And so the 'values' debate rumbles on in Australia. In a society that is largely at peace with itself it seems odd to me that the pollies are talking about it as if there are regular riots on the streets and the islamists are about to tear down the liberal institutions that make this country so 'great' and start raping all the women and stoning people to death for committing adultery.
Today when asked to define Australian values both the PM and Beazley nominated 'mateship' as one of them. Beazley actually went further than Howard and said that mateship is 'uniquely Australian.' Is he actually for real? Surely 'mateship' is one of the most common features of any society in any country in the world? I had loads of English friends in England - I called them 'mates', they called me 'mate'. Well fuck me, it seems that I was deluded the whole time and my friendships with them clearly had nothing on the friendships shared between people in Australia. What a load of absolute bollocks this is. It's good to have shared values but this is ridiculous - surely Australians should be over their identity crisis by now?
The Age blog has more.
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Yeah I get where you are coming from. Australian politicians like to hark back to to the days of "Banjo" Patterson where ever possible.. When in reality Australian cultural identity is far more evolved and multi layered than a "get a dingo up ya" stereotype these days..
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