Thank you, Donald Trump.
Australians are much better at defining who they are by identifying what they are not, rather than by making lofty statements. And they have now said unequivocally that they are not angry little Americans, cultural warriors or self-interested libertarians.
We always knew that there was a decency at the heart of this nation, but it took the bullying, showbiz bravado of the US president to crystallise it. First as thousands of people cancelled trips to America and then, decidedly, in the privacy of millions of cardboard voting booths.
Even the prime minister, who in his first victory speech in 2022 struggled to get beyond the “greatest country” cliche when talking about Australia, found the words on election night to begin to capture what makes this country unique and full of possibility. With practice and confidence he will get better. It might even translate into transformative action and not be left to die in the graveyard of empty words.
Culture is almost always ahead of politics, so the signs have been there for a while. The notion of being unAustralian, which burst into the discourse in 2005 when Sam Kekovich berated vegetarians, hippies, dissenters of all sorts, was jettisoned nearly two decades later. The iconic Australia Day lamb ad turned itself upside down in 2023 embracing (shock horror) diversity. “Guess we are all a bit unAustralian, that’s what makes us Australian.”
That’s a start.
And when Australian leaders recognise that the ability to embrace the best of what is on offer, to not be afraid of innovation, to combine courage with compassion, remarkable things can happen.
It’s been done before. True, this is usually in a dance of two steps forward one step back, but over time the two steps forward set the new direction.
It was striking that the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, described his party’s victory as the greatest achievement since federation. Who ever talks about federation? But it was remarkable. It took a decade of debate and two votes in every colony and then protracted negotiations in London to create. A nation was formed that for the next 15 years was a global model of democratic and social innovation.
We tend to focus – rightly, and in a very Australian way – on the negatives, on the harshness of the white Australia policy, on the forced deportation of South Sea Islanders, on the exclusion and attempted extermination of the First Peoples.
But the rest of the world saw innovation, economic success with a compassionate heart and the birth of an Australian model. Australians were literate, positive and enjoyed one of the highest standards of living in the world. There were abundant possibilities.
The devastation of the losses in the first world war and being beholden to British imperialism during the great depression sapped this confidence. But even before the second world war ended plans for reconstruction, the lessons of the previous decades were developed and implemented. This set the scene for modern Australia, which reached its peak when the Whitlam government swept to power in 1972 and implemented policies that had been gestating for decades.
In the 1980s, when the old protectionist economic model imploded, Australia again led the world with a model of neoliberalism with a human face. It was not perfect, but it was copied around the world and celebrated for time as a “third way”. It was much better than allowing the market to hold the whip hand and privatise everything.
Then in the global financial crisis Australian politicians and policymakers were poised to respond, intervening to prevent the catastrophe that occurred in many other countries.
These models should provide confidence that there is an Australian way, that even in the face of existential crises innovation is possible, that there is no need to be unduly dependent on what great powers might be doing. That courage and compassion are not incompatible.
We have lost the habit of innovation and reform. Its memory needs to be revived and acted on. The crises we currently face – the climate catastrophe, a crumbling post war global order, an unreliable great power, the new digital imperialism and intergenerational inequity – need vision and courage.
Strikingly this election showed that the Australian people recognise we can no longer rely on the rest of the world to provide the lead – the future is ours to make, fixing the foundations and imagining the future. As Rose Scott, one of the participants in the federation debates about the new nation, presciently observed: “Be bold, be bold, be bold. Reform is hard, but worth it.”
