What is Australian culture now?

The personification of Australian culture? Picture: File

There was a time when we Australians knew who we were and how we fitted into the broader scheme of things. We were a British colony, a remote part of a great empire. But following the disasters of Gallipoli and the Somme, and having naively placed our faith in the protective bulwark of Singapore in 1942, we shifted our allegiance from Britain to America. Within a generation our language had morphed to reflect the idiosyncrasies of our new protectors, so that guys replaced blokes and embarrassing terms like sheila simply disappeared from common usage. I cannot recall anyone in my lifetime using the term bonza in anything other than an ironic or comedic context.

We have readily absorbed other cultural influences as well. The Greeks and Italians shifted our palates from tea to coffee and introduced us to the kiss on the cheek as a form of social greeting. (I wonder whether this century’s immigrants from India and China will shift our preferences back to tea?)

It’s as if Australian culture is soft and malleable; we’re a mightily suggestable people. Americans are unimpressed by anything outside America. We Australians are impressed by everything outside Australia. We’re ever ready to absorb other cultures, especially where we think a behavioural trait might reflect material success or cultural sophistication. We’re kinda needy, that way.

Our homes have shifted from English austerity to Milanese chic and more latterly to Scandinavian minimalism. Where is our uniquely Australian style of housing, of design, of food, of affectation, of language? Our surfer brands are now owned by global corporates. Even our mainstream beer is no longer technically our own. And do not get me started on Australian food brands that were sold off long ago. I think we have ceded sovereignty over parts of the economy and parts of our culture.

We can sell off Australian brands and farms and mineral wealth, and even ports. And we can dump Australian words and pick up cloying Americanisms. We can reconfigure and redecorate our homes to make us feel rich and worldly, where worldly means referencing the style of Europe. But deep down I think we all know what we’re doing: we’re ceding the soul of our Australianness.

I want our culture back. Not the intolerant Anglo culture of the 1950s and earlier, but a new, modern, dynamic, tolerant, inclusive and uniquely Australian culture for the 21st century. I want a culture that references our indigeneity, that projects our tolerance, that speaks to our youth, and that cultivates our unbridled ambition for the future.

Where is this generation’s Banjo Paterson, whose gorgeous words inspired Federation? Where is this decade’s update to The Castle, to Kath & Kim, to the cultural insight of Barry Humphries? Where is the next generation Geoffrey Blainey who so succinctly encapsulated the Australian condition in his immortal phrase “the tyranny of distance”?

Today’s Australians are no less talented than any who have made contributions in the past. I think this is a matter of focus. We need to invest in and build a strong Australian culture, and cultural institutions.

Culture isn’t something that happens along the way of life, by accident; it is a powerful dividend of a people who know who they are and where they’re headed. And wherever we’re headed, we’ll be better placed to get there if we’re united by a uniquely Australian culture.