"Australia's Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, beamed with smugness…".

At last! someone else actually notices the AdMan's smug mug. As for his "how good is Australia" smirk: well, not much good at all as long as we spend so much time and money on a tiny minority of activists who will never be happy.

The anthem "reflects" nothing either. Australia badly needs good government by people who actually care about the country, not silly songs and pathetic symbolism. As for NSW Gladys's recognition of "tens of thousands of years", bulldust! What we need to recognise is the dog's breakfast she and her kind are making of handling the present. 60,000 years, or whatever, is totally irrelevant.

While the anthem "reflects" nothing - at least nothing practical or important - the waffle about changing a word to "include" people who are already included clearly shows what a bunch of amateurish, self-serving wackjobs are in charge, particularly at the top.

ttbn,

60,000 years ago the first peoples were collectively African-Australians.

It has been estimated that it took them just over 300 years to wander into Australia after crossing the Arabian peninsula from East Africa.

They didn't become Aboriginal-Australians until we got multiculturalism so that they could be pigeon-holed along with Australian-Australians, Chinese-Australian, Argentinian-Australians, Norwegian-Australians, etc.

Planta's SUPERIOR DE-GIRT-IFICATION OF OUR ANTHEM

Here's "ADVANCE AUSTRALIA FAIR" currently http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_Australia_Fair#Lyrics .

It takes in "one" in the 2nd line

I think its improved if the Archaic/Germanic god-awful "girt" is removed from the 4th line - done. So here tis:

Australians all let us rejoice,
For we are one and free;
We've golden soil and wealth for toil;
Our home, SURROUNDED BY OUR sea;
Our land abounds in nature's gifts
Of beauty rich and rare;
In history's page, let every stage
Advance Australia Fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia Fair.

Beneath our radiant Southern Cross
We'll toil with hearts and hands;
To make this Commonwealth of ours
Renowned of all the lands;
For those who've come across the seas
We've boundless plains to share;
With courage let us all combine
To Advance Australia Fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia Fair."

Whadayareckon fellow OLOsters?
_____________________________________

MOpy

Well may you speak of Hyphenated Australians, but we OLO-Australians RULE OK?!

plantagenet,

But then we can break even that down into groups of Australian-OLO-Australians, non-Australian-Chinese-OLO-Australians, New Zealand-OLO-Australians, etc.

It's a multicultural dilemma.

Makes poor old Mr Opinion wish he was Chinese.

I for one, just do not have a problem with this timely change!
Alan B.

Mr Opinion says,

"60,000 years ago the first peoples were collectively African-Australians.
It has been estimated that it took them just over 300 years to wander into Australia after crossing the Arabian peninsula from East Africa."

WTF is he talking about? It commonly acknowledged that aboriginals are descended from the same Eurasian peoples that just about everybody outside of Africa is. We know this because different tribes of Aboriginals have some Neanderthal DNA (like today's white Europeans do) in their genomes which it is theorised came from interbreding of Neanderthals and the Homo-sapiens that originally migrated out of Africa.

However, the story doesn't end there, because there is also Denisovian DNA there has well (quite a bit actually) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denisovan . And how it got there is a contested mystery because it can cause a contradiction of dates for the some of the major migration theories of the people who became the Australian Aboriginals and New Guineans.

But lastly, there is even more uncertainty in the mix. Because other DNA research has led to the speculation that there is even a third hominoid species that interbred with the ancestors of Aboriginals. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-26/dna-of-extinct-human-species-pacific-islanders-analysis-suggests/7968950 .

So all up the question of when and how Aboriginals/New Guinean migrated here is still actively debated and not a settled question.