PerthNorg

I think one of the biggest problems for Australians is our comparative *lack* of history. I once read a book about Canadian history and it occurred to me that we just don’t/didn’t have many of those nation-forming events and issues. We arrived here and pretended nothing existed beforehand. A lot of things were discovered or invented here due to the distance from Britain and unique needs of the colonies. There was the gold rushes and Eureka Stockade. Our nation came together by agreement between a bunch of mostly free-thinking British men. We got our independence from Britain in stages and peacefully so. We fought in various overseas wars first for Britain and then for the US, which created the means for us to develop into a modern nation. We did some things wrong but in the 60s and 70s fixed most of them. Due to Australia’s size, any natural disasters were more likely to happen in less populated areas, although Cyclone Tracy, Ash Wednesday fires and Newcastle earthquake were notable exceptions. In fact, most of the real events in Australian history are things that Howard’s side of politics prefers not to think about, and things important to NSW people might not even register with people in this state as historic. So what on earth would they be teaching?

Note that I’m not at all criticising Australia in the above - its freedom from so many of these historic grudges and catastrophic events is one of the big reasons why it’s such an amazing place to live.

Just to clarify - the first sentence should read “I think one of the biggest problems in establishing a coherent Australian history and identity is…” It’s not a “problem” in any real sense for me or indeed for most Australians - more an argument for the historians and politicians.