Page 1166 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 24 June 1992
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MR LAMONT: No, it is not wattleby; it is wallaby. I would have expected you, with your education, to understand what it meant. What I will do is go through it and try to give you a short history lesson of Australia. It reads:
Our fathers toiled for bitter bread
While idlers thrived beside them;
But food to eat and clothes to wear
Their native land denied them.
They left their native land in spite
Of royalties' regalia,
And so they came, or if they stole
Were sent out to Australia.
That epitomises the early history of Australia. It talks about the struggle of the peoples from around the world in terms of their native lands. It indicates part of our British heritage, our English tradition, if you like; but it also recognises that Australians came from other parts of the world. It goes on:
They struggled hard to make a home,
Hard grubbing 'twas and clearing.
They weren't troubled much with toffs
When they were pioneering;
And now that we have made the land
A garden full of promise,
Old greed must crook his dirty hand
And come to take it from us.
What that really represents is those ideologies that saw this country blossom in this century. It talks about hard work; it talks about the ability of people in this country to toil, to achieve objectives, to prosper.
Mr Moore: That is a strange interpretation. We can interpret poems differently.
MR LAMONT: We can, which is one of the reasons why you have had to write your own. What it also epitomises, Madam Speaker, is that a philosophy has grown up in this country that not all things that appear to be successful are. As far as the acquisition of capital and gain are concerned, the way in which that has been done has not always been in the best interests of Australia.
Bearing all that in mind, we also need to talk about the spirit of Australia, and that indeed is what the wattle represents. It has been used as an emblem not only in times of strife, throughout the wars that Australia has been involved in, but also in the joyous times Mrs Grassby represented in her address. It is something that has made Australians proudly Australian, a unique symbol of their country, much like the Southern Cross, an emblem which represents true Australia, with all its myriad backgrounds and all the diverse cultures we have developed from.
Mr Kaine: And South Africa and South America. They see it too.
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