I'm looking forward to the book which puts Julia Gillard's ascension to the office of Prime Minister in perspective. As with the Governor-General, several justices of the High Court and around ten per cent of Australian executives, women are gaining work experience in men's legislatures, courts and corporate committees in the final stages of the transition over the past century from patriarchy to equal rights governance. After all, the men who established Australia's legislatures never intended they would be anything other than men's legislatures to which women are admitted under supervision. Women would have to wait until they gained sufficient experience before they could have legislatures of their own. Sufficient is the present, the tipping point has been reached. All that remains is to align the instruments of governance with the predilection of the people. A referendum held this weekend on an equal rights republic governed by agreement between women's and men's legislatures, courts and corporate committees to set a standard of equality for all nations would receive overwhelming support because there's hardly anyone left in Australia who doesn't support equal rights between women and men. I'd write the book myself but lack the literary skills to assemble thousands of words which can be summed up in a single paragraph.

The topic is much bigger than Julia Gillard and the recent shennagins of parliament.
Please dont diminish the literary and cultural history of my country.
Australian identity waseasier to identify in theprevious decade or two but with the arrival of millions of Asians recently it has become more complex. No attempt to identify the present Australian identoty can ignore current history.
Australian literature was written principally by white Anglo-Saxon Australian with liberal contributions from eastern and southern immigrantsbut now it has been considerably expanded, enriched and nuanced by contributions by Asian writers and growing indigenous contributions. It too reflects the complex we are attempting to identify in brief. It can't be done that way.
As for the Dream of becoming a Republic, there is far too strong a Monarchist hurdle to overcome. Too hard. This obtuseness itself also is therefore a part of our contemporary history.

socratease

Since Australia was the first modern democracy to allow women the right to be elected to parliament, the global leader in granting women the democratic right to representation in nationhood, albeit that election was not immediately forthcoming, socratease, and presuming you are Australian, gender equality is a founding and inalienable characteristic of "your" country if you didn't already know. Gender trumps race. If relations between women and men proceed from a foundation of equality so too do demographics comprised of women and men, which is why Australia has accepted ethnic diversity so readily. As to the monarchy, with an equal rights republic what greater honour than for Her Majesty to pass sovereignty to an executive presiding over the first women's legislature of the modern era.