Aussies have unleashed at an Indian-born candidate for the far-left Greens party for confusing the national anthem with a popular song from the 1980s.
Payal Tiwari, 45, who moved to Australia as a child, made the blunder while making a speech about multiculturalism at an event in Hoppers Crossing on Saturday alongside fellow Greens candidate Rifai Raheem.
Ms Tiwari is running for the seat of Kalkallo in Melbourne’s north in the Victorian state election, which is held by Labor MP Ros Spence, who last week promised to give a Hindu temple in the area $500,000 if the government is re-elected.
This is Payal Tiwari, a Greens candidate for state parliament in Victoria.
She couldn’t even get the lyrics of Advance Australia Fair right. She claimed she used to sing it at school, then launched into “we are one, we are many, we come from many lands…” which isn’t the national anthem at all. It’s a completely different song.
Then she started rambling incoherently, throwing in a few empty buzzwords, including the claim that “this division hate is a colonial concept.”
This is the calibre of person the Greens are putting forward. Completely incompetent DEI appointees who are incapable of stringing a coherent thought together, don’t know our national anthem, and think in slogans instead of facts.
People like this aren’t fit to make laws in state parliament.
Don’t underestimate how much damage the Greens will do if more of them get elected.
Put the Greens last.
Labor 2nd last.— Commentary Australian Greens (@GreensAU2) October 18, 2026
“I grew up in Australia, and one thing we were taught every single week was singing Advance Australia Fair, and as part of that one of the lines is ‘we are one, we are many, we come from…’ you know, many lands, etc.,” she said, quoting lyrics from the 1987 song I Am Australian.
“So it comes from the Constitution-level that we were talking about, we recognise that unless you are first nations (sic), you have come from somewhere, either recently, this year, last year, or the last hundred years, but you call Australia home, just like all of us have.
“And with that means you come with a culture, your language, the way of living, your food – I think that’s a big part of everyone’s culture.”
She went on to say that “division and hate is a very colonial concept” and declared that “Australia is multicultural, full stop, that’s it”.
The speech was shared on X by an account called Commentary Australian Greens, who called it “incoherent”, and said “this is the calibre of person the Greens are putting forward … people like this aren’t fit to make laws in state parliament”.
“How utterly pathetic that the Victorian Greens put forward such a candidate,” wrote one commenter.
“We no longer share a dream, we no longer sing with one voice, and we no longer have boundless plains to share because our country has been taken over by a globalist agenda and we are now being told who we are by people that don’t even know the lyrics to the bloody national anthem,” wrote another.
“Pauline Hanson, this is what you are up against, lol,” said a third.
Header image: Left, Ms Tiwari during her speech. Right, Ms Tiwari campaigning (Instagram).
