The recent controversy over Welcome to Country ceremonies at Anzac Day events was ugly, but it also exposed something that can't be dismissed as mere prejudice or bad manners. 

The booing was disrespectful, unnecessary and predictably counterproductive. But the broader argument that followed, advanced by Angus Taylor, echoing Peter Dutton during the federal election campaign, deserves more serious consideration than it has received.

The argument isn't simply that Welcome to Country ceremonies are wrong, or that acknowledgements should disappear altogether. The more persuasive concern is that they have become routine, overused, and in many settings emptied of force.

A Welcome to Country at a major civic occasion has solemnity. Which is why it was utterly appropriate at the ANZAC Day dawn service. 

A thoughtful Acknowledgement of Country can also remind people of history and place. But when the same formulas appear at the start of every meeting, webinar, school assembly, conference, internal training session and corporate function - or the end of every flight - the act risks becoming less a mark of respect than a compliance ritual.

They are much less effective when multiple acknowledgements follow, one by one, at the same ceremony. Something can be worthy in principle and still be diminished by repetition. Rituals depend on meaning, occasion and sincerity. Strip those away and what remains is institutional box-ticking. 

That is the wider problem with 'Reconciliation Action Plans', or RAPs. They are little known outside of corporate Australia, but are a key reason why Acknowledgements and Welcomes to Country are inescapable. 

RAPs are efforts by big companies and organisations to move beyond warm words about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. A RAP sets out concrete commitments to improve relationships, build respect and create opportunities. 

For instance, in its RAP, Telstra pledges to review and improve HR policies and procedures about racism, implement an Indigenous recruitment and professional development strategy and include Acknowledgements of Country at the start of 'important internal meetings.'

The telco also pledges to invite a traditional owner of the land to provide a Welcome to Country at '10 significant events a year' and increase staff's understanding of the purpose and significance of Acknowledgement and Welcome to Country protocols. 

In its RAP, Qantas pledges to continue Acknowledgements of Country on 'all flights landing in Australia', increase its percentage of Indigenous staff and play First Nations music in all lounges.  

The RAP program is overseen by Reconciliation Australia (RA), a not-for-profit group which receives core funding from the Federal Government. RA formally endorses organisations' reconciliation efforts between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. 

Larger organisations pay $2,500 to enter the RAP process, though the fee itself is the least of it. The larger cost to organisations is the machinery that being involved generates.

In organisations, staff time is dedicated to implementing the RAP, consultants are hired, working groups are set up, reporting obligations set in place, design work implemented, events launched and cultural awareness programs and implementation systems initiated. 

In many organisations, RAP commitments are then folded into internal governance through new roles, scorecards and KPIs. 

What begins as a statement of goodwill can quickly become part of a company's performance management system.

In theory, there is nothing objectionable about a RAP. Indeed, much of it is plainly sensible. Employment pathways for Indigenous people are important. Indigenous procurement can direct real money to Indigenous businesses. 

Partnerships with local communities can improve services and understanding. Cultural awareness, done well, can reduce ignorance. But RAPs have also become part of a larger reconciliation industry: a system of templates, endorsements, committees, consultants, artwork, launches, acknowledgements, training modules, annual reports, internal working groups, procurement targets and performance indicators. 

What was meant to encourage practical action has too often become a managerial process. Reconciliation has been translated into the language of corporate governance.

The standard defence of RAPs is that they are voluntary. Technically, that is true. No private company, university, charity, sporting code or professional association is forced by law to adopt one. But being voluntary in institutional life is rarely that simple. 

Once a RAP becomes a badge of respectability (particularly for organisations that deal with government, universities, major companies, and NGOs, or those that rely on public funding) the pressure to conform is real.

A norm does not need legislation to have power; it only needs reputational consequences.

The critique from the right is that RAPs have drifted into ideological overreach. They can take organisations well beyond practical questions of employment, procurement or service delivery and into contested territory: the Uluru Statement, the Voice referendum, changing the date of Australia Day, constitutional recognition, cultural protocols and official positions on national identity. 

Supporters may say reconciliation is inherently political. Perhaps, but that is precisely the point. If RAPs are political documents, they should not be presented as neutral instruments of organisational virtue.

A hospital, bank, school, law firm or sporting club may reasonably ask how it can better serve Indigenous Australians. That is a practical question, but when the answer becomes a semi-standardised institutional script (complete with ceremonial protocols, internal targets, approved language and public moral positioning) the organisation has moved into the sphere of virtue-signalling.

Yet the critique from the left can be just as damaging, perhaps even more so. Many Indigenous and progressive critics don't think RAPs go too far, they worry that they do too little. 

Their argument is that RAPs allow powerful institutions to look sympathetic without giving up real power. A mining company can have a RAP while its core relationship with land and traditional owners remains commercially unequal. 

A university can have a RAP while Indigenous academics remain scarce in senior leadership positions. A government agency can have one while the systems it administers continue to fail Aboriginal people in practice.

For many on the left, RAPs aren't radical, they are domesticated, channelling questions of land, sovereignty, justice, child removal, deaths in custody and structural disadvantage into a language that large institutions can comfortably absorb. 

The harder questions are softened as these institutions learn the vocabulary of reconciliation without changing how they distribute power.

From the right RAPs look like organisations have been captured by ideology. From the left they can look like corporate laundering. Both criticisms converge on the same point: the system is often better at producing visible activity than measurable change.

Indigenous procurement is the strongest defence of the RAP model. If major organisations are spending billions with First Nations owned businesses, that can have real upsides. That's not just symbolism. 

But even here, hard questions remain. How much of the spending would have happened anyway? Is it spread widely or concentrated amongst a small number of well-positioned suppliers? Does it reach remote communities or mostly go to urban professional services firms? Are these contracts durable, or simply useful for reporting purposes? And while procurement is valuable, it's not the same as closing the gap.

Australia has become very good at producing the appearance of reconciliation while remaining stubbornly poor at delivering many of its promised outcomes. The language has improved, and the ceremonies have multiplied. Yet the core indicators of disadvantage remain resistant to change, despite all the money being spent.

The managerialisation of reconciliation may even make matters worse by creating incentives to perform the measurable parts well while neglecting the difficult ones. 

Once RAP commitments are tied to executive KPIs, internal scorecards or staff performance objectives, they become part of the machinery of organisational advancement. 

That may sharpen accountability, but it also risks turning moral seriousness into target chasing. The dashboard looks better, but whether anything important has changed is a less convenient question.

If Australians encounter reconciliation mainly through compulsory-sounding acknowledgements, workplace training and corporate statements, it shouldn't surprise anyone if cynicism grows. People are rarely won over by being managed.

RAPs may reassure the converted, but they risk hardening scepticism amongst those yet to be convinced. They may create more buy-in among executives, consultants and communications teams... but what about the rest of us?