We are not a ‘precious stone set in the silver sea … this blessed plot, this Earth, this realm…’ We give ourselves no glowing endorsements, but are a ‘nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey’ with a ‘river of her immense stupidity’. (A.D. Hope, Australia)

Not even a ‘working man’s paradise’ as we used to be.

The old liberal creed of self-criticism to improve the country, became just self-criticism. We are ‘very democratic, yet Australians have little regard for their democratic government’. (Hirst, Sense and Nonsense)

We do now have immense self-inflicted problems from stagnant living standards to imported hatred and a failure of public civility. Accompanied by a torrent of nonsense which we are required by our betters to respect, and which doesn’t solve anything.

Yet Australians surely achieved great things in building a first-world nation with the Australian Constitution of 1901. It was built by ‘“the people” acting as nation-builders … who remain the ongoing source of the authority of the Constitution’. (Justice Gageler May 2023, Introduction, Responsible Government and the Australian Constitution)

Australia came together in a generally auspicious range of opinions and legislation, and hard work.

Australians never mythologised this remarkable intellectual work, ‘working man’s paradise’ or not. This led to a vacuum. Our intellectual life is largely unimpressed about our largely peaceful evolution to democracy and prosperity and gives it little credence.

The gap is filled by feral leftism and for some brutal theocracy. This is a chronic mistake.

Sir Samuel Griffiths described us even in 1890 as people of ‘absolute freedom’:

‘Accustomed for so long to self-government that we have become practically almost sovereign states … we have been allowed absolute freedom to manage our own affairs.’ (1890 Constitutional Convention)

Sir Henry Parkes, a prime mover for the federation movement with his Tenterfield oration of 1889, said that we are people of:

‘Practical common sense … there is no obstacle in the path before us except impediments which we have created ourselves. Nature has created no obstacle. That principle of Divine goodness – call it what you may – which exists, and over-rules the world, has created this fair land of Australia, situated as it is, wisely created it for a grand experiment in human government, and there is no lion, and no natural difficulty before us. The path is plain and bright with the genial sunshine of our own blue heavens, with no impediment in it whatever.’ (1890 Constitutional Convention)

Australians are people of elected Parliaments, based on ‘the system of government which had developed over a period of a thousand years in England’ the Westminster system. (McMinn)

Parkes, Griffiths, Alfred Deakin, Sir Edmund Barton were all experienced colonial parliamentarians and organised and dominated debates.

They were not united in disappointment, and vociferous in expressing it. The job of Federation was not beguiling the peasants with superior insight. It was a movement for all of us.

We solved political problems that in other countries led to continuous violent revolution, or religious extremism, or economic bankruptcy, or military dictatorship, or all of these things.

By the 1960s we were ready to hear messages of renewal, but they became instead a strong and hardened message of negativity about just about everything. Including our past, present, and future.

Although in the past successive generations worked hard using our freedoms and made the country a success. From great pastoral and mining businesses, to hospitals, schools, roads without potholes. We cured widespread illiteracy. ‘Only five Bills passed by any Australian legislature were disallowed [by Britain].’ (McMinn, 90)

No Australian today would necessarily like to live then, remembering for example dentistry and medical operations. The fevers.

But in the South Australian Legislative Council in 1855, Mr Reynolds said, ‘An Aboriginal had voted against him … which he expressed no difficulty with…’ (South Australian Register, 22 November 1855)

Freedom of religion came early and easily. Mr Elder told the Legislative Council in 1851 that, ‘Religion could propagate itself without government aid.’ In December 1851, grants to religion were rejected in that colony and later others. (Blackett, History of South Australia) Although today in parts of the world religious extremism is enforced by blood and steel.

Then Australia became, as well, the country of the ‘fair go’. The new Commonwealth established an age and disability pension (1909) and procedures to resolve industrial disputes (1904). James Howe, a conservative delegate, told the Constitutional Convention he supported a pension power because men ‘found themselves stranded on the cheerless shores of charity … the pauper’s blot’. (1897, Norris) But a ‘fair go’ in addition to freedom.

A significant modern statement of Australian identity is surely Robert Menzies’ Forgotten People speech of 1942. Menzies led the Coalition to long term Government 1949-72 (he resigned in 1966). His speech was ‘a vision for a free and prosperous nation in which individuals would be empowered to fulfil their dreams through education and hard work’. (Menzies Centre) He emphasised representing the people, whether salary-earners or unskilled people.

Edmund Barton, our first Prime Minister, made it clear in his 1901 election speech that:

‘We rely on the people … ask them broaden their views to the Continental outlook. Will you not return men of principle who will uphold the dignity of the Parliament of a continent.’ (Museum of Australian Democracy)

But we should not forget William Wentworth, although he was no democrat:

‘The facility and excess of law-making seem to be the diseases to which our governments are most liable.’ (1853 Constitutional debates, quoting Alexis De Tocqueville)

‘The path is plain and bright with the genial sunshine of our own blue heavens,’ Henry Parkes told us. Why not take this constructive attitude and actually do something to solve our feral problems, as he did? It’s called leadership.

Or should we just pile up problems to fester for future generations.

The Hon. Reg Hamilton, Adjunct Professor, School of Business and Law, Central Queensland University

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