I have no idea how describe Australian values. Having spent 4 years out of the country recently I have an inner knowledge that I am Australain. It difficult to describe a subjective feeling objectively without being jingoistic. Interestingly on my return I did not feel I had come home until I went into the outback, although I have never lived there.
A sense of being Australian has nothing to do with patriotism. Patriotism is a ploy much loved by neocons but not exclusively by them. Patriotism is the last refuge of fools and rogues. I forget who said that but I concur. I think that if a politian wants you to be patriotic one should do 2 things
1 Put your hand over your wallet
2 Draw your children and grandchildren to you, they want cannon fodder.

Ted.

Couldn't agree more.

Since Howard has put his head so far up the anus of George Bush, we can expect that he would only encourage Australians following in their facist footsteps.

Rabid nationalism is encouraged when the government wants to control the masses. It gives them something to think about before, during and after the "bread and circuses" (barbie and football).

History has fascinating parallels in Hitler and Mussolini (both facists who encouraged extreme nationalism).

I'm looking forward to one of our aggressively patriotic posters here to list a few examples of what it means to be Australian...I'm very interested.

And don't say 'mateship', cause I've been to other countries, and they keep friends too. It's a pretty universal quality, actually.

Ted I'm with you. It's next to impossible to put a finger on, because it is so subjective. Love the warnings about policitian calls for patriotism!

I am not altogether against politicians attempts to show that they are patriotic (I use that term simply because it sums up their rather simple approach), as I'd rather that than think they dont care at all.

Historically, it appears that despite what policitians say and argue, Australians maintain a healthier scepticism than a lot of similar countries (eg the US). Our policitians say something, we raise a collective eyebrow and mutter "d!ckhead" under our breath. Whilst we dont always agree (fairly rarely actually) with what our leaders say and do, we generally arent rabid protesters either.

"does the signing of such a pledge by people entering Australia suggest that Australians have an equal obligation to subscribe to whatever values are held by any country they enter? Singapore, perhaps? North Korea?" Well North Korea might be an extreme example - cant see too many people wanting to move there. But generally I would expect that any Australian moving to another country should behave at least in accordance with that countries habits and values. Eg dont go walking around the Middle East in a mini-skirt and skimpy top, or drink alcohol in public places. Its just good manners if nothing else. I wouldnt have a problem signing something to that effect either. If you dont like Zimbabwe's approach to political conduct (for example), then dont go there. Agreeing to another countries values, doesnt mean that you have to do something that you find unethical (eg stoning to death someone that has committed adultery), but it does mean that you need to not do something that offends the people of that country (like the points mentioned above). For that reason, I dont expect muslim women in Australia to throw off the headscarf and start frolicking around on Bondi in a bikini. But I also dont expect to have the local pool open to only women at certain times to cater to the sensibilities of the same women.

Whispering Ted, Boswell claimed it was Samuel Johnson who first claimed that "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel" (about 1775 I think).

There's a good account of patriotism at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotism

It raises questions about benign and malign patriotism. When is patriotism a virtus and when is it malevolent?

It could be said that there's nothing wrong with patriotism until it blinds us to other peoples' virtues and our own shortcomings. I am extremely suspicious of the motives of public figures (politicians and the like) who throw around words like "unAustralian" as if they have exclusive rights to the moral high ground.

As I get older I get more confused about this BBQ stopper question

My own experience was the "Rambo Syndrome" one where a former PM Pig Iron Bob used the words "the Yellow Peril" to conscript me against my wishes and send me to fight the Yellow Peril in order "to save the lifestyle of the people of Oz". It was as much a lie as WMD by new Rodent and yes the media drummed up a thing of "baby killers" and the mushrooms spat on us if we tried to march on Anzac Day

but 40 years later the Yellow Peril come in on Jumbo Jets and live here [as long as they have money to buy Telstra shares] but if I was to emulate pig Iron and call one of these people "yellow" he would have me up in from of Aunty Pru before you could say Hairy legged Lesbian and off to jail for me for "racial prejudice" even though the word racial is not even IN the Act

So a PM uses "racist" words to drum up racism to pass a racist Act to FORCE me to do racist killings to save you mushrooms, but I am the bad guy if as the saviour, I even mention the same word. Errrr must have been some CHANGE in Oz values over 40 years!

That's Oz in the new milenium and it stinks if you are a bloke espec if a volunteer worker. I thought at the time "I am none too sure I WANT to save these generations to come from the Yellow Peril" and now they have become flesh I am totally sure I was right

and the band played Waltzing Matilda ..

What's un-Australian?

i) Supporting a US administration that unjustly detains terrorist suspects for years without hope a fair trial and doing nothing to object to this unacceptable state of affairs, not even for an Australian citizen!

ii) Detaining refugees for years without a hearing and sending them back to their countries of origin where they are mistreated, imprisoned or murdered.

The oath to Australian values to get a Visa is stupid. An agreement to follow Australian laws, respect Australian citizens, the unique land, fauna, environment, and our diversity, would suffice.

It is un-Australian not to know the invisible glow of burning gum leaves. This is a romantic country. Look at "what is", not "what is not"...

Kenneth Slessor puts it better:

South Country

"And over the flat earth of empty farms
The monstrous continent of air floats back
Coloured with rotting sunlight and the black,
Bruised flesh of thunderstorms:

Air arched, enormous, pounding the bony ridge,
Ditches and hutches, with a drench of light,
So huge, from such infinities of height,
You walk on the sky's beach

While even the dwindled hills are small and bare,
As if, rebellious, buried, pitiful,
Something below pushed up a knob of skull,
Feeling its way to air."

Then there are Lawson's poems of the ghostly drovers that cross the outback.

The Aboriginal poems of the Dugong.

If the Cricket, football or paintings and films don't move you, surely the poetry says something. The terror in the beauty of a country once cultivated by fire. Who could not be moved by these wonders?

What astounds and continues to depress me is how quickly we all seem to fall in line with the jingoism. Someone yells ‘patriotism’ and suddenly we seem to have hoards of people fighting each other to prove how ‘(insert relevant term here)’ they are. Flags come first but the beatings and the burnings follow quickly.

‘My country, right or wrong’ has been the war cry of the mindless far too often. Demagogues use it to steamroll over our consciences and propel us in directions that, after the fact, appear ludicrous. We all sit back and shake our heads at the Holocaust and say piously ‘those Germans were inhuman to do those things’. Well, I can assure you they were very human and it is THERE that the end point of cries of patriotism and nationalism lies- blood and death.

Make no mistake, the nanosecond that we put hard barriers around the concept of Australian, we open the floodgates of persecution. More than that, we legitimize it by enshrining bigotry it into the laws of our land. This is a corruption of our very soul.

‘Australia’ and ‘Australian’ is bigger than definitions. It is more than a statement on mateship, or drinking VB or any of the simple drek peddled by our so-called leaders. It is seen in our laws, in the actions we take locally and abroad. It is so much more than a page of words.

If we must make a statement about who we are and what we stand for, then lets sit down and draft a Bill of Rights for ourselves. Let’s do it right. Discuss it openly and set it up for everyone to see. But don’t let ourselves be pulled down into the squalid mud of demagoguery and political opportunism that preys on our weakest impulses.

Let us be the proud nation that others see us as and say not ‘My country, right or wrong’ but ‘My country- right and I’m keeping it that way!’ To me, that is the Australian way.

I agree mylakhrion,

please see my comparison to Hitler's final solution to the wholesale rape of our rights by Howard now, all covered up by Advance Aust Oy Oy Oy and 'av a Telstra share

see www.amandaforpm.com and > Nuremberg Revisited - it tells the story of how the holocaust was allowed to happen, using same jingoistic hoop la in Oz today

Other thing re HOW do we define or do we NEED to define being Oz, let me relate

Back in 1970 doing "Europe Tour" [almost compulsory for any young Oz back then] we were amazed that people would say hello Oz even before you spoke

A Pom said "you lost Oz? can I help?" so I actually asked him "I am dressed like you and look like you, so why would you call me Oz?"

"simple Guv, you people have a halo around your head that says we are Oz and proud of it - stands out a mile away, like we all look downtrodden"

It was like SouthPark "I think we all learnt something today" but I never really understood how they could SEE a halo

so maybe the answer is you just BE who you are and forget all about explaining it, but I would hasten to add that I would not be confident that the same is being said on London streets 35 years later

I sort of suspect the halo has slipped, unfortunately, or it looks more like a Bush

I agree mylakhrion that a Bill of Rights in this country is overdue. I have also said in some other post that national pride, is the kind of Pride, that is the deadliest of all sins. It was deadly enough to strike down Lucifer to the Hell as the condemned Satan.

To maliciously claim your superiority without moderation is a poisonous way to behave. The holocaust is a pointed example. But I've been told by OLO that I talk too much about WWII, so someone else can do this.

There is a difference between nasty pride and dignity. This Australian way has never really included patriotism. That is more of a republican American or French concept. We do, however, always hold our dignity as a sacred part of character. The convicts starved for dignity. The Jolly Swagman robbed a "jumbuck", but he was already robbed of his dignity. His ghost still hungers for it.

The Aboriginal people only ever asked for dignity with one word. Sorry. They still hunger for it.

A Bill of Rights will give us this dignity.

Before this happens, I am indifferent to the Australian flag and I don't celebrate Australia day as a matter of my family dignity. They were convicts wrongly sentenced. The Old Bailey never said sorry to us either.

Lawson talked about the "Australian gaze". Maybe that is the halo. We have a habit of looking over horizons, for rainbows, maybe ourselves, but above all, like Muriel stuck in Porpoise Spit: our dignity.

nice post saintfletcher, but I remain "on the fence" with Bill of Rights and here's why

excellent example is current racist Howard campaign against "deadbeat dads" [even adopting the American word]. It is just another blind following of Hitler's methods based on Hitler's words "it is a great fortune for governments the people don't think"

The Howard "chase deadbeats to their graves" campaign is IMHO worse than Hitler's initial "big nose Juden" leading up to Crystal Night, AND it is TOTALLY ILLEGAL but Howard knows he can get away with it simply based on media savvy and total lack of PROTEST by blokes

In USA I know a deadbeat arrested will say "I'll take the 5th" and there the Bill of Rights protection ends because as in Oz he will grab a lawyer and THAT will be the end of arguing his rights under the Child Support law, becaue USA is same as Oz where biggest lawyer employer IS govt so no lawyer is ALLOWED to argue your rights [or he is "sent to Coventry"]. That is not rocket science, it's just the way it is.

Point is as long as bloke goes by HIMSELF to judge and talks plain English, the judge will find for his Rights [espec if he boned up on Privacy Act], but blokes always do the lemmings to the sea and use a lawyer, and as I understand it, SOMEONE still has to ARGUE rights under a Bill of Rights so it seems I answered own question as we only have 1,000 deadbeats induced to suicide per annum here but 10 times that [per capita] in the United States of American Apple Pie [said with hand on left breast]

and God bless America!

I didn't know the slanderous term "deadbeat dad" so I had to google it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadbeat_dad

That one is complicated. I'm not an expert on this topic. Maybe this one could be further discussed and considered in legislation. It is too specific for a Bill of Rights. I can't see how a Bill of Rights is that specific. The Bill of Rights in the US is open for interpretation. George W Bush once said that the Constitution was just a piece of paper and he was the president, so the constitution was a "liberal plot" against his God.

From what I read this is from legislation in the United States, and every State has a different law.

The PM used a derogatory Americanism. It is a complicated issue.

Ironically Howard is the most American Presidential style PM we have ever had.

For example, no Prime Minister before Howard has ever dared to address the troops before a war. The troops are not the property of the PM. They are answerable to the crown and the Governor General. That may explain why so many soldiers refuse to solute the PM. He is not their boss.

His press conferences are now presidential. He uses American tactics, American style patriotism, and American style mean legislation when it comes to social security. It has been against the law to cut social security since the 1911 act.

He is also the first PM to have the audacity to say that Australia will "definitely" never be under a future King Charles. Howard has decided, so I guess Malcolm Turnbull will be his anointed one.

What is un-Australian? Turnbull's republic, or a Bill of Rights and our stability with the crown?

Divorce Doctor,

Viet-nam was not about Communism. Rather, it was a remnant of the Far East's fight against colonialism and the East's lean towards nationalism against, and, the imposition of unnatural and imposed borders. Ho Chi Minh, the Nationalist, not the Communist, sought assistance from the West after WWI, and Truman in the 50s, did not want to upset the French by standing against colonlisaton. Else, perhaps, we may have had an quasi-ally [Saudi Arabia] in Viet-nam against Communism in the 60s era?

If Pig Iron Bob was generically concerned about Asia, why did he export iron ore to a known Militarist Japan, against advice?

Money from iron. Money for oil. Artificial borders in the Middle East. Articial borders in Asia. Fractionism/civil wars at that time and this. It is all so confusing... Except the political spin, of course

I guess, anyone who does not want to adopt Australian Values has the choice before them, don't bother to come here.

Halayly and Co represent a few who, from their own mouths have displayed an intolerance of Australian Values as they are and for whom removal from Australian society would be best for all concerned.

No one is forced to migrate here.
No one is prohibited from departing.

Anyone who cannot tolerate what are deemed the values adopted and exercised by the vast majority of Australians, including tolerance of others, should exercise their democratic right and leave. They will not be missed by the rest who support "Australian Values" and decide to stay.

Col: Could you please provide a list of this values?

It's UnAustralian to label people UnAustralian. So this comment is UnAustralian.

PFH makes an unAustralian comment: "It's UnAustralian to label people UnAustralian."

Col Rouge says anyone who can't tolerate Australian values - which include tolerance of others - should not be tolerated.

PFH's irony is firmly tongue in cheek. Col's contradiction seems entirely unconscious.