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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-02-09 Daily Xml
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SONG OF AUSTRALIA

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (14:47): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for the Status of Women a question about the 2011 Australia Day commemoration service.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY: Each year on Australia Day, the Adelaide Cemeteries Authority and a number of interested community organisations hold a memorial service at the grave of Carl Linger, the composer of the Song of Australia. They also pay tribute to Caroline Carleton, the poet who wrote the Song of Australia lyrics. I, and a number of other members here, have had the pleasure of attending this ceremony on a couple of occasions, and it is a very moving occasion. Will the minister inform the house about the recent memorial service which took place to recognise both the composer and the writer of the Song of Australia?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Public Sector Management, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister for Government Enterprises) (14:48): It was a truly remarkable event, which paid tribute to a very unique part of our state's cultural heritage. On Wednesday 26 January this year, I had the privilege of representing the Premier at an Australia Day ceremony that resonated with a distinctly South Australian charm. The Song of Australia, which will be known to some of the older members here who attended school in South Australia four or five decades ago, was at one stage a strong contender for our national anthem. In fact, I have a couple of members on my staff who used to sing this song each day at their school and line up in front of the flag—and I can hear a few behind me saying yes, they did, as well.

The Song of Australia was conceived in 1858 as an anthem designed to help unite the then separate colonies and provinces of Australia into a national whole. The competition run by the Gawler Institute awarded the prize—

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins: Hear, hear!

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: Yes, the Gawler Institute has a long and proud history as well. The Gawler Institute awarded the prize to Carl Linger and Caroline Carleton, the composer and lyricist of Song of Australia respectively. Carl Linger is buried in the West Terrace cemetery and Caroline Carlton wrote the song—very stirring words—sitting in the cemetery. She actually composed it there; her husband managed the cemetery at the time.

A diverse group of people gathered at 9am on Australia Day, including the Adelaide German Band and the Adelaide Liedertafel (Australia's oldest male choir, which had just started at the time of the song's composition). We were given a brief history of the song and its writers and then heard a very beautiful rendition of the song by the band and the choir, with all joining in at the end, which was a lot of fun—not that I think my voice contributed much to it, but nevertheless we all got 10 out of 10 for trying.

Hearing the Song of Australia in this context gave cause for thought. When it was written 152 years ago, Australia was a very young country full of hope and optimism for the future and, even though it was a colony in its very earliest years, you can hear in both the music and the words of that song the full-blown romantic idealism of those times.

Although this was obviously a very different country from the Europe that the composers had left behind only a few years before, the music and words of the Song of Australia express a very profound love of what was their new land, and they were clearly celebrating the promises and the hope that it held for them and their family and community.

For Carl Linger, a refugee from the turbulent strife of Germany, it was a way of helping himself and his music credentials in his new home. For Caroline Carleton, obviously a very genteel woman who found herself living in a cemetery a very long way from her origins, the competition was a chance to show her considerable talent as a writer.

As Minister for the Status of Women, I would like to make a brief historical aside. After Mrs Carleton was announced as the competition winner, The Advertiser of 24 October 1859 published an anonymous and highly critical letter (nothing much has changed, has it Mr President?) about the poem, considering the poem to be way too feminine. In the writer's opinion, a national song must be, and I quote from that anonymous letter, 'bold, masculine and full of fire', something that a woman was not capable of composing. The fact that we were all gathered there at that fabulous memorial on that day clearly showed that the writer of 150-odd years ago was profoundly wrong.

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