Apologies if this topic has already been covered, but I've been "away" - and I didn't find it on a first search!

It seems the Wowsers are at it again (well, I guess having Little Johnny in power for so long was BOUND to encourage them) :
there are calls, spear-headed by the RSL of course (Returned Servicemen's League), to make it unlawful/illegal to perform Australia's National Anthem "Advance Australia Fair" in other than a stately, measured manner.

Here are just a few of the references :

(this is me fave)
http://www.smh.com.au/news/julia-baird/wowsers-cruel-the-wow-factor/2004/12/17/1102787272880.html

an excerpt from the Sydney Morning Herald
WOWSERS CRUEL THE WOW! FACTOR by Julia Baird :

...We love to think of ourselves as a laidback, laconic, irreverent nation, until someone mucks about with our national song. Then the wowsers, the straiteners come out to play, frothed into a frenzy. They conflate nationalism with conformity and monoculturalism, with pomposity and gravity. As though to be proud of your country you need to be poker-faced, hand-on-chest, listening to identical renditions of a fairly mediocre tune we are only fond of because it is our anthem.

A wonderfully crafted letter came from Cathy Bannister in the ACT: "In every suburb, from out of dark corners, blanket boxes, dresser drawers and closets, shaking off mothballs and smelling slightly damp, Australia's defenders of the national anthem are stirring. Lo, for here come the Naphthalene Avengers, the hills echoing with their distinctive, hoarse, grunting cry, the sky dark with upraised bony knuckles. What a sight."
Beautifully put ...."


also checkout :
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1462320.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/stories/s459751.htm

and so it goes on ...




Cheers! R-J