It’s January 26th Australia day, well at least it is for a couple more hours while I write this. Well this afternoon I watched a clip of comedian Adam Hills at the 2003 Melbourne Comedy Festival performing the “Working Class Anthem” which for those of you who haven’t see the clip is singing the Australia National Anthem “Advance Australia Fair” to the tune of “Working Class Man”. This got me thinking about immigration in Australia particularly our record with Asylum-seekers and how successive governments have seemingly made Australia harder to get into then a night club and our national song particularly two lines in the second verse “For those who’ve come across the seas, We’ve boundless plains to share” and if given our record with the treatment of Asylum-seekers, does Australia actually have a right to have those lines in our national anthem.
Now, if you were to ask me about my opinion about Immigration and Asylum-seekers I would have to say that I have a severe case of having a fence post lodged in my butt. Now jumping the queue is a bad thing and the people who are waiting in refugee camps waiting to immigrate to Australia should be given priority. This is the part where the fence post becomes slightly uncomfortable I can’t help but admire the person who risks it all (including their life and the life of their family) to travel to Australia by any means necessary, and yes they should given a chance for a better life to.
Now all the dick moves regarding immigration in Australia are not all down to our current Prime Minister Tony Abbot, but his fingerprints are definitely all over any policy regarding Asylum-seekers which essentially boils down to two key points the Excision of Mainland Australia from Australia’s Migration Zone On May 16, 2013 and the current practice of the offshore processing of all ‘unauthorised arrivals’ on Manus island in Papua New Guinea.
Now I feel that it’s only right at this point in my little rant to say that if anybody feels that I have over-simplified Australia’s policies regarding Asylum-seekers, please take the time to fill in the blank spots in my knowledge.
Now considering Australia’s current immigration record, do we really have the right to sing about all the space we have to share in our national song? Shouldn’t the line be? “For those who’ve come across the seas, We’ve boundless plains to share, but only for those who have gone through the proper migration channels”.
It might not fit the constraints of the music but it’s a little more accurate, and before you get mad at me for wanting to change the words to Advance Australia Fair granted it was written in 1878 but is only been our National Anthem for 31 years.