An online petition pushing for John 'Sam' Newman to be booted from the AFL Hall of Fame has collected more that 12,000 signatures following his calls for Welcome to Country ceremonies to be 'booed'.

Speaking on his You Cannot Be Serious podcast last week, the controversial football figure advocated for mass reactions against the ceremonies at public gatherings, including the AFL grand final.

"What about this? So the next time you go to a public event, like the grand final, or a football game, or any public event in an auditorium and they trot out the Welcome to Country, start booing…or slow hand clapping," Newman said.

Asked "why?" by co-host and fellow former footballer Don Scott, Newman said "because we don't want to put up with it".

"We are not going to be patronised," Newman said.

His comments sparked a swath of backlash, with Newman later doubling-down on his calls in the days following.

Joining 3AW on Thursday, Newman said the public have "had a gut full of people telling us how to live our lives", labelled Welcomes "nonsense" and divisive before claiming Indigenous people delivering the welcome at games "get a nice stipend out of it".

"It's absolutely nonsense that we have people come out on the ground, Welcome us to the country that we live in, when settlement came in the mid 1770s. That's how this country started. Let's be honest," Newman said.

Newman had expressed his love for Indigenous legend of football, Geelong teammate and "the man I respected most on this planet", Graham 'Polly' Farmer before claiming the booing of Adam Goodes and Nicky Winmar's abuse received before his iconic stance at Victoria Park in 1993 were not about race.

3AW host Tony Jones later zeroed-in on Newman, asking "are you a racist?", with Newman opting to open a debate around the definition.

Newman slightly backtracked, saying he advocated for a "tongue in cheek" response to Welcomes.

In an additional guest appearance on conservative commentators Avi Yemini and Rukshan Fernando's The Opposition podcast, Newman suggested crowds sing the chorus of the song "I am Australian".

"If people just sang that song when they started the Welcome to Country ceremony and drowned it out it would be probably better than booing," he said.

On Thursday, Independent Senator and DjabWurrung Gunnai Gunditjmara woman Lidia Thorpe called Newman a "racist" and "irrelevant to any debate of the time".

"We all are on stolen land. There's never been a treaty, and a Welcome to Country is a way to bring people along on an understanding of the Country that you're all living on," Senator Thorpe said.

"It's about peace and the whole message behind a Welcome to Country is about respect and bringing people together.

"Sam Newman is not a respectful man at the best of times, so he needs to educate himself and not be so racist all the time."

Victorian Premier Dan Andrews later asked "why would you" boo a Welcome.

"I don't think that celebrating all that ownership, custodianship of Aboriginal people had given to us today. Those songlines, that history, the warmth with which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture is shared with the broader contemporary community. That's not something to boo," he said.

Outgoing AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan told 3AW "he couldn't agree less" with Newman's encouragement to slander the ceremonies.

Newman's plea did not win over the punters of preliminary finals at the weekend.

Welcome to Country ceremonies before each match were met with applause and cheers from many thousands in the stands.

A change.org petition has been launched calling for Newman to be removed from the Australian Football Hall of Fame.

Newman played 300 games for Geelong between 1964-1980 and was named in the Cats' team of the century.

The petition said his comments were "divisive" and "in no way acceptable".

"For a person to be inducted into the AFL Hall of Fame, they need to be of good character - for many years and on many occasions, Newman has demonstrated his poor (at best) character - it is time the AFL showed support (as they purport to do) for those he has continually disrespected with his disgusting comments, and for the AFL to take action and remove him from the Hall of Fame - an honour he is not worthy of," the petition reads.

The petition has amassed more than 13,000 signatures as of Monday.