You said the country’s changin’, worse, I heard the phrasing first Difference as a danger, yeah, diversity a curse “Subversive” in your sentence, watch the cadence that you rehearse Fear wrapped in policy, clean shirt, hidden dirt You split the room in two, who belongs and who’s a threat “Embrace our way of life” like it’s something you can vet But who defines the “we”? who decides the silhouette? Values turn to weapons when they’re filtered through a net Post-war praise, yeah, “they did it right back then” Cafés and the culture, now you hold it up again But shift the origin story, different war, different skin Now the welcome sign flickers “risk” when they come in Same script, new spin, coded in restraint Never say the quiet part, still we hear it in the paint You don’t say race but it echoes in the gaps Don’t say faith but it lingers in the facts Neutral on the surface but the bias overlaps Policy clean but the impact still slaps If values are a test, who’s the marker, who’s the norm Who’s already failing when they step into the form You call it all protection, we call it transform Fear into a framework where exclusion is the norm Who sets the values, who draws the line Who gets threat tagged, who gets doing fine Dress it up neat in a budget-time rhyme But the cracks show through every coded line We don’t ration worth by descent or intent Don’t call human lives “subversive intent” This is dignity, no test to begin You don’t measure belonging by where you’ve been You said Gaza, let it hang in the air Whole people reduced to a policy scare “Reassess them all”, yeah we heard that clear Not neutral risk talk, that’s selective fear Flip the lens quick from the bombs to the blame From survival and trauma to a risk in a frame Erase the context then you anchor the claim Now the public perception starts to carry the same Housing, here we go, yeah you pivot to cost Blame the new arrivals for the lines that are crossed But the market’s been broken long before they got tossed Into narratives built to disguise who’s the boss Speculation ate supply, yeah, decades deep But it’s easier to point at the ones with least So when you say pressure, who’s wearing the blame Why’s it always the outsider named If the structure is failing don’t reframe the game By shifting the focus to the ones with no claim You say tighten the system, we hear shut them out Hear the doubt dressed up in a technocrat shout If fairness was real you wouldn’t twist it about To justify fear you can’t say out loud Who sets the values, who draws the line Who gets threat tagged, who gets doing fine Dress it up neat in a budget-time rhyme But the cracks show through every coded line We don’t ration worth by descent or intent Don’t call human lives “subversive intent” This is dignity, no test to begin You don’t measure belonging by where you’ve been Sixty-five thousand, yeah you drop it like stats But that’s lives, that’s futures you’re trimming to facts Families in limbo reduced to an act Of necessary cuts in a fiscal impact Sign the values statement, comply or divide But whose values exactly, who decides who qualifies If freedom’s your banner, why the narrowing tide Why’s exclusion the lever you reach for inside It’s not race, not religion, that’s the line that you lead Just liberal democracies, coded gatekeeping creed But the map that you’re drawing, yeah we see what you mean Certain regions get greenlit, others stuck in between Safe country lists, who’s safe, who defines Who’s reading the context, who’s drawing the lines From visa to welfare, yeah the pattern aligns Control through design while you soften the signs You cut legal aid then you question their case Build the barrier high then you blame their pace Call it integration but it’s pressure to erase Difference for acceptance in a narrow white space We’re done with the pivot, done with the play You don’t fix the system by pushing away What’s Australian, tell me straight, define it Static in the past or alive and dynamic Built on exclusion or expanded through fight Through voices demanding a share in the light If your values divide who deserves to belong Then they’re power in disguise, not right or wrong We don’t take that test, we’ve been here all along Rewriting the chorus to a different song Who sets the values, who draws the line Who gets threat tagged, who gets doing fine You can’t spin truth in a soundbite line When the people see through it time after time We rise with a vision that’s broader than fear Where dignity’s constant, not shifting each year No subversive intent, just lives intertwined And a country is stronger when it doesn’t divide
