Thank you Rainier, for your very kind words :) From the posts by you that I've come across you one of the most sensible people on OLO.
I'll contribute to Leigh's airfare, it's for a good cause.

Leigh is wrong that I don't have a connection with Australia.
I love Australia, it's beautiful and should be looked after.
It (sometimes even physically) hurts me when I see people abusing this country; when I see nature and animals suffer for one reason: profit for already rich corporations and people.

I have taught my children to be respectful of other people's properties. Australia is no-one's property. We have the privilege to live here and the duty to look after it.
I hope you taught your children that as well, Leigh, if you have kids.

Millions of people have to share it for perhaps millions more years to come.

Leigh may be partly right because what I don't feel is a connection with wowsers, facists, and politicians who don't respect nature. Australia is not their property even though they treat it as such.

Well, Leigh, as an Australian citizen it's YOUR responsibility to elect a government that doesn't put people and nature last and profit first.

That's why Amanda's song angered me- she happily sings about this beautiful country while the government fails to look after it. It feels totally wrong.

Vanstone invests in an cruel, intensive piggery, showing that she doesn't give a damn about animals let alone the rest of nature.
What else do government members invest in for profit? Live sheep export? Uranium?

Then she comes up with lyrics appraising Australia's nature. Hypocrite.
Australia is not as beautiful and healthy as it COULD have been! The government and it's members deliberately fail to understand that.

Leigh, if you don't want your government to be criticised by non-Australian citizens, then make sure you choose the right one and I'll clap my hands for you and for the government in admiration.

I'm done now ;)

Celivia said: "I love Australia, it's beautiful and should be looked after."

I'm glad that you appreciate Australia's unique environment. Unfortunately, many Australians are more concerned with their McMansions and plasma TVs to notice this land's natural beauty.

I've been to the Netherlands on a number of occasions. Nice country, although it seemed somewhat overpopulated by my standards (15 million people in an area smaller than Tasmania). That's why it worries me greatly when the Federal Government keeps pushing for a larger population here.

You're most welcome, Celivia (double entendre intended ;) )

Suffice to say that my views about 'Australia' aren't too far removed from yours (and, indeed, Oligarch's and others). For the record, I'm a third generation Anglo-Australian.

However, I'm very well educated and I've travelled widely, within Australia and globally.

Umm, can we all for a moment just stop and appreciate what we DO have, rather than moaning about all that is wrong? As for Amanda's song, well its not the best I've heard, but its not the worst either. If you think you can do better, then put up or shut up. We DO have a beautiful country - Dorothea Mackellar captured it quite well. Not the quaint green rolling hills of some countries, but with a passion and beauty of its own. And anyone who has actually stood out in the middle of now-where and watched the stars in the heavens, will know about the southern stars. And the aurora australis -pretty spectacular. If you dont know this, then get out of the city, off the freeway and away from the coast. Or bugger off elsewhere.

Sure, there are some things that we could have done better as a country, and things that we should do better. But that's the benefit of 20:20 hindsight, and gosh its easy to critise the decisions of others (particularly if they are dead and gone).

That’s cool, C.J.Morgan! Travelling always opens one's mind.

Countrygal, are you criticising the critics for criticising? :+)

While you are right about saying that we should appreciate what we do have, nobody here is saying that Australia with its Southern stars is not beautiful. It IS beautiful and should be preserved.
If we DO like what we have we should speak out when this is being destroyed.

Criticism of the lyrics is not meant to be a denial of Australia’s beauty but rather a appreciation of that beauty by rejecting hypocrisy.

The environmental issues are not a ‘hindsight’ thing only; we’ve been made aware of environmental issues- first by aboriginal people and then by other environmentalists and scientists- a long time ago but still many decisions by ignorant governments have been made in denial.
Decisions have been made and are still being made that favour the economy rather than the environment.

We are destructive and unless people are aware and pressure the government to clean up their actions, we are going to end up with an environment that is too sick to sustain us and our animals. We all rely on nature. Without an earth to sustain us, there won’t even BE an economy.

So I'd say to embrace the critics rather than gagging them is a way to speed things up a little, for nature's sake.
I hope you have signed the petition on:

http://www.cooltheglobe.com/index

Whilst the bit about the Southern Stars is correct and we all love our own night sky, there is no such thing as a 'Southern Sun'.
It's the same old Sun that they see in the Northern Hemesphere and at the same time. It may be the southern sun to those enduring the Artic night (and vise versa for the other Pole) but she ain't lyricising about there.

Pedants against Pretension Arise.