His good spirits come on the back of a Richmond win AND a change of government at the weekend.

The singer-songwriter, whose legendary anthem Solid Rock lit a fire for the rights of Aboriginal people 40 years ago, is hopeful the winds of change may indeed be blowin' down the line.

He was chuffed to be in the stands with his kids on Saturday for the Richmond v Essendon Dreamtime AFL game when Eddie Mabo's grand-daughter performed his 1982 classic hit.

But the founder of Aussie rock band Goanna was equally delighted when his wife, Teresa O'Brien, texted him at half-time to tell him Scott Morrison couldn't form government.

"It all felt good," Howard chuckles.

"I think the nation breathed a sigh of relief ...

"It was beautiful to hear Krystal West, grand-daughter of (indigenous rights activist) Eddie Mabo, singing Solid Rock.

"The song is held in such meaning by Aboriginal people, which is deeply gratifying and deeply humbling."

Howard, 67, has been invited to perform at this year's Albury-Wodonga Winter Solstice on June 21 - a week before he sets off on an extensive national tour with a reignited Goanna.

The band will celebrate 40 years of its acclaimed multi-platinum debut album Spirit of Place and its iconic single.

Howard says he never grows tired of performing Solid Rock.

"There are so many faces and places attached to that song," he reflects.

"It has paid me back 10,000-fold."

The song's powerful lyrics, denouncing the injustice meted out to Aboriginal Australia since colonisation, remain uncannily pertinent in a week when newly elected prime minister Anthony Albanese vowed to "lead a government worthy of the people of Australia":

Well, they were standin' on the shore one day

Saw the white sails in the sun

Wasn't long before they felt the sting

White man, white law, white gun

Don't tell me that it's justified

'Cause somewhere, someone lied.

Flanked by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags, Mr Albanese used his victory speech to renew Labor's commitment to adopting in full the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

The three aspects of the Uluru Statement - issued on May 26, 2017, after a national constitutional convention of 250 delegates from First Nations around the country - are Voice, Treaty and Truth Telling.

Howard, who believes "Australia is beginning to mature as a nation", is encouraged by the turn of events.

"As an an artist my job is to interrogate the truth," he states.

"All the statistics are completely out of kilter.

"When you have Aboriginal youth - boys and girls as young as 11 - taking their lives, it's a national emergency.

"What do we gain by having Aboriginal people treated so poorly when we have all prospered on their demise?

"We need to interrogate this as a society more openly."

In harking back to "the youthful optimism and idealism" of his earlier recordings, Howard has found renewed purpose.

"There was a hunger for something better," he reflects.

Howard says he was "hard-wired for justice" by his parents.

One of seven children, he grew up as the son of a factory worker father and musical mother in a country town in south-west Victoria.

"Dad's grandfather was arrested at the Eureka Stockade," he offers, by way of explanation.

"Our ancestors were among the Irish famine refugees from the 1850s."

Aboriginal people were "all around us", Howard says of his childhood.

It was from the nearby Framlingham Aboriginal mission that Archie Roach was forcibly removed from his family at an early age.

The acclaimed Indigenous musician would later write the award-winning Took The Children Away, describing the pain and shame of Australia's Stolen Generation.

Howard, who has collaborated and performed with Roach, says the pair would have "grown up friends had he not been taken away".

"Mum and Dad made connections with Aboriginal people," he says.

"There were deep and long stories; we knew what was happening wasn't fair - the racism was in your face."

He "sharpened his pencil" on emerging issues of racism and the environment during his university years before literally giving voice to them through music.

It was in the late 1970s that Howard was to recruit members for a folk-rock band that was to be called Goanna.

The rest, as they say is history.

They were heady days of sell-out crowds, Countdown charts and smash hits during a golden age for Aussie rock.

Solid Rock, which gained international attention and appeared on the Spirit of Place album in 1982, would stay in the Top 50 for 26 weeks.

Two years after the next album, Oceania, the band called it quits.

"Corporate shenanigans played a big part in Goanna's demise," Howard told Warwick McFadyen in a Sydney Morning Herald article.

"The record company head had said to me, 'Just write another f***ing Solid Rock'. I told him: 'It doesn't work like that'."

Howard lost his marriage, his money and his morale.

"I was left carrying a massive debt and the shame that I couldn't even provide for my family," he recalls.

"I couldn't see a way forward; I was very much alone."

And so he disappeared.

"I fell through the safety net of white Australia and black Australia caught me," he says.

He lived in north Queensland where he "found people with much harder lives than mine".

"And yet my Aboriginal brothers were much better at sharing sad talk, spirit talk ...

"What I couldn't find in our western culture, I found that deep spirituality in Aboriginal Australia and it gave me a sense of purpose."

It's with nostalgia ("twinge of pain"), that Howard is embracing the upcoming 40^th anniversary tour.

Still, he found the invitation to appear at Albury's Winter Solstice on the eve of the tour "deeply compelling".

"The way Annette and Stuart (Baker) thought to turn the tragedy of their daughter's suicide into affirmative action caused me to dig down deep into things," he says.

"Everyone at some point stares down into the void; I did as Goanna fell apart.

"It's a maelstrom, a whirpool, which spirals and grows stronger the closer you get to the void.

"It's a desperate cry and I had to unpick all that," adds Howard, revealing he hasn't spoken publicly about this - "because you just don't".

At Albury, he will share a song dedicated to a fellow musician who took his life some years ago.

"He was a beautiful, laughing spirit; the life of the party," Howard says.

"And yet one moment, one dark moment, changes everything."

The man whose songs have the ability to dig into the nation's conscience ponders why "we often lose the most sensitive".

"And the world is a hard place for those left behind, (because we are) forced to do the most soul searching," he states.

"You never get over it, you just get through it."

It's in song-writing that Howard has found solace.

"It's a blessing - and it's cheaper than therapy!"