Because Australia was settled by the British, the official national anthem from 1788 to 1984 was God Save the King or Queen (whichever was appropriate at the time).  From 1840 on, there were numerous competitions to choose a different, more Australian, anthem.  However this was resisted by many people because Australians are conservative about change and have the attitude that if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.  There has also always been a strong royalist component to the nation that wants to keep our ties with Great Britain and the Commonwealth.  As well as attempts to change the national anthem, there have also been attempts to change the flag, which have all failed so far, and even a referendum to become a republic, which also failed.

What did finally change was the national anthem.  In the early 1800’s several people wrote and proposed new anthems.  John Dunmore Lang wrote two contenders:  an Australian Anthem and an Australian Hymn in 1826.  In 1860, Carl Linger wrote The Song of Australia.  Waltzing Matilda, arguably the most well known Australian song in the world, was composed in 1895, with words by the famous Australian poet, Banjo Patterson.  Advance Australia Fair was written in about 1878 by Peter Dodds McCormick.  However, nothing came of the efforts to change the anthem until the 20th century.

In 1956, Melbourne hosted the Summer Olympics and this was accompanied by a wave of pride in Australia and a fresh call for a new, distinctively Australian national anthem.  Many people found it uncomfortable that God Save the Queen was played when Australia won medals, as if the athletes were playing for Great Britain.  By this time the two most popular contenders for the honour of national anthem were Advance Australia Fair and Waltzing Matilda.

For Australia Day, 1972, a quest was held for an Australian anthem and over 400 entries were received, so it had obviously become a popular issue in the minds of many.  A year later, a competition was announced and this received 2500 entries for the words and another 1300 entries for the music.  The judges chose six entries for the words but rejected all the musical entries.

The next step was an opinion poll.  By this time Australia had a new Labor government, led by Gough Whitlam, after years of leadership by the conservative Liberal party.  The Whitlam government was responsible for sweeping reforms, one of which was to change the national anthem.  In 1974, a poll of about sixty thousand people was held, where they were given the choice between God Save the Queen, Advance Australia Fair and Waltzing Matilda.  Advance Australia Fair slipped in with just over 51% of the vote. On the basis of this, Whitlam announced that Advance Australia Fair would be played at all but royal occasions, when God Save the Queen would be played.

In 1975 the Whitlam government was thrown out and the Liberals were back in power.  They decided that God Save the Queen would also be played at vice-regal,  defense, and ‘loyal toast’ occasions as well as Royal ones, but Advance Australia Fair could be used for other occasions.

In 1977 a national poll was held and seven million people voted.  Advance Australia Fair got the most votes at 43%.  My favourite, Waltzing Matilda, got only 28% but that was more than God Save the Queen, which only polled about 19% of the votes.  A fourth entrant, Song of Australia, was preferred by only ten percent of the population.  However after preferences were sorted out (a complicated and very Australian way of voting), Advance Australia Fair was the clear winner, with 65% of the votes. Waltzing Matilda came in a distant second with only 35% of the vote.   Even so, there was a lot of opposition to any change at all, so the issue stagnated until 1984.

Finally in that year, with the assistance of a new Labor government under Bob Hawke,  Advance Australia Fair was officially recognised as the national anthem and was first played overseas for winning Aussie athletes at the Los Angeles Olympics. However, the Queen’s representative in Australia, theGovernor-General, issued a proclamation that God Save the Queen would continue to be used at public engagements when members of the Royal family were present.  But at last we had our own distinctively Australian national anthem.  As a result, patriotic pide grew and Australians became the only English speaking peoples left who knew what the archaic word ‘girt’ meant, (from the line,’ our home is girt by sea’).

Information sources:  http://www.dfat.gov.au/facts/nat_anthem.html    http://www.hamilton.net.au/advance.html