Australians woke up to a new year with a new national anthem after Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a change to the words on Thursday.

Theme song will no longer refer to Australia as young and free in an attempt to reflect the country's long indigenous history.

Australia has struggled for decades to reconcile with Aborigines who arrived on the continent some 50,000 years before British colonists.

Each year.

The country has a national holiday marking the date the first fleet sailed from Britain into Sydney and 17 88.

Some indigenous people refer to Australia Day as invasion day.

Morrison said the national anthem must be more reflective of the country's diversity.

Our anthem is about us, who we are and who we hope to be a swell where a strong and vibrant liberal democracy we live in a timeless land off ancient First Nations peoples.

Then we draw together the stories of more than 300 national ancestries and language groups.

Three idea to change the wording was floated in 2020 by New South Wales premier Glad disparity Cleon, who said the current wording ignored Australia's quote proud First Nations culture, there is now a renewed focus on indigenous empowerment amid the black lives matter movement.