Thanks Tony - it takes a good deal of courage to provide such a personal account. As you would be well aware, around here if you have any exposed underbelly, you can expect a figurative blowtorch will be applied to it.

It's nice to know that so many commenters here are feeling relaxed and comfortable with how things are and feel Australia has evolved quite enough. Good for them.

Thanks for the article, Tony. An interesting take on where we might be headed and a reminder of where we've been. Considering the shallowness of what passes for current affairs in Australia, this is pretty rare.

For all you folk so keen to criticise Tony for being a retired public servant, perhaps you might care to remember that many former public servants and politicians are now comfortably ensconced on corporate boards, in government sinecures etc etc. Bob Carr, Max Moore-Wilton and Nick Greiner are just a few off the top of my head. Give Tony some credit for spending his retirement doing something he sees as worthwhile, rather than just piling up the money.

TEAM..... I may not like some of Tony's views, and I experience criticism and attack from him also on some matters. But I really think some of you are being much too hard on him over this article.

The most that could reasonably be said, is that he has perceived the situation rightly, but his direction or conclusion may not be all of our cup of tea.
My first post was not meant as an attack on Tony, though it must have seemed like that. I was trying to highlight my understanding of:

a) The situation.
b) The direction.
c) The Destination.

I certainly don't think Tony or Mercurious would be cheering us on the downward slippery slope for sure. But their solutions are a little obscure and weak in my humble view.

CHRIS.. I'm having a look at that video and I don't for a moment doubt that such things happen, are happening, and will continue to happen, for the very reasons you gave.
My only point in regard to that is this, if the evidence is there, then SOCK IT TO THEM.... if not, pull back. Now we come to one of your favorites :) 9/11

I'd be very interested in your take on the Al Qaeda video showing Mr Sin Ladin with the Hijackers :) most illuminating yeah ?

TOPIC
"Evolving" is not the correct word for Australia. There are toooo many people with financial agendas trying to SHAPE the Social fabric of Australia in the image of their financial and power goals.

Alchemist.. Glad you read my rather unusual post. I hope you noticed its particular structure, in the form of the Prophets of old.

Do you know the meaning of those words ? "mene mene tekel upharsin" ?

Think..'Persia' both then, and now. Do a google on the situation at Babylon into which those words entered history. Look closely at the attitudes of the King (Daniel chapter 5) It makes a really good read.
Perhaps you can see some similarities to CEO's of today ?
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=34&chapter=5&version=31

Ah Dave.

We have been lied to so comprehensively and thoroughly for the past few years.

Why then do you greet each new piece of excrement as though it were a freshly minted coin? Seems to me we could both use a good cleansing mate.

Doctor Dave - grab your sonic screwdriver and come with me down into the catacomb, where we will interpret the scribblings of Jack the Apostle. Light a candle and read all after, The New Enlightenment Post-9/11, down this page:

http://webdiary.com.au/cms/?q=node/1624

- and may the force be with us -

- because I keep seeing my own reflection in the gloom.

After 1996 "We couldn't agree on our own history any more."
The assumptions lurking behind this statement permeate much of the article. Humans are complex with vastly differing perspecitves, and highly variable understanding of the foundations upon which such viewpoints are constructed.
We never have had agreement on our own history; probably never will. Tony Kevin's interesting personal take on his intimate history is blinkered within his own experience and perceptions. As it would be for the rest of us.
John Howard's narrow focus filters out the unsavoury and retains the pleasing; concentrates upon sporting icons like Bradman, or Australians' involvement in the inhuman stresses imposed by the extreme barbarity of war; spotlighting images back to 1915 while other more recent unflattering ones are filtered out by the statement "they are in the past", "black armband" concepts.
I have my good and bad perspectives: The pre-war rumbles after refusal of entry to Australia in 1934 for Egon Kisch wanting to say that Hitler was a bad lad; A Norwegian granny living alone during that war, having a swastika painted on her door by some ignoramus; two Aboriginal children, contemporaries of mine, denied primary schooling at the local because some white parents objected; the post-war Commonwealth public service ethic of loyal advice to parliament, exemplified by Nugget Coombs; the current service enslaved and neutered by government; the post-war assembly of a library of the world's best-available brains for CSIRO - and the current depletion of that invaluable capital.
But most of all, my perception is that Australian society is in denial of its most relevant history; of the place it occupies in this limiting landscape. In "The Great Extermination", edited almost a generation ago by Alan Marshall, the case was well documented that Australia had, for more than a century, good knowledge that society was hell-bent on living the life of Riley by destroying the environmental capital which underpinned its survival.
May we do unto others the most civility compatible with the fundamental necessity of preserving sufficient of the Australian ecosystems for maintenance of the limited numbers it can sustain.

To Leigh,
I disagree with you that people who practice religions like Islam are not races. When people don't marry outside of their religon for a few generations which is especially true of very strict religions, they do in fact become tribes in the biological sense and what is a tribe but a race of people. The same can be said of the Jews in Isreal and any other religion that doesnt intregrate.