Australia Day Council calls for a song to stop the nation

AUSTRALIANS should stop at midday on January 26 and sing the national anthem together, the head of the Australia Day Council says.

AUSTRALIANS should pause at midday on January 26 to sing the national anthem together, the head of the Australia Day Council says.

Jeremy Lasek said he’d like to see as many people as possible singing in recognition of the anthem as an “iconic national symbol”.

“It’s something worthy of singing proudly and passionately about,” he said.

“We’re down to two verses and the more we sing it the more chance that we know it off by heart.”

Advance Australia Fair remains the national anthem despite recent calls to replace it with Straya, which is sung to the tune of OutKast’s Hey Ya.

However, not everyone is passionate about Australia Day, as it marks the day the First Fleet arrived and the oppression of Aboriginal people began.

Respected elder Lowitja O’Donoghue, former Australian of the Year and member of the Stolen Generation, calls it “Invasion Day” and has been battling to get the date changed for years.

“I was Australian of the Year in 1984. I thought very long and hard about it at the time because as far as I’m concerned it’s Invasion Day, but I thought I’d give it a go,” she said.

“I thought I might have an opportunity to work towards changing the date. I would still like to see the date changed.

“I’m not supportive of Australia Day. I ask my people to fly their Aboriginal flags and not the Australian flag.”

Mr Lasek said he recognised that some people struggled with the day and that acknowledging the pain it caused could be an important step towards reconciliation.

“I think there’s a greater understanding of the importance of tolerance and recognition of the diversity of our nation,” he said.

“I think the idea’s grown and as it does grow and develop people will see it as a day that’s well and truly worthy of celebration, united as a nation and (without the) divisiveness of the past.”

The SA branch of the Council came up with the idea of ‘Australia Day at Work’, which encourages people to stop and share a cup of tea or a game of office cricket.

People in Adelaide yesterday had mixed views about the idea of singing the anthem in unison. Of 25 people asked, 15 said they would and 10 said they wouldn’t.

“I think it’s a very good idea … celebrating Australians being Australian,” Kym Marshall from Yorke Peninsula said.

“A minute of silence on Remembrance Day is understandable but that’s as corny as a joke out of a Christmas cracker,” Tom Betts of Munno Para West said.

Governor Hieu Van Le said on Friday that Australia Day was a day to “remember with respect our complicated and proud history”, and paid tribute to the “precious cultural legacy” of the Aboriginal people.