Rugby boss Hamish McLennan backs anthem in Eora

The national anthem should be sung in Eora alongside English at all sporting fixtures, Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan says.

Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan. Picture: Britta Campion

The national anthem should be sung in Eora alongside English at all sporting fixtures, Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan says.

The businessman said the version of Advance Australia Fair sung at the last Wallaby Test of the year — the December drawn fixture against Argentina — should “seriously be used at all international events and in all sports”.

Mr McLennan said he became convinced of the “unifying” potential power of the Indigenous anthem — sung in the Eora language of the Sydney region — when he heard it at the unveiling of this year’s Indigenous Wallabies jersey at the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence in October.

Mr McLennan said: “In my view many non-Indigenous Australians have struggled to work out how they connect with Aboriginal culture and the performance of the anthem that night at such a big public event — an international event — has absolutely lit a fire. I think a lot of Australians took a deep breath, bought into it, and loved it.”

Six-cap Wallaby centre Gary Ella, who was in the stands that night, admits to “goose bumps” when the anthem — sung first in Eora and then in English — struck up.

Some 250 orally transmitted languages are believed to have been spoken by Aboriginal communities before European settlement, but the surviving number is roughly half. The fragmentation and diversity of Indigenous languages, and their destruction over time, has made it difficult to agree on one common language for national and international events. The Maori Haka, in contrast, draws on the Indigenous language that was written in the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.

Mr McLennan said the absence of a standard Aboriginal language posed a challenge. “Our Indigenous culture is so diverse and it’s really hard to get agreement on one version of the anthem. Having said that South Africa (the South African national anthem incorporates three Indigenous languages alongside Afrikaans and English) and New Zealand are able to find a way through it.

“To me the logical choice is the language of the Aboriginal people who first encountered Europeans.”

But the Eora rendition of Advance Australia Fair was not universally applauded, with boxer and former NRL player Anthony Mundine and Indigenous league player Latrell Mitchell criticising the gesture.

Mundine said the national anthem remained a “theme song for the white Australian policy”.

“If they want to change things then actually change the words of the anthem.

“But you can’t just sing the same original text in Aboriginal language and think it’s going to fly with people,” he said.

“It got people talking but it still ain’t the right message. It looks good and sounded good when the Wallabies sang it and it looks like they’re giving back — but they’re not really giving back.”