Advance Australia Fair

Advance Australia Fair

The official national anthem of Australia, Advance Australia Fair, was composed by Peter Dodds McCormick, a Glasgow-born citizen who used the alias "Amicus" which meant "friend" in the nineteenth century. It was first sung by Andrew Fairfax during a function in Sydney on the celebration of St. Andrew's Day on November 30, 1878. The song swiftly gained popularity, and soon after was performed by a "ten-thousand-member choir' with their own amended version at the inaugural ceremony of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. Six years later, the Australian Government honored McCormick for his composition with £100.

Advance Australia Fair did not become Australia's national anthem until 1984; between that span of time, the song was used within Australia as a patriotic song and to broadcast news from the Australian Broadcasting Commission. The song had to face voting to become a national anthem, and among its entrants were the Royal anthem "God Save the Queen' and the "informal anthem" "Waltzing Matilda'.

The Government of Australia in 1970, certain that the country needed an anthem that could portray Australia with "distinction", started a contest in 1973. Named as the Australian National Anthem Quest, the contest was organized by the Australia Council for Arts, and was held in two phases; the first phase was to seek out lyrics, and the second phase was for music, with each having five-thousand Australian dollars as a prize for the winning entries. The Council for Arts recommended that none of the new entries were worth enough, so the competition ended with the proposal of Waltzing Matilda, Song of Australia, and Advance Australia Fair.

Advance Australia Fair surfaced as the most famous selection for the national anthem after a 1974 opinion poll, at the same time, a 1977 referendum for a national plebiscite was done to select the national song, and Advance Australia Song submitted a 43.6% vote, fairly compellingly overcoming the three options of Song of Australia, God Save the Queen, and Waltzing Matilda.

On the 19th of April 1984, Advance Australia Fair was adopted as the national anthem through a choice of the Labor government of Bob Hawke, although it still needed the proclamation of the governor-general to become official, the proclamation was signed on that day by the Governor General Sir Ninian Stephen.

As the song was adopted as a national anthem, some verses were dropped from the original version, as they dealt with British portions of Australia's legacy, together with virtues of Britain, three lines were also modified to endorse a non-sexist language and to depict the fact that Australia is not anymore a "youthful Commonwealth'.