzac Day dawn ceremonies in Melbourne and Perth.
A small group of people booed and yelled throughout the welcome delivered by Bunurong elder Uncle Mark Brown at the 5:30am service at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance.
“This morning, I’m here to welcome everyone to my father’s country,” Brown said, speaking over the shouts.
“We all gather in the spirit of respect and unity and this welcome is an opportunity … to honour and respect the deep cultural heritage of the Bunurong people of the Kulin nations.”
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“What about the Anzacs?” one man shouted, while others yelled: “It’s our country … We don’t have to be welcomed.”
Others in the crowd shouted “Always was, always will be” and clapped and cheered over the top of the hecklers, who again booed and shouted as Victoria’s governor, Margaret Gardner, delivered an acknowledgment of country.
The co-chairs of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, Rueben Berg and Ngarra Murray, condemned the “racist attack” and praised Brown’s “strength and resolve”.
“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have a long and proud history of serving and sacrifice for this Country,” they said in a statement.
Victoria police said they interviewed a 26-year-old Kensington man for offensive behaviour and directed him to leave the Shrine of Remembrance. They intend to proceed with a summons and expect the man will be charged, a spokesperson said.
Victoria police declined to confirm reports of the man’s identity.
The booing was allegedly led by a “known neo-Nazi”, the veterans’ affairs minister, Matt Keogh, said.
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, slammed what she called a “hateful disruption”, as did RSL Victoria’s president, Robert Webster.
“[They] were completely disrespectful to veterans and the spirit of Anzac Day [but] the applause of everybody else attending drowned it out and showed the respect befitting of the occasion,” Webster said.
RSL Victoria said there were a “handful” of jeerers among the estimated 50,000 attenders at Friday morning’s Melbourne service, up from the 40,000-strong crowd in 2024.
Perth’s dawn service near Western Australia’s war memorial was also marred by jeers and booing, which the state premier, Roger Cook, described as “totally inappropriate, totally disrespectful, disgusting”.
A spokesperson for RSL WA said it was difficult to discern what they were saying or whether it was related to the welcome to country, delivered by Di Ryder, a Noongar woman and army veteran.
Dawn service brings stillness and emotion
The hecklers marred an otherwise solemn morning around the country, as hundreds of thousands of Australians marked 110 years since Australian and New Zealand defence forces landed at Gallipoli in Turkey.
At Sydney’s 4:30am service at the cenotaph in Martin Place, thousands of veterans and members of the public stood in silence for the service.
The rain paused as the service began and the crowd listened to the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, read Sydney Elliott Napier’s poem Salute and the army band played Abide With Me and God Save the King.
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Attending a dawn service for the first time was Faith, a data science student from Bali, Indonesia, who had only seen daytime Anzac commemorations.
“This one was more emotional knowing that this was held at 4:30 because that’s when soldiers get up,” they said.
“It makes me emotional knowing that there are people who put themselves after their own country.”
Amid the solemnity was pride and even levity when the rain resumed and umbrellas bloomed just as announcer Gareth McCray declared the ceremony’s conclusion.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the rain held off,” he said, smiling.
Showers pummelled Queensland’s Gold Coast and forced Southport’s RSL sub-branch to cancel events for community safety. Burleigh Heads did the same but a crowd amassed anyway to lay wreaths, honorary secretary Noel Patterson said.
“We cancelled it, but about 1,500 [people] showed up and we just had a very small service … [and] played the last post, read the Ode, raised the flag,” he said.
‘Extraordinary valour’
In Sydney, though, the sun broke through in time for the 9am march, drawing thousands to line up for a kilometre alongside the city’s Hyde Park.
The crowds watched as service men and women and their families passed, followed by marching bands and bagpipe ensembles performing traditional tunes as well as Down Under and I Am You Are We Are Australian.
Just as the uniformed marchers dispersed through the park, pushing prams, taking family photos or getting drinks with friends, their colleagues across the oceans were also marking 110 years since their predecessors landed at Anzac Cove.
Crowds gathered at Gallipoli, where Australia’s governor general, Sam Mostyn, paid tribute to the young men who “encountered the fury and the maelstrom of bullets and shrapnel”.
“There were incredible acts of extraordinary valour, stories of exceptional courage and sacrifice,” she said.
“But those who fought here … were just like us, the quiet, thoughtful mate, the hard worker, the loner, the larrikin.”
Additional reporting by Sarah Basford-Canales and Krishani Dhanji
