Advance Australia Fair reworked to be more inclusive to Aboriginal people

"Young" and "Free" are bad words?  And if everybody has to be recognized, where is the Vietnamese version, the Maori version, The Fijian version, the Sikh version etc?  And don't forget the Ulster Scots.  I am  descended from one of those.  And what about the convicts?

A version of Australia's anthem that recognizes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders can be sung as a patriotic song at certain events, the government agreed this week.

The Australian government granted permission on Tuesday for the altered version of 'Advance Australia Fair' to be used, but not as an official anthem, according to 7News.

The more inclusive version introduces a third verse with references to Aboriginal culture, Uluru and 'respecting the country.'

It also alters the line 'For we are young and free' from the first verse to read 'In peace and harmony.'

Recognition in Anthem Project have pushed for the new patriotic song, written by Victorian Supreme Court Judge Peter Vickery, according to 7News.

The national anthem fails to recognize all Australians and many Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders find some of the lyrics upsetting, Judge Vickery said.

'Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people find the words 'For we are young and free' hurtful and offensive, and find it difficult, if not impossible, to stand or sing the Anthem with these words,' the Recognition in Anthem Project website read.

'A simple solution is presented for consideration. The strength of our proposal is that it retains all of the proclaimed words and music (with one change to Verse 1), while adding a new Verse 3 which acknowledges our First Peoples and their occupation of Australia for more than 50,000 years. Otherwise the words and music of the National Anthem stay the same.'

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told 7News the new version will be played at certain events but it has not been revealed which ones.

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African Apex gangs in terrifying four-day Melbourne home invasion spree

Melbourne residents have been left terrified with a massive crime wave spreading across the city's west as police reveal there have been four home invasions in just one week.

A Hillside mother-of-three remains sedated in hospital after she was tied up with a phone cord and bashed by two intruders who stole her car on Wednesday at 11am.

On Thursday at 7pm, eight men armed with metal poles broke into a home in Melton South while the family were watching television.

One day later, a Rockbank couple tricked a gang of seven suspected Apex members by giving them the wrong keys to one of their cars and a Brookfield family were left terrified when five burglars crept to steal mobile phones as they slept.

On Tuesday, Assistant Commissioner Stephen Fontana said home invasions were a 'difficult type of offending' to police and described the perpetrators as 'hardcore individuals'.

'What we find is we have some hardcore individuals that seem to attract other young people and they could come from all parts of Melbourne or Victoria,' he told the Today Show.

Assistant Commissioner Fontana advised residents to give up their car or property to violent home invaders to avoid being injured.

'Let them take it. These are really cowardly young people that are breaking in and best to avoid any confrontation with them,' he said.

Marisa Bonacci, 55, was home alone when she was tied up and attacked in a horrific daylight home intrusion on Wednesday.

She is sedated in hospital and suffered a suspected broken nose and significant bruising to her head and body.

The offenders stole her Volkswagen, which was found burnt out in Melton later that day.

On Thursday, Riccardi Accaputo, 31, and his aunt were horrified after eight men broke into their Melton South home while they were watching television at 7pm.

The men ransacked the home with metal poles and stole computers, jewellery and Mr Accaputo's white Ford.

'I was just watching TV, trying to relax, and before I knew it they've burst through the back corridor,' he told 7 News.

Mr Accaputo's aunt, 68, protected her nephew, who is on crutches and has a neck brace after being injured in an unrelated car crash.

Just four days later, a couple managed to trick a gang of African youths after they broke into their Rockbank home at 3am on Monday.

The pair gave the intruders a set of car keys to the wrong car and the group fled the scene on foot.

The couple's daughter Jade Ribeiro said her stepdad suffered a cut to his cheek and eyebrow in the violent home intrusion and her 12-year-old brother has 'not stopped crying'.

'We're all shaken. How else can you be after you've had eight Sudanese men break into you, rough you up, beat up my step dad?' she told 7 News.

On the same day, Farrukh Naeem, his wife Sanna and their two young sons were left terrified after five masked intruders broke into their Brookfield home at 1am on Monday.

They stole the family's brand new Audi A5 after threatening the family with wooden stakes.

Police found the Audi several kilometres away, but have no yet located the thieves.

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Australia's peak Muslim body accused of stripping $45 MILLION in taxpayer funding from top Islamic school - as federal government cuts its funding

Australia's peak Muslim body is accused of stripping $45 million in taxpayer funding from Sydney's largest Islamic school.

Malek Fahd Islamic School is in a bitter legal battle with the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils - accusing the body of charging inflated rent, payments for services that were never provided and taking out interest-free loans and over two decades.

It comes as the school continues to fight for $19 million in annual federal funding, which was cut by the government last year after the school's extensive ties to the AFIC were revealed.

According to court documents obtained by The Australian, the school alleges AFIC took $45.14m from its accounts in 'gratuitous' withdrawals since 2000.

Lawyers for the school in Greenacre, in Sydney's southwest, last week accused the AFIC of using it as a 'milking cow that never runs dry' to finance other projects.

The school's rent skyrocketed from up to $67,500 in its first decade to $900,000 in just one year - a staggering increase of more than 13 times.

Court documents allege the huge rent increase coincided with demands for a loan valued at over $1 million to secure a $7.1 million property at Condell Park. 'The loan was not documented, the loan was unsecured ... AFIC breached the fiduciary obligations it owed to MFIS,' the school claims.

According to court documents, the Condell Park property was sold three years later in 2003 with a profit of over $3 million, but no action was allegedly taken to reduce the rent, repay the loans or account for the huge financial gain made by the AFIC.

But Keysar Trad, a former president of AFIC, told The Australian the school's claims were 'grossly inflated'.

AFIC has staunchly defended its transactions over the years, saying it did not breach any of its alleged duties to Malek Fahd.

'The relevant transactions were appropriate in their terms, and well suited to the particular and novel interests and practical realities facing the parties at the time,' AFIC's statement of claim says.

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Outrage over plans for an Islamic hub featuring a mosque, childcare centre, shops and apartments exclusive for Muslims

A masterplan for an exclusive Muslim enclave in Brisbane featuring a mosque and apartments has sparked community outrage.

The Australian International Islamic College has lodged plans to add a mosque, 120 residential apartments, childcare and retail space within its existing site at Durack, in the city's southern outskirts.

Residents opposed to the plan for a Muslim community have lodged a petition with Brisbane City Council, arguing it's incompatible with the area's multicultural values.

'The apparent exclusivity of the proposed development to a religious group will offer hardly any benefit to the community it is situated in as a whole and is inconsistent with the multicultural community that already exists in the suburb,' the petition, cited by the South-West News, stated.

Labor councillor Steve Griffiths said he was opposed to the development proposal for 724 Blunder Road, however he stressed this was on planning and not religious grounds.

'The impact on other local residents’ amenity appears well beyond that expected of its use as community facilities - educational purposes,' he said in a submission obtained by Quest Newspapers.

The plans, seen by Daily Mail Australia, include a proposal for a two-storey mosque covering 1,970 square metres.

It would include a three-storey aged care and residential building, 3,000 square metres of retail space and 120 residential apartments, on top of new classrooms and a childcare centre for 2,000 students.

The existing site is already home to the college, which caters for students from kindergarten to year 12.

It is near Inala, which is home to a large Vietnamese community, and the Wacol prison, which both fall with Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk's Inala electorate.

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