We all know about how "Advance Australia Fair" was first performed in the middle of a outbreak of race riots, right?

As @LukeLPearson points out here, the cosmetic change of one word is pretty pathetic.

But we've genuinely forgotten the context in which the song was written: an outbreak of anti-Chinese violence in 1870s Sydney, which ultimately led to Federation. https://twitter.com/IndigenousX/status/1344784440464080896?s=20

Here's the Sydney Morning Herald's account of its first performance on St. Andrews Day, 30 November 1878:

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13425798

On the adjoining column is an account of an incident the same week when two well-dressed men in black coats and white shirt-fronts brutally attacked a Chinese man in Essex Street in the Rocks with a hammer:

This wasn't an isolated incident. In fact, racist anti-Chinese agitation in November 1878 in Sydney was a crucial turning point in Australia's Federation as a unified country.

There had been periodic race riots against Chinese miners on the goldfields of Victoria and Queensland since the 1850s but the 1878 Seamen's Strike was the first time this came to urban Australia.

The Seamen's Union started agitating against the Australasian Steam Navigation Company in July 1878 about its hiring of Chinese labourers as ship crew. By November it had turned into a mass strike.

There was very serious unrest. After a meeting in Hyde Park on 4 December a few days after "Advance Australia Fair" debuted, a mob of 2,000 people carrying torches attempted to burn down a Chinese-owned business and attacked people in the street:

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/75741906

The agitation spread like wildfire.

The Sydney Evening News edition reporting another early performance of "Advance Australia Fair" in early December 1878 records anti-Chinese meetings in Bathurst, Mudgee, Goulburn, Wellington and Brisbane:

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/107945357

The Seamen's Strike was arguably the start of the union movement in Australia. It also led to 1881 legislation restricting Chinese migration into New South Wales.

The reluctance of most states to pass such legislation in line with NSW and Victoria was one of the driving forces behind Federation.

Read the original four-verse text of the song – with its lines about "English soil and fatherland" and promises to "rouse to arms" against "foreign foe" — and consider the race riots that were playing out in the same city when it was first performed.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/62087415

There aren't many good national anthems IMO, but that history does leave a particularly bad taste in my mouth, regardless of how much the lyrics are cleaned up.