Mr Abbott was one of the guest speakers at the annual Kyabram chaplaincy dinner on Friday night, where he was quizzed on a range of topical issues.
Mr Abbott’s response to a question about the prevalence of the Indigenous Welcome to Country ceremonies and the flying of the Aboriginal flag received applause.
He said the welcomes were a relatively recent development.
“Initially it seemed to be a nice, polite way of acknowledging that Aboriginal people hadn’t always got a real good deal and we are doing our best to make up for it,” he said.
“But when you hear people talking about ‘always was, always will be’, unceded land, and they start talking about Invasion Day, it stops being unifying and starts being divisive.
“Sure, when NAIDOC Week, the anniversary of the apology, or something like that, let’s fly the Aboriginal flag.
“Likewise maybe on special days there could be acknowledgement, but as a matter of course before the opening of an envelope and the beginning of every meeting or start of every lecture at university, no way.”
Asked about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags flown at official ceremonies, Mr Abbott said there was one flag that belonged to all Australians.
“I reckon we should have just one flag,” he said.
Commenting on the death of the five-year old Indigenous child Kumanjayi Little Baby near Alice Springs, Mr Abbott said the town camps near Alice Springs were a place where the adults didn’t go to work and the kids didn’t go to school, and were treated by police treated as no-go zones most of the time.
“The only culture in these places will be unemployment, family violence and suffering,” he said.
“We’ve got to change that. With jobs, education and policing.
“The same standards that apply in Kyabram should apply to these places.”
Mr Abbott, who was prime minister from 2013 to 2015, began a series of visits to remote Aboriginal communities in the 1990s, which he continued after his elevation to the cabinet and into the prime ministership.
He told the Kyabram dinner he planned to resume the visits this year by visiting Arnhem Land.
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