- Sunday Mail -
Australia Day Special
How Australian is Advance Australia Fair?
Australian identity is something or someone that represents Australia, in a positive or negative way, is up to interpretation. Songs and poems have been written about Australia, but how well do they represent us. In our Australia Day special we will be reviewing our National Anthem Advance Australia Fair, and seeing how well it represents our culture, practices and lifestyle.
Our National Anthem was originally written and composed in 1878 by Peter Dodds McCormick, but not until 19 April 1984 was it proclaimed as Australia’s National Anthem in which it replaced the current royal anthem of God Save the Queen.
The competition to find an Australian anthem was held in 1973, in which thousands of entries were made. The judges decided that they did not meet the standards of Waltzing Matilda or Advance Australia Fair.
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It includes five verses and the lost sixth verse. It unites the nation of any age, colour, shape and gender to bring Australians together as one. Often used to represent a team or organisation and performed at sport and community events.
In previous years, controversy has been caused by the possibility in changing the National Anthem. Judith Durham, speaking for the Aboriginal population, believes it should be changed to suit them more as they feel alienated and disregarded as there is no mention of stolen land. Jeff Kennett voiced his opinion in the matter, stating he wanted it changed to I am Australian by The Seekers. The change in the anthem was not approved and both our anthem and our country’s identity has not changed.
After a complete review of Advance Australia Fair, Australian Identity has been formed in a positive way, by reflecting the lifestyle and history of
The 2014 Walkley Award winning documentary, "Cronulla Riots: the day that shocked the nation" reveals to us a whole new side of Aussie culture. No more she’ll be right, no more fair go and sadly no more fair dinkum. The doco proved to all of us (or is it just me?) that the Australian identity isn’t really what we believe it to be. After viewing this documentary
There is a reference to our multiculturalism in the lines ‘All cultures together as one. Yet, individual until the game is won’. These lines acknowledge the fact that even though Australia is an increasingly Multicultural society, all Australians, regardless of their ethnic backgrounds, share the same values, principles and national identity.
stage for the development of Australian cultural identity and the values, attitudes and beliefs of
Paul Keating’s “The Redfern Address” is a text that allows responders to explore and understand the possibilities of belonging. The text is specifically aimed at helping non-indigenous Australians explore and understand the possibility of not belonging. This is communicated through the constant use of personal pronouns, e.g. ‘us’ or ‘we’, to direct the entire text at non-indigenous Australians like Keating.
My oral presentation being presented aims to prevent the original date of Australia day from being changed. Recent issues in the media have raised big concerns over the current date of Australia day as the national day that has been celebrated for years is deeply offensive to indigenous Australians and should be deemed as “invasion day”. Recent attempts to ban Australia through indigenous Australians protesting their way to deem Australia January 26th as “invasion day”.
“The day that we come together as a nation to celebrate what’s great about Australia and about being Australian.” That is the phrase used by the Australia Day National website to describe the traditional day that we all love to claim as our own. Correction, traditional may have been the wrong use of word seeing as though the day has only been celebrated by ALL states as a public holiday since 1994. To call it a tradition would be unwise, it’s more of a newly developed phenomenon that allows us to develop a dangerous sense of patriotism. It is through this developing sense of patriotism that, some would argue, our modern culture of exclusion and superiority is being predominant. A ‘white fella’ superiority that is driving us to celebrate the
Australia is a relatively young country; only becoming a unified nation in 1901 (Commonwealth of Australia, 2012). A young country is no different from a young person; identity is an issue. Questions of who am I and where do I fit in the world are asked, and unfortunately not often answered until a tragedy occurs. National identity is a sense of a nation and its people as a connected whole. This feeling of cohesiveness can be shaped by many events in a nation’s history but none more so than war. War is a stressful, traumatic affair that changes forever, not only the people that go to it but the nation as a whole. Many consider the Great War Australia’s tragedy where we became a nation (Bollard, 2013) with our own modern identity.
The Australian flag was chosen in 1901, when a competition was held to design our country’s flag. The guidelines of this competition included that the Union Jack and Southern Cross should appear on the flag. However, I believe that in the year 2001, the Australian flag needs to be changed. During the course of this essay, I will show that the Australian flag does not represent all Australians, in particular, Aboriginal Australians and that the symbols on our flag are no longer relevant and are not unique to Australia. I will also show that the present flag is not instantly recognisable and is too similar to flags of other countries.
Nearly four decades after the events at Eureka Stockade, Henry Lawson marked the death of the battle's leader, Peter Lalor, with an anti-establishment piece of verse, 'Eureka!'. In this and other poems such as his first, 'The Republic', 'The Fight of Eureka Stockade' and 'Freedom of the Wallaby', Lawson may well have been trying to light the fire of Australian nationalism and a move to independence with our own flag, The Southern Cross.
The first Anzac was acknowledged in London and referred as ‘the day Australia became a nation’
Since the time of federation the Aboriginal people have been fighting for their rights through protests, strikes and the notorious ‘day of mourning’. However, over the last century the Australian federal government has generated policies which manage and restrained that of the Aboriginal people’s rights, citizenships and general protection. The Australian government policy that has had the most significant impact on indigenous Australians is the assimilation policy. The reasons behind this include the influences that the stolen generation has had on the indigenous Australians, their relegated rights and their entitlement to vote and the impact that the policy has had on the indigenous people of Australia.
Australia is a very unique place, along with our multiculturalism there is also a strong heritage surrounding us. At first thought of Australian heritage we think about such landmarks as Uluru, The Sydney harbour bridge and The Sydney opera house, The Great Barrier reef and other internationally recognised places. But our heritage goes much deeper than that; it is far more than outstanding icons. Along with these icons there are also unsung places like the old cattle stations, Aboriginal missions, migrant hostels, War memorials, our unique wetlands and the towns and cities we have built. Adding all of these things together, helps to tell the story of who we are and how we have shaped this land in the unique identity it has today.
Australia Day, celebrated on the 26th of January every year, is a nationally recognised day that signifies the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet. It’s a historic event that also marks the beginning of the oppression of the Indigenous people, that still can occur today, no matter how much the Government has tried to atone for the sins of the past. Australia Day is a day of celebration and mourning, a fact that contributes to the constant bickering between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous. There are many who believe that the meaning behind the modern Australia Day is overshadowed by the past, which will prevent the nation from moving forward, much like Ben Roberts-Smith who published an opinion piece in the Herald Sun on the 26th
Through numerous poetic techniques Paterson has shown that the Australian diversity is as diverse as the country itself. The Australian identity concerns the way Australia is viewed by other people. There are a variety of different aspects that contribute to this identity of Australia which include historical icons. Paterson recognizes how lucky we are to live on a land notorious for its diverse landscape. He is signaling that we are missing out and we need to cherish the great land we were given.
...our in the development of Australian identity has been demonstrated through the ideas previously described. Our humour is very unique and is described as dry, anti-authoritarian, ironic, self-mocking and is able to stretch the boundaries of what is normally accepted by society. This humour plays an important part in the Australian Identity. Many events in Australia’s history have shaped our individual type of humour into what it is today such as the Anzacs at Gallipoli, early federation and settlement. Much of our humour has developed through times of great hardship such as the World Wars. Other countries see humour as a distinctive part of our identity. So it can now be seen that due to the overwhelming information explaining how and why humour is significant, that it can be realised that it played a very fundamental role in the development of Australian identity.