Well - I find myself in uncomfortable waters here -

I am half in agreement with the silver fop -

3.5 out of 6 aint bad :

english I can take or leave as a pillow - more luck than anything, similarly the Crown I can take it or leave it.

I am with him on Federation , the rule of law, responsible government under the Westminster system and I am half way with him on Judeao Christian values as I dont believe that value set is all that unique in the human experience.

The problem we face in this debate is concepts of English and JC values for example are being used as exclusive points of differentiation - that "they" have to take it or leave it - much in the some ways as the IR laws and GW Bush 'you're with us or agaisnt us" approach to life - always a recipe for a disaster;-

people are being separated from the main stream by inconsequential differences to give substance and a face to a hidden and in some instances fabricated enemy.

Save us from more of the Flintone's ramblings. Why does this bloke get so much space on this website for his repetitive, conservative, unimaginative views.

Rule of Law? As personified by Howard? The invasion of Iraq was not according to the rule of law. The detention of David Hicks is not within the rule of law.

And how about a core value of honesty? No, that would not be safe ground for Flinty - his best mate Howard would fall at the first hurdle.

I can understand your angst amsdal even if I cant spell it -

Sure Howard rorts the Rule of Law however not at every turn - it remains something between us an absolute despotism and honesty would fall within the scope of JC values but not exclusively so.

And yes Flinty gets a lot of air time here - but he's an old man with time on his hands - what else is he going to do - after doing his hair sure he exchanges the odd love letter to Alan Jones - but hey - there are 24 hours in a day - he has to fill in the time doing something

Trust Flinty to make one of Australia's core values the worship of the Queen of England. Good try!
As for Judeo Christian values as one of his six. Surely that would consist of dozens of items, hundreds maybe. Kim Beazley's exam on values is going to have to be a three hour University level exam if Flinty is right.

Good article, David. The real issue is that the states, under Labor Governments, have done their utmost to evade the core principles enshrined in our federal constitution. Many of the core principles of the westminster system and the common law are under serious threat from state legislation.

In Queensland we have instances of interests in land being acquired by the state for less than just causes and by neither agreement nor just compensation. Legislation and subordinate legislation is being drafted in such manner as to evade the duties of parliamentary counsel to ensure that measures uphold the principles of parliamentary governance and have proper regard for the rights and liberties of the people.

When the federal constitution was drawn up it was with the clear understanding that the principles enshrined therein were also binding on every state and every citizen. Yet, we now have departmental spin merchants seeking to imply that any power that is not ceded to the commonwealth is retained by the states and that the lack of any limitation on a state power in a state constitution amounts to a defacto acceptance or assignment of that power under the federal constitution.

So while the Commonwealth may not acquire land without just compensation etc, the states are claiming that they can take property, as and when they see fit, without 'just cause' and without 'just compensation', on the basis of their generalised state constitutional power to "make laws for the peace, order, and good governance" of the state.

But there is absolutely no doubt that if Premier Beattie were to be transported back in time to the Queensland of 1901 and make known his interpretation of both state and federal constitutional powers, he would most certainly have been howled down and, quite possibly, lynched by a mob, with parliamentarians at the fore.

His oath of office, "to well and truly serve" both the crown and the people of Queensland, has not, and cannot be, interpreted as enabling the improper exercise of power. But that is where the serious erosion of Australian values is taking place.

It is a long time since I have read such a load of old cobblers... I would request that David Flint at least give some indication that he has a basic knowledge of Australian history instead of presenting his personal fantasies as fact.

Australia was settled with violence aplenty - against the indigeneous human population, against nature itself, and against the convicts.

Australia was settled as a violent and bloody military dictatorship which quickly degenerated into the violent and cruel oligarchy of the Rum Corps. After Phillip left, the uneasy truce between the aboriginal people and the Europeans devolved into the (undeclared) First Black War.

And lets not forget that Australia was begun with an orgy, and that the first attempt at imposing the old world religion on the convicts led to the destruction and burning of the first 'house of worship' erected in the new colony. Oh, yes, we were settled with plenty of 'respect' for Jesus and his gang!

And all the above happened in the first 20 years. I could go on and detail our history of riots, rebellions, strikes, lockouts, massacres, and shootings which characterise our relationship with the indigeneous people of this stolen land, and characterises the 'class war' (for want of a better term) between the wealthy and the rest of us in this 'land of the young and free'.

Believe me, David, everyone isn't young and free!

Chris, which fantasy are you living in?

The White Australia Policy was mentioned but neatly side-stepped.

It was the fear and hatred of the Chinese that was the primary reason behind the call for Federation, not some high and noble ideal.

Federation creates citizenship and citizenship allows exclusion.
Until Federation, ANYBODY who set foot on the colony's soil automatically came under the juristiction and protection of the British Crown and was free to stay without fear of deportation.

Since then, every wave of immigrants has met the same social resistance with varying degrees of hostility.
Our xenophobic roots go very deep.
This is probably the commonest value we all share.

David Flint does not offer us a set of values but rather a set of his preferences of who he would include as Australians.

As an Australian decended from amongst the earliest European arrivals to my state I find this sort of jingoism offensive.

David obviously does not understand what it is to be Australian. An example is his so called fourth pillar -Judeo-Christian values and his homogendered preferences to claim what is Australian.

My great grandfather who served with the Light Horse and my grandfather who served in the Second World War were both Atheists and Republicans. Both had hoped Australia would be rewarded with full independence from the Monarchy for Australias sacrifices during the wars. My great grandmother contributed so much to freedom in this country by lobbying for sufferage yet as a woman her contribution to the formation of what we pride ourselves in as a country is now only aknowleged by those old enough to have met her.

My story is a tiny slice in millions of Australian stories which contradict Davids views.

Anybody who says they are Australian are Australian in my mind whether they stepped off the aircraft this morning or have roots going back thousands of years.

There is only one single value which is relevant which David appears not to hold if judged by his article. Mutual respect between all citizens.

Is that an Australian value?

Judging by rudeness, road rage, religious righteouness, domestic violence, child abuse, bigotry and divisionism in this country today I think not.

David Flint always gets a serve from the usual suspects for whom he is too intelligent, successful and articulate. Nevertheless, I thought only extremely embittered left-tragics would disagree with him on Australian values. And, of course, they showed up.

Sneekeepete could barely control his sad, left sarcasm. AMSADL was predictable. He hates everyone, but couldn’t resist giving John Howard a special mention. And, a couple of newcomers have joined the club.

As long as we have people with king-sized chips on their shoulders because the democratic process prevents them from electing to government whoever it is that will satisfy their needs, there is not much point talking about Australian values. Personal hatred and childish name-calling are not conducive to rational discussion.

It is sad that so many people who call themselves Australians seem intent on rubbishing their country. It’s not perfect. We don’t all get what we want. But, if there is a better country to live in, I would like to hear about it. However, as these Australia-bashers are still living here and taking what they can, I doubt very much if such a country exists. I further doubt that there would ever be a country that would make them happy

Well said Leigh.

Sneekeepete by name and nature.Some of these bottom feeders have the ethics lower than litigation lawyers.They'll feed off the system that sustains them and then have the audacity bag the hard working society that made it all possible.

I don't agree with everything David Flint writes,but he stands for more positive values & achievements than all the Sneekeepetes could muster in a life time of negative sniping.

The left are feeling very much threatened at the moment since the general populace is rejecting their anti-establishment rhetoric.If Labor is to survive,they'll have to subdue the left.

Right now there is an opening for a new political party that can fill the void left by Labor.

I always regarded David Flint as a bit of a D-ckhead, but he seems to be more than just a pretty face.
I think he needs to bone up on the various conflicts that we had prior to Federation, for example the Rum Rebellion, Eureka Stockade to name a couple, but at least we steered away from major conflicts.
It always amuses me that those who accuse us Aussies of being racist, or jingoistic or whatever, need to look in the mirror.
Also, whatever we may think of the current state of the Monarchy, it is going to take a very concerted push for the Republicans to win the day.

It is good to read a throughful contribution on this topic by a public intellectual....thank you, David.

My comment is about context: what are values? How does they differ from virtues. Or ethical principles. Or, even plain common sense? There is a deal of discussion about the furniture, but scant regard for the room - whether in this article or other recent contributions being made.

For instance, naming English as a value seems strange, to me. Every community has a lingua franca, neccessarily. If we said 'Good day, mate', in Aztec or Zulu - or 'Australian' - would that make us less Australian? At most, we can point to the need for a shared language, whatever it is, as a basis for community, but that is surely more a matter of universal common sense than an 'Australian value'.

Identifying the Crown as an Australian value seems similarly ideosyncratic. A majority of Australians do not favour having the Queen (or King Charles) as our head of state, but that surely doesnt make them less Australian. In fact, it is open to Australian republicans to argue that they are more 'true blue' than those who oppose the republic - as I do. Similarly, the rule of law is hardly a value (or ethic) unique to Australia, and nor are Judeo-Christian values (whatever those actually are). Federation? Would we no longer be Australian if we rationalised our governing arrangements to two tiers?

David Flint does seek to offer an historical ontology for grounding his shopping list, and this is more than what many contributors have offerred. Good on him. But the philosophical challange of identifying the architecture of a worldview, and within that, identifiying how Australian values are to be distinguished from human and Western worldviews more broadly, needs to be met if this discussion is ever actually going to go anywhere, it seems to me.

David James

Is this a typo?
"Our nation was born without war, loss of blood or violence."

This is just too pathetic to critque. There was plenty of war, loss of blood and violence in the invasion/colonisation and establishment of Australia.

Surely there is sufficient hard documentary evidence on the history of Australia for the editors to challenge the credibility of this article.

Shame on OLO for printing such drivel. It certainly rustled up the same old redneck rabble though it is sad way to invoke greater readership.

Good old David Flint engaged as ever in romantic fantasy. Perhaps he ought to understand that we live in a pluralistic society and give up the search for some eternal set of values inscribed in stone

David Flint hints that Australia vis-a-vis Germany is somehow exempt from destructive ideology. In my book, as a researcher of multiculturalism of 14 years standing, multiculuralism is a destructive ideology which is constructive to a few of whom personalities and motives ought to be brought out and discussed with all promptitude. Multiculturalism on the one hand rejuvenates Plato's idea that a 'golden class' would preside over classes of 'zinc' and 'iron' telling the 'noble lie' that all is naivete. Remember the giggling Al Grassby here! On the other hand, multiculturalism is an inversion of Nazism cooked up by Edward Shils at the University of Chicago and taught by Professor Shils at the LSE. This may be understood in that Nazism harnessed tradition into the extremes of the nation state which tolerated the annexation of Austria and eventually the holocaust. Multiculturalism, as we now see, removes the traditions which keep society from 'biting its own tail' - compare the London home-grown terrorists - and requires very heavy laws, aimed to stop terrorism - legislation so replete with notions of the Nazi state. Again, our commercial districts need so many uniformed security guards. Are not the swaggering uniformed transit guards with more powers than our police especially in Sydney and Melbourne so highly reminiscent of Nazism?
Multiculturalism also has one higher aim of being a means to change the Commonwealth Constitution because Austrlia's golden class think the Commonwealth Constitution is too good for ordinary Australians for a start. If one finds it difficult to accept this thesis, the best reference to be had is Bob Hawkw's 1979 Boyer Lectures.

Really Professor Flint, you and Kevin Donnelly are welcome to "Judeo-Christian values". So would these be Catholic Judeo-Christian values or Protestant Judeo-Christian values? Myself, I prefer the secular humanist values of the Enlightenment, which I believe underpin much of Australia's success as a tolerant society. As to the esteem most Australian's place on the Crown? I'll go out on a limb here and suggest the likelihood of King Charles of Australia is pretty slight.

You forgot, David, that wisdom builded her house with seven pillars. What would the seventh pillar be; perhaps egalitarianism? After all we know how much you hate elites. Of course, what the dictionary defines as elite, and what you mean by elite are two different things.

Oh my gracious goodness, the six pillars revelation from the divine hands of provident teddy (god) to free us from the darkness of sin and death, ...... to raise us up to life eternal, .... to never pass away, absolutely absolute with no further new public revelations, ... but this heavenly gift to be preserved, venerated with the same sense of loyalty, by an unending succession of cheerleaders until the end of time......... AND the salvation of man shines out. ..... Yo!

Man needs a final authority for creed and conduct, for faith and practice and here we have Soapy's (.... i.e. Flint's) floating soap bubble ... a heavenly gift in perpetuity from teddy.

Well it's a fantasy but perhaps teddy entered into a covenant with Soapy. Who knows? But before we can have sublimely inspired pillars we need a foundation and I see no mention of a foundation. Where are the material constituents to put in place these magic pillars? Well of course we need a country and let's say we have this land with striking dimensions, the smallest of the continents, the lowest, the flattest and just about the driest with ten deserts. Droughts, flooding rains and searing temperatures producing a highly variable climatic pattern that moulds a distinctive landscape, its fauna, flora and you guessed it ....... it moulds human activity and shapes our character.

Soapy's floating soap bubble is oblivious to geography and hence our foundation. For starters we have a legacy of unsustainable uses of natural resources over the course of the past century and a half. We also are driven by "populate or perish" mindsets which prophetically will ensure suicide by immigration.

I just wish this teddy had given us the good gardener rather than the good shepherd. Mate, we've been dudded.

I reckon sneekeepete is kind of funny at times - but any way Dr flint is a bit of a nag - if he was not such a monarchist I think what he said was fair comment - but he does have a lot to say on a lot of things - he gets as much time here as h egts in th epress - and you got tp wonder wgy

Reviewing David Flints article again I realise I was right in the first place.

The rudeness and contempt David Flints supporters have for the freedom of Australians eg accusing Australians as being Leftist (an out dated and parochial concept) for not supporting their personal agendas re-enforces what I said in the first place.

Only one value is important in Australia , mutual respect. Obviously the spirit of what David said in his article and the vemin disagreement evoked from Davids supporters confirms it is not a value held by those who subscribe to Flints dogma.

A wonderful article.

Sure, David Flint’s version of Australia is romanticised and idealised, but that’s what a national vision needs to be. Without a bit of spin, all nations would, under the weight of their failures and misdeeds, simply look like tyrannical crime gangs. David Flint is simply putting forward an image of Australia that is worthy of the love and affection of its citizens.

The harshly critical vision of Australia which many of the previous posters appear to hold, is neither inspirational nor uniting and is at least as unrealistic as the one set out in this article.

If it’s ok for Australians to delude themselves that Bradman was some kind of demigod, then it ought to be ok for Australians to delude ourselves we are better than we are. Self belief, whether realistic or not, is empowering and makes our nations stronger.

it seems there are those who think Australia bashing is a favorite pass time of (sigh) the "left" - maybe it is with a sado masochistic twist - and then the issue is worthy of some attention

But perversly, constant left bashing and sneering at academics, elites and latte sippers etc is a form of Australia bashing also

- as it is the left and academics who have set and dominated the social, political, educational and cultural agenda for so long! (according to Keith Windshuttle )- he said as much in his Earl Page Memorial oration not so long ago. -

By that definition the left is Australia! The left has defined the Australia we know and love - Add to that a long and proud history of rural socialism championed by the forebears of the National Party and you can come to no other conclusion!even conservative are of "the left" and are probably closet chardonnay sippers as well.

So if the left constantly bash Australia what we really have here is a form of self flagellation - once popular with Tory politicians and wacky Australian musicians.

It must be true because so many consider the left to be a bit sick any way

One of the difficulties we all face today is that rational argument, that is argument based on shared experience or on acknowledged events, has been abandoned by ever greater numbers. Evidence of this can be found in the so called 'evolution debate' or the so called 'climate debate'. Andrew Bolt is an interesting example of this current trend in the media, as is John Howard in politics, who legitimises, at the highest levels, anti-rational debate. In the absence of shared agreements, debate is impossible. How do you debate something as vague as 'Australian Values' when some are prepared to challenge the veracity of acknowledged or recorded historical events?
For instance, soon after the first Europeans landed at Sydney Cove, the male convicts were put on land first. Some time later, the female convicts were released. This led to a general orgy of attempted and actual procreation, and later the burning of the first church erected in the new colony. These events were recorded extensively in all the surviving diaries, letters, reports etc. And yet a commentator in this very discussion can allude to this comment as fantasy. I was using these examples to challenge the assertion that Australians founded this country on good old god-fearing Judeo-Christian values. But did they? Or rather, which Australians did so? Certainly not the convicts!
Instead of addressing the argument, some prefer to abuse, denigrate or insult. Thus doing, they abuse the values they claim to champion.

Hi David,
(Part I)
I am pretty much in agreement with your overall sentiment, but I'd add a bit. Yes a great deal of our heritage and values have come to us from our British Heritage. However much of what we received from them is rooted in the civilisations of the ancient past. Primarily the Greeks and the Hebrews.
True the Anglo's refined, developed and significantly altered much they inherited. Such is the nature of our heritage and the various custodians of our heritage over eons had similar effects.
But strewth mate, give us a fair go. We as Australians are applying our own adaptations and refinements as we too pass on our heritage.

One fairly significant issue you raise is our Judeo-Christian heritage. Many people often refer to this heritage. It is rarely defined or explained. I think it is probably best expressed in terms of Christ's Sermon on the Mount. I often think that heritage is overstated in it's influence upon our Aussieness.

I see some of that particular address broadly reflected in our unique Australian idealogy of 'a fair go'. I rarely see the Judeo Christian influences and attitudes expressly confirmed in our Common Law or our Legislative processes and many of us reject the Christian religions or adhere to other beliefs. However I do see 'a fair go' reflected across most of our society. Especially in our adherence to a social welfare network. That is our nature. As it is our nature to become a tad upset when we see breeches of that idealogy. What we perceive as breeches have resulted in a range of reactions from armed conflict and riots through electrol landslides at the ballot box to the mild social rebuke of 'give us a fair suck of the sav'.

Part II
Our early poets, writers and publishers defined us as a nation over our formulative years of the late 1800's and early 1900's. Our forefathers accepted and understood themselves and their Australianness. (That was confirmed and displayed to the world at Gallipoli and in France). They, while accepting a British heritage, rejected being British in favour of our uniquely Australian selves. Reading from those times clearly support this contention.

Today we'd be better off adopting a more inclusive definition of ourselves. That definition should not be solely in our forefathers terms, or solely British terms or solely Judeo Christian terms or solely Greek terms or solely indigenous terms, or solely in terms of our now great diversity. It would be wise and to ensure for 'a fair go' for any definition to be a composite of the proven parts and adaptations of all the individual components of our unique heritage.

Regard Keith Kennelly

David

You say that the native australian population fared better under British rule than they would have fared under others, (maybe Spanish, Portugese, French, German, Dutch, I wonder if they feel thankful for this good luck.

You should remember that we have a lot in common with the USA as both countries were taken over by europeans and resulted in the killing of most of the indiginous population.

You also say that we still have the right of free speech in Australia.
Maybe your article was wriiten before the new terrorism laws were passed.