This is the edited text of the homily for the Mass of Australia Day, at the Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary, at Domus Australia, 26 January 2026.
The Australian national anthem, Advance Australia Fair, was written by Scotsman Peter Dodds McCormick under the pen name Amicus. First performed by the Highland Society on St Andrew’s Day 1878, it was instantly a hit. Twenty-three years later it was sung by a choir of 10,000 at the inauguration of the Commonwealth of Australia, and McCormick paid £100 for his composition which now had symbolic status as our national song, even if God Save the Queen was still the official anthem.
Following competitions, polls and political shenanigans, Advance Australia Fair was on-again-off-again as our national anthem until finally adopted in 1984. The new anthem was repeatedly sanitised after the mood of the day. Nascent Australian nationalism and later multiculturalism meant the second and third verses which worshipped “gallant Cook from Albion”, “true British courage” and “Britannia rules the wave [sic]” could not stay. The fourth verse also, which threatened that Australians would “rouse to arms like sires of yore” against any “foreign foe” that “dare[d] a foot to land”, sounded too militaristic.
So a new verse replaced the second, third and fourth ones in 1901. But “Australia’s sons let us rejoice” and “For loyal sons beyond the seas” were judged too sexist by 1984, and were replaced with “Australians all let us rejoice” and “For those who’ve come across the seas”. In 2021 “we are young and free” and “our youthful Commonwealth” were also corrected, as it was decided that Australia’s long Indigenous history made it an old country not a new one: now we sing “we are one and free” and “this Commonwealth of ours”. There may well be more fiddling with the anthem in the future.
Not everyone approved of Australia breaking with the British empire’s anthem. Some thought it disloyal. Others thought Advance Australia Fair too jingoistic. Some judged it musically or lyrically weak, with a National Party senator warning that “the nation risks singing itself to sleep, with boring music and words impossible to understand”. Others deplored archaic constructions like “our land is girt by sea”—which is famously misheard by young Australians as “dirt by sea”. Some refuse to sing or stand for the anthem. But one way or another, it seems it’s here to stay.
What was it so endeared the song to ordinary Australians and their political masters? Though we are purportedly the nation of “the fair go”, the word “fair” in the title probably referred more to the beauty of the land and sea than its sense of justice. The song praises “nature’s gifts of beauty rich and rare”, “golden soil and wealth for toil”, and the “radiant Southern Cross”. It also celebrates civic virtues such as pride in our past and hope for our future, hospitality to newcomers, unity and freedom, industry, fortitude and joy.
But does the song still capture our spirit and honour the right things about us? The celebration of the land, for instance, may be somewhat romanticised, considering how the settlers gained it and the indigenous people lost it, how hard it was to work, how often it’s been trashed for its resources, and how much of it is desert, bushfire-prone or regularly flooded. Foreigners point out that it is surrounded by sharks and stingers, and inhabited by deadly snakes and spiders! Yet no one doubts that “our land abounds in nature’s gifts of beauty rich and rare”.
Australian “wealth for toil” may also be overstated, given how dependent we are on a single industry of mining, on particular trading partners such as China, and on the world economy, but we have withstood global shocks more robustly than most economies and most of our citizens are affluent by world standards. Respect for human rights, institutions of law and order, and high standards of education, healthcare and welfare mean that, despite the complexities of penal settlement and immigration, we have remained “one and free” and shared our “boundless plains”. And though our egalitarianism, good humour and relaxed social style may be somewhat overstated, the “joyful strains” of the national song do capture something of our national character.
But there are real strains amidst those joyful strains. No one would pretend that the work of Aboriginal Reconciliation and reducing various “gaps” has been completed. Confidence in Australia’s civic life has declined, due to partisanship, opportunism, identity politics and manufactured grievance. Our economy has yielded little in terms of real wage increases to ordinary Australians for decades, and the costs of living and especially housing have left many struggling. Our culture is divided over issues such as indigenous recognition and immigration. Not everyone seems to share in national pride and hope: some would rather nurse ancient grievances. Our moral-spiritual culture is also troubled, with secularisation leaving us without a unifying vision, and with deep divisions over human life and love, race and religion, and other matters. All of which contributes to ambivalence, even embarrassment, in many quarters about Australia Day.
Most recently we faced the horrific Bondi terrorist incident. It followed two years of vandalism, fire-bombings of synagogues, and routine mass protests demanding death to the Jews, highlighting enduring antisemitism in some hearts and parts of our society. Despite some immediate “pulling together” in sympathy and grief, the swift legislative response yielded more polarisation. All of which reminds us that Australia, for all its natural gifts and human virtues, is a nation ever in need of reflection and renewal.
One of the most striking absences from Advance Australia Fair is any explicit reference to God. The old anthem opened with an invocation of the divine, whereas the new one contains only an oblique allusion to the Cross—a constellation in the night skies discerned only by a Christian eye. Yet the particular values celebrated in the anthem such as unity and freedom, beauty and industry, hospitality and joy, fortitude and gratitude are inherited from Judeo-Christian civilization and its particular take on each. They find their origins in the Law and Prophets, and especially in the teachings of Jesus Christ, such as we heard today in His beatification of the poor, meek, merciful, pure and peaceful (Mt 5:1-12). More than pious sentiments or fine-sounding words, these beatitudes are a blue-print for human flourishing and social cohesion to which Australia used to aspire.
So, when we sing of our willingness to share our “boundless plains”, we echo the Gospel’s call to be a blessing for the poor, meek and hungry, such that “they will inherit the earth”. When we “all rejoice… in joyful strains”, we are conscious of those who mourn like the victims of Bondi, and with Christ we are determined that they be “comforted”. When we prize our being “one and free”, we honour those who thirst for justice and peace, determined to root out prejudice and violence. In proclaiming our aspiration to be “Australia fair”– both beautiful and just – we commit to prioritising the common good.
St Paul in our epistle imagines what this might look like in practice: a people whose preference is for good over evil, who respect one another as siblings, who work together persevering in hope, who share in each other’s fortunes, and who demonstrate a sincere love or neighbourliness (Rom 12:9-13). All of this, he thought, requires a more-than-human grace and so that we must remain “faithful in prayer”. Only with such civic, cultural and spiritual virtues can Isaiah’s dream be realised, of a land where justice abides, where righteousness sprouts, with peace and security. So when awarded today the honour of Companion of the Order of Australia, Cathy Freeman explained that it was prayer books that as a little girl “fed her brain” with values like “unity, harmony, peace” and she called on Australia to demonstrate those virtues to our world.
Dear friends, this Australia Day we give thanks for the many gifts we have inherited, whilst facing the challenges of nation-building head on. We pray from the corner of a foreign field, indeed from the Holy City of Rome, that we will always be people of genuine community and hospitality, courage and compassion, justice and peace, until our nation is that “peaceful habitation” for which every heart hungers, “a home secure, undisturbed and restful” beneath our radiant Southern Cross!
