While Pauline Hanson loses her shit over a 9 year-old refusing to stand for the national anthem, the rest of Australia is staggered that there are people who actually know the song at all.

“People know the words?” dumbfounded Sydney man Paul Tegan said. “Like, all of them? That’s a little un-Australian isn’t it?”

Mia Lucas from Brisbane said the story of nine year-old Harper Nielsen opting out of singing the anthem made her ashamed to be Australian. “It means that other kids must be standing up and belting out the shitty tune word for word. That’s not the Australia I know.

“Sing along for the first five words, fine. But if you’re a true patriot you’ll look down at your feet for the rest and mumble along until it gets to the last line, when you can amp up again”.

While most people interviewed could indeed recite the first five words of the anthem, most struggled to get further. “For we are limousines?” one person offered.

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