2 responses

1. 

   Russell Pollard

   Jun 24, 2025

   O’Dowd’s poem “Australia” is neither difficult to understand nor difficult to appreciate. In fact it was introduced to many of us in fifth form at high school from a collection called “In Fealty to Apollo”.

   I have been moved by it ever since.

   I don’t mean to be unkind but in my view your neo rap puff diddy bastardisation of it serves no one well. Sure you managed some natty lines but nothing that comes near to the sentiments explored by O’Dowd.

   The Founding Fathers of the Federation were doing something that colonialists in all their ignominy had never done before. They were thinking that for the first time in human history an entire continent and some nearby colonies might join together and work work as one people. They wrote of the high risk that the West, “n halcyon calm, might easily rebuild her fatal nest . . . bringing the wars and feudal inequalities of elsewhere to this continent, already divided by indigenous tribal lands with different languages and practices, and since European settlement into six colonies that would likely grow into competing nation states. Indeed to some extent that was already happening.

   Before the Suffragettes fought to give women the vote overseas, two British colonies, South Australia and New Zealand had largely given women the vote. The colony of New Zealand first, by a year, followed by the colony of South Australia where women were more fully enfranchised in that they didn’t only get to vote, they also got to stand for election. It was seriously imperfect but it was seriously revolutionary when the Federation formed. It meant that many women were voting from the get go in 1901 and even more across the Federation by 1903.

   In the motherland of the colonies, the UK, it didn’t happen until 1918 and then only for some women over 30. The Americans who parade their “democratic” ideals as if they invented democracy didn’t manage limited female suffrage, again for some white women over 30, until 1920 with the 19th Amendment to their Constitution.

   Greece, the so-called birthplace of democracy held out against female suffrage until 1952. Fiji, which along with New Zealand, had been a serious contender for inclusion in a unified Australian nation, waited until 1963. Even Switzerland waited until 1971.

   But it was the idea that there might be a place where men did not bend the knee as vassals and surfs to an upper, birth-entitled class, that excited the Federalists who by 1901 had succeeded across the entire continent invaliding the Tasmanian colony to remove colonial
   border.

   The notion that we should be pleased that the Puritans landed in the United States and that convicts landed in much of Australia holds true to this imperfect notion of equality.

   With hind sight there were so many sins of both omission and of commission. But the base for a society of people who were equal, who would never go to war with each other, was laid. O’Dowd was one of the dreamers,

   His poem in utterly wonderful. His descriptions of the beauties and wonders of this new land, with all its special possibilities for being a different place, bringing a better life for people, remains a powerful part of our modern history.

   It deserves a level of genuine respect as do other Federalist writings from that time. Your parody of it simply missed the entire point of where it sits in our complex national story.

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   1. 

      David Prater

      Jun 25, 2025

      Hi Russell, thanks for stopping by. We clearly have different views regarding the accessibility of O’Dowd’s poems; that’s understandable. However, I’m not sure what you mean by “neo rap puff diddy bastardisation” (seriously?), although I’ll take ‘natty’ as a word of praise, any time. As I’ve explained elsewhere on this site, I rewrote ‘Australia’ out of a sense that it, along with a lot of writing from the Federation era, no longer speaks to the realities of Australian life. I don’t think O’Dowd’s poem deserves unquestioned respect; nor would I seek to claim that my poem is any better or worse than the original. I was merely entering into a conversation with it as a poem and an expression of a context that has disappeared, irrevocably. You may feel that I’ve missed some kind of point, but I’d invite you to reflect on why you feel so strongly about that. And for what it’s worth, I really do find O’Dowd’s works have dated – ‘badly’, as Judith Wright put it – and can’t imagine any teacher would even consider assigning the poem ‘Australia’ for children growing up in Australia today. Have a great day!

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