The subject of ‘Australian values’ has certainly brought out everybody with a view, and too many of them, like this fellow, go straight to their own political biases to deal with the matter. We all have our political biases of course, but surely we can drop them when it comes to our life-values.

Howard said this. Beazley said that. Some from the ‘Left’ have responded cynically.

Baloney! Politics has nothing to do with heart-felt, human values we should all be sharing without being political driven. Politics is the most unpleasant, mean and devious part of life. Unless we have the values to start with, it is more unpleasant, meaner and more devious, with danger thrown in.

The kind of political freedom, or lack of freedom, we enjoy is based on our values. If you don’t know what those values are (people seem to be for ever asking) then have a good, hard look at what we have in Australia, and work backwards to see how we got it – and there you will find Australian values.

Australian values are very similar to other Western countries; very different from non-Western countries where life is much grimmer, without the freedoms we have.

Australian values are not a science. We don’t need to scratch around trying to find them or even articulate them for those we think don’t understand them. They are here; all around us; in us.

All this chatter will encourage some drone of a politician to come up with the bright idea of having a Minister for Australian Values. We are a natural, spontaneous people. All we have to do is be ourselves, and stop trying to analyse everything just because some politician or academic wants to make a name for himself.

We can do without all this bilge.

‘What are our values’ asks someone who identifies with the ALP. Let’s take a look at the ‘values’ of those emblematic people in the ALP who become politicians.

One politician turned a sleepy village into a capital city to enable him to claim $43,000 in T/A; another shafted his missus on his office desk; another had the law changed retrospectively so as to avoid fraud charges; another had his wife beating charges heard summarily to avoid a prison term; an ex-PM who abused an old person in a shopping centre; another who gave his mate a boost when tendering for government work; another who sued the taxpayer because he couldn’t ride a bike; and, another who used a whiteboard to record the movement of $30 million of taxpayers’ money. OLO has a word limit so I’ll stop here but the list is endless and includes malfeasance on the part of the other mob.

When we try to articulate what our values are we should turn away from politicians because if they are the archetypes that shape our ‘values’ we are destined to become liars, thieves, cheats, inept, lascivious types with one eye on the cash register and the other eye on any lurk we can manipulate to our own advantage.

Good comments. One of the more prominent and enduring of Australian values is that we don't trust politicians of any brand. They are the last people we need to be defining our values for us.

The last thing we need is a society of people fashioned in the image of a politician.

The author wrote "It is .... those on the conservative side of politics, who have historically done much to undermine Australia’s social liberal settlement". Please feel free to dispute that was what you wrote - I have abbreviated it but believe it to be a fair summary.

OK. Let's just review things here. This is a boyo from the Left faction of the Victorian Labor Party.

Isn't this the Bracks Government that has set up laws that prevent people from criticisng or arguing about other religions - with a lawyer who argued in court on behalf of that government that the fact that what someone said was true and even reasonable didn't give them any permission from this "liberal" government to say it.

Isn't this the Bracks Government that has decided to foist a Bill of Rights on the Victorian people without benefit of any structured consultation such as a referendum, preferring instead to justify it on the basis of their pretend consultation process that refused to discuss questions of the need for this legislation in a "liberal" democracy.

I could quote several more examples of this Government and this party (including their own factional disputes where they like to totally destroy any opposing faction) that show that "conservatives" have got nothing on this party's dictatorial preferences and bent.

Go and peddle your nonsense somewhere else Tristan - perhaps at kindergarten level they might not have run across the Socialist Left and what their Treasurer did to screw up Victoria and usher in Jeff Kennett.

Chainsmoker,

I would go further and say that ingrained into Australian culture was a distrust of all authority - at least until that authority figure proved itself worthy of trust. Pollies have never proven themselves worthy.

This whole debate on culture and values is really another red-hearing thrown into the arena to distract us from other agendas.

Australia has never been a class-less society. We've had Overseers, Squatters and Pasturalist, company directors and then workers. The depression of the 1890's saw shoot to kill legislation, freedom of contract (think AWA) and this debate on culture and immigration. Western Australia had a resource boom and Eastern Australia almost a marxist revolution.

As a result, there has always been a hint of marxism in Australian culture. Tall poppy syndrome spring to mind, as well as the hatred of corporate excesses, but as a people we recognise the need for a capatilist market. We believe in giving a struggler a hand-up, but we hate a bludger with a hand-out mentality.

If most Australians, as Leigh articulated, cannot themselves identify Values and Culture in a few paragraphs, what hope of someone born to a non-European culture.

Narcissist, in your second last paragraph about the typical Aussie, reckon you are just about right. But also today on the ABC Media Invite, a person came on, undoubtly a government man a Mr Le - Strange, who though a good speaker who knew what he was talking about, especially about trade, greenhouse problems, Aussie foreign policy, etc, but during the short question time, he reminded one so much of a military officer with his well-rehearsed replies, that he also gave reminder of GWB's very curt command after 9/11 that if you are not with us you are against us. In fact, it made an old veteran like me throw a mock military salute at the TV screen.

Indeed, if we want to stay dinkum Aussies, reckon we should all stay that way.