It is time to admit that not all Australians
will want to sing an anthem that has
associations with the White Australia policy and
the country's colonial past.

For others the anthem pays lip service to words
of inclusion without living their reality.

"For those who've come across the seas
We've boundless plains to share
With courage let us all combine
To Advance Australia Fair."

We sing that Australia has plenty to offer those who
wish to come here but in reality we lock down our borders
to exclude refugees.

Therefore this anthem means different things
to different people.
And, sooner or later this problem
will have to be resolved, if enough people demand it.
This current anthem has had changes made over the
years. It sould not surprise any of us that more
changes lie ahead. It's not set in concrete.

Foxy,
You said "We sing that Australia has plenty to offer those who
wish to come here but in reality we lock down our borders
to exclude refugees".

Come on Foxy be honest. Look at the millions that we have welcomed here since WW11, immigrants and refugees. We had to take more control of our borders in recent times because foreigners were taking advantage of our generosity. All because a stupid Labor government made a wrong decision based on flawed ideology.

You do like to misrepresent things to suit your argument

So I think they've a right to be heard.

Agreed but perpetual ear bashing & whining must be replaced with positive effort !

Dear HenryL.,

Yes we have in the past embraced the perception
that we are warm and welcoming, happy to give
anyone a "fair go." Yet somewhere along the way this
narrative has now become justification for exclusion.
Australians have become so entrenched in a self-
serving narrative that we seem to believe there is
no room for others.

Where once we celebrated inclusion and mateship we now
have collectively turned our backs on people seeking
asylum by boat.

We look are ourselves as good-hearted but at refugees
as being devious. We are hard-working, refugees have
come to steal our jobs. Where we are seeking the
betterment of the future for our children, refugees
have come to destroy it through acts of terror.

The caricatures of asylum seekers are shocking in their
cliches, yet they now are deeply entrenched in our
culture.

This is not my scenario. The political strategy of
manipulating our cultural narrative to distance
asylum seekers has been employed to full effect in
recent years, allowing conservative parties to work fear
of terror, economic decline and impinging multiculturalism
to their advantage.

The mistrust of refugees has been a key agenda for
conservatives governments, there has been unchallenged
bi-partisan support of the mistreatment of refugees.

However public opinion appears to be slowly changing to
the positive. So there's hope for change yet.
Something positive may yet result out of all this.

I'm sorry if you find me offensive. All I can suggest
in that case that you stop finding me. :-)

Individual,

Hopefully with a new PM and cabinet, and a strong
opposition in Parliament, positive action will
be the result.

We'll know soon enough.

Guys, it has been said before, again and again, some people are incapable of rational reasoning and common sense, and some people simply refuse to reason because they lack common sense.
The bleeding hearts insist that we must welcome anyone in need, but refuse to acknowledge the result of those charitable acts and how they have impacted, more negatively, than positively, on us.
Taking the race and bigot cards out of the discussion, none of these people are prepared to accept or even believe that we cannot take any more people until we improve our own internal problems of un-employment and reliable food and water supplies.
I wish they would just shut up about it and look at the bigger picture.
I gave the analogy of the leaky lifeboat and that it could not take on any more people until they found a way to manage the leak.
But no, this is not what this naive mindless bunch want to hear.
They focus only on what makes them feel good and to hell with anyone else including their own families, because whether they like it or not, their families also risk being negatively affected by the foolish decision to allow more people in, when clearly we can't handle it at the moment.
This is where we see the mature, responsible people stand up and be prepared to make the unpopular decisions, for 'the greater good'.
These are issues which require pragmatic, objectivity and not emotional subjectivity.