There was an island:
wide
brown
and crowded with ancestor spirits
some white blokes found it, but couldn't hear it
shouting, singing
they just bulldozed it flat
brought in fox and cat and built a nation on the back of
slave labour and genocide
morality landslide
clinging to the myth
of an empty country
when even the blindest sentry could see that it was occupied

We made a habit of scratching the earth's surface
sold sacred soil to fill spoiled purses
abyss getting deeper
leap into oblivion
digging into skin
pillaging
now we're living sin
bitumen bandaid
them wounds won't heal
bending nerve endings
forgot how to feel
Coast to coast mining: the land's a slave
Australia is a nation that's digging it's own grave

Dig it up, dig it up gonna make another hole
a dozen dirty minerals, uranium and coal
Stole this land, now we've sold its soul
lost control of consumption - this is how we roll
dig it up.

Open-cut culture
vultures on the grass throw stones willy nilly but those walls are glass
Who am I to pontificate, shouting down the town?
even the metal in this microphone came out of the ground
We're short sighted
hiding our faces in the sand
fake-tanned city dwellers turned our backs on the land
Take the money now
ignore long-term costs
fifty years
down the line
we'll lament
what we've lost
Boom.
they say, it can't last forever
Boom.
they call it, another flawed endeavour
Boom.
farmland becomes a dust bowl
a stable economy can't be built on coal, scroll
down, read the fine print and take control
don't believe em when they tell you it's a minimal toll
maintain status quo - their ultimate goal
why learn to think when you can learn to dig a hole?

Somewhere along the line, we stopped making progress
started making junk, going through the process
of chucking out old stuff and digging up more
when we should've been reusing what we dug up before
We are swollen ticks
the kind that cause paralysis
crawling across the skin of the earth
Call it hyperbole
I call it accurate analysis
Gladstone to Perth, sucking blood for all we're worth
But it creates jobs!
blindfolded they cheer
as though nothing that makes jobs could ever be
a bad idea
Advance Australia fair
advance Australia
consumption culture
agricultural failure
We don't need food
we can just eat the dust
But someday
when the mining trucks rust
I trust we'll realise the unwise path we've taken
when the crops are withered and the earth starts shaking

Dig it up, dig it up gonna make another hole
a dozen dirty minerals, uranium and coal
Stole this land, now we've sold its soul
lost control of consumption - this is how we roll
dig it up.