Anti-immigration group claims it did not organise Anzac Day booing despite post asking ‘how loud will you be’

The Anzac Day dawn service at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne. Welcome to country ceremonies were disrupted at several events by some attenders booing. Photograph: Ye Myo Khant/SOPA Images/ShutterstockView image in fullscreenThe Anzac Day dawn service at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne. Welcome to country ceremonies were disrupted at several events by some attenders booing. Photograph: Ye Myo Khant/SOPA Images/ShutterstockAnzac DayAnti-immigration group claims it did not organise Anzac Day booing despite post asking ‘how loud will you be’Booing by rightwing groups of Indigenous leaders giving welcome to country speeches marred ceremonies for a second year running Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Josh Butler Mon 27 Apr 2026 05.48 EDTFirst published on Mon 27 Apr 2026 04.45 EDTSharePrefer the Guardian on GoogleAn anti-immigration group has claimed it did not “organise” booing at welcome to country ceremonies at Anzac Day dawn services despite a social media post asking followers “how loud will you be this year”.Booing by rightwing groups of Indigenous elders giving welcome to country speeches marred Anzac Day ceremonies for a second year running, and sparked another public debate about their role at public events. Uncle Ray Minniecon, who served in the armed forces and was booed while giving an acknowledgment of country at Sydney’s dawn service, said the mocking was “unexpected and unnecessary, but it happens”.Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email“Why do people hate us so much? What crime did we commit that brings this out from people? What did we do wrong to them? It’s mysterious to us,” Minniecon said on Sky News.Opposition to welcome to country ceremonies was encouraged by Fight for Australia, described by its leader as the “sister group” of March for Australia, which has staged major anti-immigration rallies across Australia. Guardian Australia reported on Friday that Fight for Australia had encouraged supporters to contact local RSL branches to ask welcomes to country not be included in Anzac Day ceremonies.Gina Rinehart calls for immigrants’ social media to be screened in Anzac memorial speech Read moreOn Friday, the group wrote “Will you be be [sic] booing the welcome to country this year?” alongside a video of Melbourne’s Anzac Day 2025 ceremony, where Bunurong elder Uncle Mark Brown was booed by members of the National Socialist Network. The video featured superimposed text reading: “how loud will you be this year?”March for Australia has 36,000 followers on its main Facebook page, and a community group with 21,000 members. The organiser of Fight for Australia and March for Australia who goes by the moniker “Bec Freedom”, and has been named as Bec Walker in other media reporting, has 35,000 Facebook followers and nearly 8,000 on social media platform X.Fight for Australia, which only launched in recent weeks, has much smaller follower numbers including 350 on Facebook and 242 on X. Each of these pages publish similar content and share posts from one another.Bec Freedom claimed her group did not “organise” the booing but also did not apologise for the activity.“I’d like to refute that this was a campaign organised by either myself or FightForAustralia/MarchForAustralia. We simply put a few posts up asking people if they would be booing this year due to the amount of grassroots public interest on this topic. But yes, I stand by the content I put out about it,” she said.She claimed…

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