I love this sunburnt country, this land of rubbervine
Smothered rainforest. In the desert athel pine.
I'd love to see the far horizon but I can't because of these
Thick an' prickly, African, acacia trees.

In Africa the antelope Rhinos and giraffe
Keep them trimmed by eating both the top and bottom half
In Australia nothing eats them, at least not fast enough
To stop our country being covered with the stuff.

The sunlit plains extended are now weed infested flats.
No feed for the cattle, full of feral mice and cats
And down by Kosciusko where the pine clad ridges were
There's black berry covered rabbit holes and some noogoora burr

The man from Snowy River swung his whip and gave a yell
As his mountain pony stumbled through a tangled thorny hell.

And out around the overflow where the reed beds used to sway
Clancy's great, grand daughter Nancy is working hard each day
Poisoning weeds with poison, dragging them with chains.
Chipping out the seedling weeds that sprout each time it rains.

She'll spray them single handed 'til they've wilted brown and dead
She'll probably seek out every tiny seed
'til she's replaced her weeds with pasture and the cattle look well fed
And the native plants and animals can breed.

I'd love this sunburnt country to be a land that's free of weeds
Kept for natives, wattles, gum trees and galahs
Creeks and billabongs, shorts, tshirt, thongs
Bilbies, spinifex, Toyota cars.

©D. McK. Berman, October 1999