The Minister for Workplace Relations, Tony Abbott, made a thoughtful appeal yesterday for Australians to feel better about Australia. In doing so he quite rightly pointed to many things about Australian society that were worth celebrating and admiring. He also attacked doomsayers, the intelligentsia who portray Australia as the “”arse end of the earth” and “”fairly loathsome”, and those who have a “”legitimacy anxiety” and “”chronic defeatism”.
Mr Abbott – speaking to the Young Liberal federal convention — quite rightly pointed to Australia as being one of the freest, fairest and most prosperous nations on earth – a nation with clean streets, clean environment, a volunteer spirit and where people can get to know each other. And he points out that in many ways Australia is getting better – the rich have got richer at about the same rate as the poor have become richer. We have more jobs, higher wages, lower taxes and fewer strikes than a decade ago. The suicide rate is down. We have run a large, non-discriminatory immigration program based on merit and humanitarian principles. We did an excellent job in East Timor, upholding principles of self-determination and helping a desperate neighbour in need.
Mr Abbott is right in saying these aspects of Australian life are worth admiring. It is true that they have perhaps not been recognised as much as they should.
He mentioned something else of equal importance. He attacked those many people in Australia who presented the re-election of Howard Government as an act of shame. On that, he has a strong point. Australia is a democracy. In being a democracy it recognised that the people a sovereign and have the right to choose who will govern them. To question the legitimacy of that choice is to tread on dangerous ground.
In fact, Australia is one of the older continuous democracies on earth. That is worth celebrating. It is contradictory to suggest that the people somehow got duped into electing this or that government or got duped into voting Yes or No in a referendum. To accept those arguments is to deny democracy’s fundamental element – the people choose and the fact they have chosen bestows legitimacy on the choice.
So Mr Abbott’s highlighting of some of the excellent elements of Australian life is a welcome antidote to the doomsayers. But the doomsayers, critics, fault-pickers and intelligentsia have a critical role in Australia society. We can only get better if we see faults and move to change them. Pride in achievements should not turn into complacency and smugness.
Mr Abbott – having rightly pointed to great Australian achievements – got on to two of his hobby horses: the republic and reconciliation. He appeared to lump all those who support a statement of sorry and those who support a republic as people who want to belittle Australia. In this Mr Abbott has misunderstood a large number of republicans. These are people who are already proud of Australia’s achievement and identity, but want to be even prouder by ensuring every office mentioned in the Constitution and the law created under it is open to every Australian citizen and by ensuring that the national institutions are totally Australia and that someone born in Britain and by, occupying an office resident in Britain is not part of Australia’s constitutional arrangements.
And on reconciliation, many people who support a sorry statement do not want to belittle the achievements that Mr Abbott is rightly proud, but are keen to be even prouder of Australia for being able to resolve the difficulties in the relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.
Sure, there have been some belittlers of Australian achievements and many commentators who have allowed a few things to eclipse the generally healthy picutre, but that does not mean that those who seek a republic, reconciliation and different treatment of refugees are somehow unAustralian or belittlers of Australia.