Freedom
The controlling metaphor for the entire poem is situated in the title. “Freedom on the Wallaby” is a figurative phrase that essentially translates literally into the idea that freedom is on the move. Within the poem, freedom is given further metaphorical feminine personification as an entity that has packed blankets for traveling to the tyrants trying to control her. What’s more, freedom is a metaphor for the Australian settlers who did not get to enjoy the privilege extended to members of the British aristocracy and upper class. Freedom is a rebel and ready for a fight.
Parents
Australia is portrayed as a sanctuary from the lack of freedom and liberty and rights and equality represented by British society. The settlers who came either by will or were forced as prisoners to settle Australia are combined into one metaphor: they are semi-literally the ancestors of all alive at the time the poem was written, but on a more figurative level they are portrayed as the parents of Australia. And, by extension, freedom becomes a birthright for all as a result of their hard work.
British Peerage
What Australia most concretely represents in this poem is an alternative to England. And the problems associated with England are metaphorically embodied in the peerage system. The members of the aristocratic system which confers privilege as a birthright due to luck rather than work are referred to as “loafers.” The metaphorical imagery of uselessness is further cemented by the reference Australia not being “crowded much with lords” by those pioneers who settled the country through hard work.
Old Greed
The shadow of British society which Australians escaped is not just presented as loafing, useless lords, however. The reasons that those lords could loaf while others toiled without adequate compensation is are crafted into an all-encompassing metaphor known as greed. An entire subculture of people do not ascend to a station where they are entitled merely through the virtue of birth and who can live quite well without working a day of their life to support that lifestyle without greed being a mechanism of operation. The poet states that now that the hard work of making Australia into something desire and profitable has been accomplished through hard work, those profiting from that system of greed—that Old greed—have taken notice of their existence and raising the specter of their entitlement and privilege as the means to taken it.
Blood-Stained Wattle
The golden wattle was informally and unofficially recognized as the national flower of Australia at the time the poem was written and would officially be named so a little more than a century later. The metaphor of the wattle representing Australia is combined with the imagery of blood having been shed over that flower in the poem’s concluding lines. The implication of this combination of metaphor and imagery was clear enough for those taking the political view which opposed that of the author. Whether through implication or not, those opponents inferred that the poem was really nothing more nor less than a radical call for insurrection and for a short time the symbol of the bloodstained flower was a powerful enough metaphor to nearly get Henry Lawson arrested on charges of sedition.
