Australians will be singing a different national anthem from January 1 after Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a change of a few words on Thursday.
The song will no longer call Australia “young and free” – an attempt to reflect the long history of indigenous people.
The Announcement
The announcement was surprising but received by the entire government.
Mr Morrison said he hoped the change would create a “spirit of unity”.
The people lived in Australia for tens of thousands of years before it was chosen and colonised by the kings especially the white English in the 18th century.
The line to be removed in the anthem, which is called Advance Australia Fair, is “For we are young and free”. Instead people will sing “For we are one and free.”
Earlier this year, New South Wales’s premier, Gladys Berejiklian, proposed the change, saying the current wordings did not concern Australia’s “First Nations culture”.
‘One And Free’
“Changing ‘young and free’ to ‘one and free’ takes nothing away, but I believe it adds much,” Prime Minister Morrison, who is a conservative, said.
“It recognises the distance we have travelled as a nation. It recognises that our national story is drawn from more than 300 national ancestries and language groups and we are the most successful multicultural nation on earth.”
He also said the change celebrates the solidarity of Australia during the outbreak of the coronavirus.
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese said the country “should be proud of the world’s oldest civilization and the people of the First Nations”.
In recent years Australia has made great strides in recognizing indigenous history in cultural and political events.
In December, rugby players for the national team sang the national anthem in an indigenous language for the first time. The team sang in the language of the Eora nation – a group of peoples from the Sydney area – before performing the anthem in English.
