When children stand and sing the Australian national anthem together, they are being initiated into citizenship.

"Everyone please stand for the national anthem." Those are the words that echo throughout a crowd seconds before sisters Jess and Lisa Orgiliasso launch into their most enduring song to date.

As a nation, we’ve been wobbly about this particular song for decades, as several competitions to find a national song we can all agree on testify — one as early as 1952. In 2001, the National Party ...