Freedom on the Wallaby

Australia’s a big country an’ freedom’s humping bluey

An’ freedom’s on the wallaby, oh don’t you hear her cooey?

She’s just begun to boomerang, she’ll knock the tyrant silly

She’s gone to light another fir and boil another billy

Our father’s toiled for bitter bread, while loafers thrived beside ‘em

But food to eat and clothes to wear their native land denied ‘em

An’ so they left their native land in spite of their devotion

And so they came or if they stole, were sent across the ocean

Then freedom couldn’t stand the glare of royalty’s regalia

She left the loafers where they were and came out to Australia

And now across the mighty main the chains have come to bind her

She little thought to see again the wrongs they left behind her

Our father’s toiled to make a home, hard grubbin’ ‘twas and clearin’

They wasn’t troubled much with lords when they was pioneerin’

But now that we have made the land a garden full of promise

Old greed must crook his dirty hand an’ try an’ take it from us

So we must fly a rebel flag as others did before us

And we must sing a rebel song and join in rebel chorus

We’ll make the tyrant feel the sting of those they would throttle

They needn’t say the fault is ours if blood should stain the wattle

Freedom on the Wallaby:  H. Lawson / G. Morgan / R. Rummery

These words were written by Lawson just after the Queensland shearer’s strike of 1891. William Lane editor of The Boomerang around this time published a novel to raise money for the imprisoned leaders and Henry was inspired by Lane’s ideas of a new unionism.  Lane was leader of the Paraguay expedition in 1893 to found “Utopia” an exercise in which Lawson did not participate.  Debate about our being a republic still survives.  The tune was written by Geoff Morgan and adapted by Bob Rummery.