With no disrespect to Aboriginal Australians, Christians, or indeed anyone who prays, the earnest Australian custom of the acknowledgment of country is, of course, a postmodern prayer, with “always was, always will be” serving as its postmodern “amen”. As a public prayer, it is not meant to be answered; it is meant to be heard. It is what the Spectator columnist James Bartholomew called a “virtue signal”: a public proclamation that one is “kind, decent and virtuous”—or put another way, that one holds “right, approved, liberal media-elite opinions”.
People who really believe that the homes from which they are Zooming always were and always will be Aboriginal land—stolen land, no less, that was never ceded to colonial Australia—should do the right thing and return their stolen homes to their local Aboriginal land councils.
Which then segueways into an interesting take comparing today's "woke" with latter-day Calvinism.
The Money Shot:
People who want to do good, generally do good without making too much of a fuss about it. But people who only want to be seen to be good, without actually having to do anything about it, recite the acknowledgment of country—and the more elaborate, the better.
This.