Let's start with the fact that the Australian national anthem is one of the youngest on the planet, and possibly the most unique.

Adopted as recently as 1984 following its selection in a national plebiscite in 1977, our youthful anthem is a rare baby among the rest of the world's anthems, many of which date back centuries, decades and generations. It is positively unique, as most of the Australians who modernised Peter McCormick's 1878 poem from song to anthem in readiness for 1984 are still alive.

In international terms, Advance Australia Fair is only just beginning to advance.

The Bureau of Statistics tells us that 12.6 million of today's Australians were born before 1977, which means that around half of our citizens were alive when we voted that God Save the Queen be shown the throne and Advance Australia Fair become our most solemn national chorus.

But what is it about our national anthem that separates it from being just another song?

Plenty!

In the first place, it's not a song.

Being an anthem, Advance Australia Fair is not a hymn, a tune, an air or a march, and like the rest of the world's anthems, is the exclusive vocal affirmation our nation uses to assert our collective identity and solidarity for the rest of the world to take note of.

It is the single piece of music every Australian has a slice of ownership in, and it's the only music that identifies every one of us as an Australian, wherever we may be.

And it's also exclusive to us - the only musical rhythm in the world that no one who is not Australian can claim rights over.

Like every other national anthem, it demands the utmost respect and consideration.

While Americans bow their heads and clutch their chests when their anthem is played, we show our Australian respect by stopping what we're doing and standing to attention in silence - unless we're in the last verse at an AFL grand final, of course, when 100,000 roaring Australians give the Richter scale a workout.

But what is it about national anthems that positions them above songs, hymns, tunes and marches?

It's none of those things, because while the tune is ours to play and the words are ours to sing, our national anthem is not ours to do with as we might like.

The common thread in all national anthems is that they reflect and celebrate their nation's history and its hopes - its past, present and future.

For Australia, where our history reaches back 50,000 years, there's a lot to sing about in an anthem that is just 35 years old.

Put simply, Australia's national anthem pays homage and respect to the millions of our fellow countrymen and countrywomen who have passed on after making their personal contributions, however big or small, to the Australia of their day, which we look back on now as the foundation of the free and thriving Australia we live in and love.

Every time we see, hear or join in our anthem we are given the chance to recognise and applaud the hard work of the thousands of labourers who built and maintained roads as my father did; the talents of the army of seamstresses who helped make uniforms for our soldiers in World War II as my mother did; the skills and commitment of the many carpenters who built houses for workers as my grandfather did; and the sweat of hundreds of blacksmiths who shod horses at the turn of the 20th century as my uncle did.

It also shines the light on the leadership, humanity and wisdom shown by Australia's Indigenous ancestors over millennia, including great modern-day leaders like the late Neville Bonner and Charles Perkins, as well as others, still alive, who took an active role in rewording McCormick's original panegyric.

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Our anthem is a celebration and commemoration of the millions of average and not-so-average Australians who are long gone but still alive in "history's page", advancing Australia fair.

The average Australian of today is far too busy and savvy to drop what they're doing and stand to attention for a mere song, hymn, tune or march!

But ask any Olympic medallist how it feels to be on the other side of the world, ungirt by our sea and smothered in the alien atmosphere of another country, when our anthem strikes up and delivers the gulping reality that there's a whole nation of Aussie, Aussie, Aussie's sharing their personal achievement at that very moment.

Or ask an Australian diplomat how it feels to be at work overseas representing this Commonwealth of ours, thousands of kilometres from home, when the anthem is played and the sacrifice of living away from family and friends day after day is suddenly worth the loneliness.

So while the Aboriginal lads have the right to turn their back on the anthem in protest, it is ironic in the extreme that they are turning their backs on the very people who lived, fought and in many cases died so that they could have the freedom to do what they plan to do.

On behalf of my family I personally find it grossly offensive. What part of "Australians all" don't they understand?

If an Australian consciously chooses not to sing our national anthem, we, as a nation, can consciously choose to ask for our Australian passport back. We can also suggest they find another country to represent internationally if they're that good at their sport.

While I recognise and accept that it's deep in the Australian psyche to rebel against authority at every opportunity, and Advance Australia Fair may not be the anthem every one of us would have selected, it did win the national plebiscite by almost a million votes. In a democracy like ours, that's a win.

Indeed, if there's one line in the national anthem I could accept to be updated, it's the first one.

Maybe it should say "Australians all, let us grow up".