An Indigenous elder has been stopped from performing a Welcome to Country ceremony that she was due to give at a Barack Obama event in Melbourne.
Aunty Joy Murphy Wandin says she was told she was being “too difficult” and was removed from event proceedings just hours before the talk was due to commence, according to the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation.
Wandin said she asked the event organisers Growth Faculty to allow her to have a support person accompany her and to provide Obama with a gift according to cultural practice.
But she said she was told the requests were too much.