Australia Day: Lily Morrison waxes lyrical in poem for the nation
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has shared his 12-year-old daughter Lilly’s vision of the nation, filled with love and ancient dreaming, to commemorate Australia Day.
Scott Morrison has shared his 12-year-old daughter Lily’s vision of the nation, filled with love and ancient dreaming, to commemorate Australia Day.
Lily and her older sister, Abigail, 14, accompanied the Prime Minister to a citizenship ceremony in Canberra, the girls in brightly coloured dresses and linking arms as journalists peppered their father with questions. Amid the swarm, Lily shot her sister a startled smile.
Declining to name the poet, Mr Morrison said he would share a poem by a student from Year 6 in the Sutherland Shire, who had been asked to read Dorothea Mackellar’s A Sunburnt Country and write their own ode.
“My cherished home,” he read out, “filled with love and ancient dreaming. The high mountain ranges in between my gazes. With the outback on the horizon, we can see new beginnings.
“Through fire, famine, flood and pandemics, it’s us going, going, going. We will never tire out. We will keep our flags up and let it fly, fly, fly.”
Finishing with a joke about dropbears, he revealed the poet’s identity as his youngest daughter. Her great-great-aunt is poet Dame Mary Gilmore, whose face adorns the $10 note.
It’s not the first time the budding wordsmith has stolen the show. In 2018, the then nine-year-old was photographed hugging dad over a balustrade in parliament just after the then treasurer delivered the budget.
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