Australians all let us rejoice, For we are young and free...
We have all sung and all heard Australia's National Anthem, and many Aussies are proud of their song but at the same time, there are many who want to see it changed or even replaced.
A Lake Macquarie Councillor could be one step closer to changing just one word after council moved a motion to write a letter to Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull asking for the worked "young" to be replaced instead by "strong".
Cr Brain Adamthwaite who is also a school principal, sais it was a conversation with an Indigenous student which prompted him to put the motion to council. An Indigenous student asked him if he really had to stand and sing a song which doesn't represent him, or his people.
"So I think that just looking at the words that we have to make them more relevant, relevant to our first Australians, relevant to our new Australians and relevant to our future Australians. We need to look at the word young and recognise we are not a young nation, we are a nation with a long rich cultural heritage," which started with the Indigenous communities of Australia said Cr Adamthwaite.
Cr Adamthwaite said it wouldn't be the first time the anthem would be changed, more than thirty years ago a different word was changed to better include each and every Australian.
"Since 1984 these words have been the words that we've sung as our National Anthem and a lot of people have sung that with pride over time and remembering of course that when it was accepted in 1984, one word was changed then to change the word from "sons" to "all" to encompass all of our citizens not just the males in society."
