October 21

Advance Australia Fair targetted by republicans

We know the republicans plan to get rid of our constitutional system and our flag. It seems that they are planning to get rid of Advance Australia Fair as well.

 

 

 

The republicans have just revealed their choice for a new anthem, with music composed by Ross Edwards, as part of a new symphony performed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and a choir at the Sydney Opera House. This republican extravaganza took place on Wednesday evening, 18 October, 2006.  New South Welshmen are used to calls for a new anthem. Not so long ago, while in office, the former Premier, the Hon. Bob Carr also called for a new anthem.

 

 

Mr. Edwards thinks Advance Australia Fair is "truly appalling”. The words to this ‘new anthem’ were written by David Malouf. The music was commissioned by Andrew and Renata Kaldor. The composer says Mr Kaldor is “a great republican, so I have tried to work the music around that theme. I asked David to write words that I could muck about with, you know, something that is almost like a chant that I can transpose the lines, use them in different ways. He came up with something that is like an anthem, a beautiful text, with subtle meanings and plays on words that are fundamentally about Australia." (Angela Bennie, “Written with the stars in mind”  Sydney Morning Herald 16 October, 2006)

 

 

Reporting this in the Daily Telegraph on 18 October, 2006, Simon Ferguson began “Australians all let us rejoice, for we have a new national anthem. Sort of.”

 

 

 

 

He said that the words of the new republican anthem, Promised Land are:

 

 

“Land of promise, promised land.

 

 

Still to be entered, still to be found, but close, mysterious.

 

 

The rainbow serpent seeking its sky-body in this covenant, this arc from earth to earth, these towers, this water city, these coral reefs, unit on living unit, built of breath.

 

 

Commonwealth. Commonwealth. All that holds us, all that we hold, this common story built of breath.

 

 

Commonwealth. Commonwealth.

 

 

All that holds us, keeps us whole.

 

 

Land of promise.

 

 

Close. Mysterious. Promised land.

 

 

Still to be entered, still to be found.”

 

 

 

In a letter published in the Daily Telegraph on 19 October, 2006 Ron Elphick of Buff Point, NSW wrote that this “.. is the most pretentious piece of rubbish I have heard since the NRL’s promotional drivel, ’Blow that whistle, ref.’

 

 How embarrassing.”

 

 

The anthem was panned in the Daily Telgraph and on talkback radio. However the  ABC decided it  was sufficiently newsworthy, readers report, to make the news bulletins as a serious item.

 

 

We may well ask to what extent taxpayers subsidized this republican assault on Advance Australia Fair?

 

 


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