I do not claim to have read all OLO discussions and articles so If I am copyng another thread please advise and I will regroup, But, In the abscence of any other such discussion...

I pose the question: Just which values are we going to claim as Australian and seek for all Australians to uphold at fear of Expulsion or Deportation (and just who are we going to make accept our 'rejects' is another question entirely. Nauru perhaps? - new discussion please someone?)

So let's hear some Answers. I shall be listing those most strongly supported on my website and suggesting our PM (whoever it is) and Foreign Minister be making them part of any future Immigrant Policy as well as enshrining them clearly and unambiguously in our Justice Systems.

If we claim Aussie values I want to have them written down somewhwere so ALL can abide by them.

As a start, I choose Honesty (Speaking ALL truth relevant to a particular topic not just to the goal you want to achieve and incorporating the will to eliminate false information or belief based upon falsehood or missing information) as a desired True Australian value.

Any Others?

(How in heck any politician can agree to upholding that value in full I cannot imagine, but I think it is of vital importance).

I'll go for a live and let live. That in expecting freedom for your own beliefs and choices you give that same freedom to others.

Those who want the freedom to follow ancient middle eastern shepherd gods need to accept that others don't need to live by their interpretation of the dictates of that or any other god.

R0bert

Brainy... this subject has had a fair amount of attention in previous threads.. I suggest you google the subject and include onlineopinion in your key words.

Some values I note are:

-Language is English.
-Best and FAIRest concept....(quite Australian I note)
-Love for this country more than ones own ethnicity. You call yourself 'Australian' of such and such background (migrant generation only)
-Greetings. 'handshake' not kiss hand, bow or rub noses.

To be honest, its quite hard to actually articulate all the values, but I can assure you an anthropologist would have no trouble doing it.
http://www.anthropology.arts.uwa.edu.au/home/research/urban
Thats a link to an academic geospecific locality Perth.

-Fair go for all, and not just for 'my mob'.
-Rejection of any social or demographic trend which would threaten the point above. (?)
-Male/female roles ?

This link also may give some perspective and history.
http://www.convictcreations.com/research/identity.htm

Hope this helps

Live and let live!

Does that equate to 'Freedom'?

Just want to have a one or two word 'Value' there is all I am asking.

If you care to answer you may want to provide a possible solution to the 'freedom' we might have to allow others into the country who may wish the freedom to kill us or take our country by force if they did not share the will to Live and Let Live? Would we be honour bound by such a Value to let them??

How about if they wanted to change our 'national' Religion or similarly held contemporary national belief through a democratic weight of majority numbers? (Australia wide or just in one electorate)

Would we be free to let bigots gain political power?

Live and let live, like Honesty, sounds fine to me in theory. Trouble arises when we all have to live 'in practice' - True? Still we have a start.

Honesty, Freedom,... any others?
Any proviso's?

Earlier this month Beazley called for Australian visa forms to include a statement of Australian values so all people arriving in the country would understand what was expected of them. (especially those people who might cause trouble, you know who they are!)

Then I watched question time in federal parliament and realized it was a joke.

So braindrain, we could write out a set of values, adopt them, even tattoo them on our children's foreheads but these are matters of acculturation.

I for one don't believe for a minute that Australian's values are those that people say they are. They are more aspirational values, not actual, parochial but not consciously followed.

Rainier,

I was kinda afraid of that. But i figure that if more people talk about it and can reach agreement, or at least a rapprochement,
we might actually be able to Unify all peoples in this Great Nation just a little more and be better able to prevent Howard, Beazley et al from gaining cheap points in opinion polls and dividing us against one another and increasing innate bigotries whenever it suits their purposes.

Besides I want to know just what we Aussies think our values are and think they deserve to be enshrined somehow.

There is an undeniable gap between what we think our values should be and what reality shows them to actually be but writing them down and being able to refer to them for 'guidance' and getting our Justice system to uphold them somewhat more can only improve the situation... No?

B_D,

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll do the google and follow your links - Appreciated.

RObert, Liked the input, anything to add? : )

Ranier....whether aspirational or real.. we need the aspirational and should teach them.

There will always be a gap between reality and theory and it will depend on the behavior of many individuals.
The point is, having a reference... enables us to evaluate behavior.

Brainy.. I absolutely DON'T want people coming here who's basic ideology will ultimately be a threat to that freedom.

Yes.. we must be selective and picky.

The term I use is 'Socially positive discrimination' but I might change the word 'discrimination' to 'selection'.

Such a move would be damned either way.... the open borders mob would call us RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACISTS and if you had open borders, my mob would say its plain cultural suicide.

So, in the long run, we need to have convictions about the best direction forward and be prepared for the inevitable flack, stand fast and stay the course.

There is a beautiful illustration of this in the life of Jesus.

Luke 9:51

"As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem."

The word for 'resolutely' in greek is more like 'set his face like a flint' and when you consider that he knew exactly what awaited....yet went on....its a solemn and worthy example for all of us.

BrainDrain,

If you have to ask others what Australian values are, you will never know. How sad.

I always liked the French one's "Liberté, égalité, fraternité".

They just don't seem to make much difference in practice though do they? France has hardly extolled these virtues in it's history.

It's all well and good to have values like these, but they mean little if a nations people don't abide.

I fear it's too late for a few simple words to make a difference in our situation, where the 'undesireables' are for the most part already citizens, or the children of migrants who were born Australian (even though they don't identify as Aussie).

B_D,
I agree with much, approaching all, you said here.

'Thank You. Come Again!' : )

Leigh,
Hmmm, I will do my best to be Nice - since that is one of my theoretical Values (OLO'ers may realise my theory doesn't always see eye-to-eye with practice).

Having lived here for 36 years (75%) of my life and undergone and met citizenship requirements of our government i consider i have earned the right to be called Australian.

As an Australian, I have Values i aspire to, but like all humans, often fail to reach. These include, but are not limited to:
Honesty; Honour(Trustworthyness); Willingness to lend a helping hand to those less fortunate than myself (Charity?); Pursuit of Knowledge and eliminating ignorance and bigotry; and 'Niceness'.

If you see some kind of need to denigrate me and to demolish a desire to help bring this greatly divided Nation (See Article discussions: Reflections on a Multicultural Nation # 5153) a little closer together by establishing this thread and attempting to define values clearly so all can refer to them and look up to them for guidance of just what being an Australian is at times when there may be some 'debate' regarding them, then i suggest:

A: you take a good, long, hard look at your values in relation to your action and motives, and
B: you shut your ill-considerate Yap (at least on OLO but best if it appiles to all areas in my Opinion) until you get a brain capable of some kind of integrity and expressing your ideas without pulling down another's! (Oops - Theory vs Practice again. Bugger!)

Or is Tall Poppy Syndrome (little man syndrome) one of your 'Aussie' Values?

Oh Yes, add Integrity to my Value list!

Any Intelligent comments from people on what their Aussie Values are?

They don't have to be Uniquely Australian - just ones we want as a Nation in our 'Nationals'.

BrainDrain, I was looking for something more than Freedom because all to often when people talk about freedom they only mean freedom for those who think like themselves.

They should be free to live out fundy christain beliefs but others should not be free to be gay. They should be free to wear head to toe clothing but others should not be free to wear a bikini (or less).

The idea of values as aspirations makes sense, values are rarely enforcable nor are we always able to live up to our own values. Nor should they apply just to migrants.

This thread is a good idea, it has been interesting to see on other threads how little some who crow most loudly about Australian values share with me by way of values (my family does not go back as far as Rainers in this country but has been here for a number of generations).

It's all to easy to imagine the values of our peers are the values of the wider community, that is not always the case.

R0bert

R0bert,
Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood - sound's pretty good to me!

Brotherhood in Australia is not very PC (separates us from 'Sisters') and might have been replaced here with 'Mateship' before people like Howard started using it to try to show he is 'one of the lads' and people like Brian Burke (former jailbird WA premier) who clearly hands out jobs to his mates and makes illicit deals with both serving politicians and big business (his 'Mates') as a lobbyist non-grata under the same (now corrupted) principle got their grubby little paws into it.

If we could somehow get the Mateship of Anzacs at war back we could give it another go I reckon.

I think you're right - Live and let Live works better than Freedom. Freedom inmplies the freedom to break laws and long held 'Tradition', and starting your own 'divisions' and we need more Unity of purpose, I believe. (while retaining the diversity necessary for growth and warding off 'illnesses' or stagnation).

Equality is good too but maybe Live and let Live covers that?

It is important to recognise that Australians should all have as equal opportunities (same wage for same job) as is practicable and fair to all.

Given Aussie's love of a Fair Go - Maybe 'Fairness' better embodies that?

BrainDrain, my next ones not a one worder either. Sorry about that.

- Personal responsibility tempered with compassion.

I think traditionally we have taken pride in standing on our own feet and in being there to give a hand when the chips are down.

We have had little sympathy for those who expect to be carried but we realise that sometimes crap happens and people need a hand.

Pretty much impossible to legistlate or test for but worth to aspiring to. Some crossover with the idea of a fair go.

R0bert

This is a joke right?

I clicked on this article thinking it was going to be about societies where religion dominates politics, yet the writer is talking about Australia, and the Christian west?

Are Muslims not even people?

Here we have Christian societies, with the most radical types being found in the U.S, who want Creationism taught in schools and abortions made illegal.

Very occasionally, repeat, very occasionally, there is a lone lunatic who murders an abortion doctor in the south. The entire community disowns him rather than calls him a martyr, and that is the worst of it.

Contrast this with societies where being non-Muslim is illegal, i.e, Saudi Arabia, and where churches don't exist, i.e, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, U.A.E, to name a few.

These societies are religious theocracies, where minority Christians have been run out of their own nations by Islamists who subject them to kidnappings, rapes, murders, all with government approval or at least ignorance, and all documented by human rights groups.

Muslim societies dominate their citizens lives from cradle to the grave, just like in Orwell's 1984.

That's right, information witheld (they are told democracy is evil), a constant enemy (the evil west, who is blamed for all their failures - such as rampant corruption, a cherished cultural value of the non-west) and an entire morality-immorality aspect to believers as opposed to non-believers (how Muslims consider infidels kaffir,a derogatory term used to describe inferirors, as well as the entire dhimmitude - master/ slave relationship with non-Muslims).

Surely, if one was going to write an article about religion in politics, one can't look past the middle-east?

Good gried. Some westerners world views really extend no further than Hollywood do they?

Sorry, wrong post.

This was meant to be posted under Noel Preston's "The troublesome Mix: Religion and Politics".

Now that I'm here, I have a few of my own Australian values, which really are western values, to include:

1. Loyalty to the constitution, not in an Australia sense, but rather to democracy, freedom of speech, tolerance, all of which grossly lack in our arrivals from non-western cultures, particularly Muslims.

2. Secularism, again, it's Muslims here that fail this test. That they subscribe to a belief that Sharia (an utterly barbaric, disgusting law code) must reign supreme will lead to a clash when there are more of them, just like what happened in Kosovo.

3. Tolerance, although written above, this needs it's own post. Tolerance is our main value, although leftists have gotten it all confused, as they think we should tolerate Muslim Nazi's, who want to overthrow the west and put a caliphate in it's place.

It ain't going to happen, by the way, but even if there were only Muslim radicals on the planet, eventually women would march for their rights just like they did in the west.

This is because ALL humans desire freedom, and given the west is the freest of all, it should impose such values, by whatever force is necessary, on all of humankind.

To force intolerant redneck cultures to tolerate women being educated, to not hunt ethnic minorities for sport, shouldn't need to be forced on anyone, although sadly, such values we hold dear are only shared by about 10% of the planet.

4. Military service, as living among the barbarians in this region, we must protect our superior values of tolerance, equality, from those who would enslave us because we aren't of their tribe.

Good day all.

G'Day benjamin,

Anyone can make a mistake or be mistaken. I've made the same one you have (misposting). In some (very few) aspects we are alike. In some important ones we are diametrically opposed.

I concede you have some similar desires to my own, to see Australia become a peaceful nation in a peaceful world. We approach that goal from incompatible directions and thus our goals, while seeming identical, cannot be mutually achieved. That is a pity.

Please - look up the term 'Confirmation Bias' and see if you can figure out what it means for you and for mankind, given the current level of misunderstanding between various groups of the human race ( the only race that genetically exists in humans).

Tolerance
c.1412, "endurance, fortitude" from O.Fr. tolerance (14c.), from L. tolerantia "endurance," from tolerans, "to bear, endure". Of authorities, in the sense of "permissive," 1539; of individuals, with the sense of "free from bigotry or severity," 1765. Meaning "allowable amount of variation" from 1868; Tolerant is recorded from 1784.

The entymology shows how we come to misunderstand the word today. It was first used in the sense of how much one could endure and equated with Strength. (my preference) Over 100 years later Authorities abused the word to mean what they would 'permit' (your preference). A more moderated approach meaning 'free from bigotry or severity' (on others) arose 2 centuries later.

Today you use it to engender intolerance of those you do not truly 'know' and who you equate with the OBVIOUS ill's within their society's. (Because they live in that society you feel they must all agree with the negative aspects of their society). Muslim bigots think you're evil because your society allows over-consumption of Alcohol which destroys your ability to know right from wrong).

I use tolerance in the sense Jesus and Ghandi expressed it. Being tolerant and doing good only to those you agree with is of NO value. You must do good (tolerate) to those who disagree with you to the extent they would kill you.

Tolerate does NOT equate with convert over to.

R0bert,
Responsibility (corporate, political and personal) is a superb Aussie Value. It definitely goes in!

Compassion is a True Value also.

Compassion, like tolerance, is not universally accpted by man in his present level of understanding (taken as a whole - some get it, some don't)

There are some (as seen elsewhere in OLO) who are very afraid of tolerance and compassion because they KNOW they do not all possess it, and are utterly afraid of what will happen to them if we 'force' tolerance and compassion into Australia (or wherever).

Fear and Force are indistinguishable - you can't have one without the other. (Force as in make, compel, not as in Force of Gravity or electrical force) Also indistinguishable are bigotry and fear, which is why bigots always want to use force or are afraid of being forced into something they hate. Bigots fail to understand how avoiding force could ever succeed over actual force of their enemy's.

They are incapable of understanding that avoidance of force is STRENGTH (tolerance in the initial sense) and believe instead it to be cowardice, appeasement and surrender as these are the only values they can possibly see.

I am in no Utopia of my own making. I well understand the murderous hateful intent of some who, on the surface, appear vastly different to myself and my beliefs. I am perfectly capable of being killed, like a few already have been, by a fanatic's bomb who hates me because he believes i am ungodly and he cannot tolerate anyone who does not think just like himself or supports, even only by not speaking out against, a society bent on his own society's destruction.

In spite of that tolerance, compassion and RESPECT for all people's are human values that i want instilled in EVERY Australian and enshrined in writing in my country's political and legal and educational and immigrational systems. Want but cannot Force! We can only understand and change one by one.

Current preferred list of Aussie Values stands at:

Courage, Strength, Honesty, Integrity, Responsibility, Fairness, Compassion, Equality, Mateship of the Anzac type, Allegiance to the sustenance and improvement of the Australian Nation. (Patriotism is a poor substitute for this. **My Country, Right or Wrong! When we are Wrong we should Admit It! Learn from our mistakes and make correction).

What, if anything, is missing from this list? or have we found consensus in the above?

Aspiration to the above as opposed to complete and enforced observance of, is acknowledged and will be incorporated into any statement of values.

I do not consider (although personally adopt) English as being an Australian 'Value'. I believe is has 'some considerable value' but is not what makes an Australian and so should not be given the honour of being described as A Value we should all aspire towards as those above are. It might be an English Value, (It isn't really a value here - it is an adopted 'custom', one that has undergone continuous change throughout centuries)it does not have to be an Australian one.

Anyone who wants to deprive themselves of the ability to communicate fully with fellow Australians by chosing not to learn English, in my opinion, only hurts themselves by living here. I am willing to tolerate them and not force them into doing so. I see no problem with enCouraging all Australians to speak in a common language and English (Aussie, not US) seems a logical choice. Just as the (Australian) Pound would have been the logical choice for a national currency 40 years ago, and God Save the Queen the National Anthem.

** War should be limited to last resort and only when our borders are about to be breached. Our troops should only be posted in other countries as peacekeepers under the UN control since we are signatories to the UN, or to help defend the country of an invaded ally we would rely upon to do the same for us. We have a 'Defence' force not an Invasive one.

I dont think 'Australia' is homogenous enough to say that there is anything like a single set of values that could reasonably represent this mix of cultures and belief systems.

Even implying that there could be such a 'single desk' reflects the kind of misinformation about 'our' cultural integrity which certain sections of the community seek to purvey.

There is a great deal of attention currently paid to differences in values between groups like Islamic cultures and Christian ones but curiously very little paid to differing value systems between the ruling classes and those ruled.

This country was founded by the English aristocracy largely to get rid of their troublesome Irish and Scottish dissidents. We are largely the descendents of those 2 antagonistic groups with their wildly differing allegiances.

To think that the conquerors and the conquered share the same set of values might be a fairy story the conquerors like to tell but it doesnt really seem likely does it?

Interesting that truthfulness, compassion and tolerance have been named- these three values form the backbone of Falun Gong’s philosophy.
We must realise that many of the values that we would like Australia to cultivate are global values that many cultures in the world would like to aspire to.

Ideally, there would be one global value that would stand out: peace.
The value that comes closest to peace is the one RObert mentioned: live and let live. This has much to do with tolerance.

Well said, Braindrain, that tolerance is not the same thing as conversion.

It’s just such a shame that the Australian government itself aren’t able to show respect for the values they expect of and even plan to impose onto new immigrants.
The Australian Government’s behaviour make their own values look like hypocritical, nationalistic gobbledygook.

I agree, Braindrain, that being able to speak English in an English speaking country is an advantage for the individual, and should be encouraged but NOT forced!
Why reject immigrants who do not pass a test at a standard that many Australians today would not pass?
I can think of worse things that happen in Australia than inclusion of some people who can not speak English.
The government demand respect for Australian values?
What are THEY showing potential immigrants about:

Honesty, responsibility and integrity:
What about the AWB scandal?
Remember the Children Overboard headlines?

Compassion, responsibility, fairness, equality, tolerance:
Live exports of our Australian animals?
The way our Aboriginals have been treated?

Respect and compassion:
The way our environment is treated?
Euthanasia?

Equality and fairness:
Same sex marriage?
Women’s superannuation and equal salaries?

I say no more.

Rob51...,

I agree with you. To a point. Australia is not homogenous in some respects. There are undeniably diferences of opinion/background/religion etc.

I do not believe that it is quite as divisive as you seem to be implying. Australia needs to have One national government, One justice system upon which all states' are based, One national language (although Canada,Switzerland, etc. does seem to be existing quite well with two and 15% of the US comes from Spanish speaking backgrounds. Less successfully than Canada, granted).

Given those monosystems I find it reasonable to have a common set of Values that excludes no-one (to as great a degree as possible in any one country).

I challenge you to identify one Value that does not actually, as opposed to potentially could be misused to, represent any existing Australian or cultural group.

The dichotomy between the ruled and the rulers is Universal and is something i personally despise. Holding up these values so that the Great and the Small can universally compare our actions to them to determine when injustice is being perpetrated is part of the reason I initiated this post.

I'm hard-pressed to identify today any significant conflict in our society overall between the Irish and Scot. What do you see that I don't in this regard?

Take another look at 'Australian Values' defined here and tell me who will disagree with them if we enshrine them in our Justice System?

Aspirations can help Unify Action for all by being a yardstick for all action to be measured against.

Celivia,

It's impossible to find the point where our thought diverges.

'We must realise that many of the values that we would like Australia to cultivate are global values that many cultures in the world would like to aspire to. '

One more majorly important Australian Value: Respect!

How-in-heck I can hold Respect for some drongo's I am having difficulty with but that won't stop me from Aspiring to it.

Who-know's? One day i may just figure out why i hate some people so badly and why that does me no credit.

BrainDrain asks:

>>Take another look at 'Australian Values' defined here and tell me who will disagree with them if we enshrine them in our Justice System?<<

But which of those "Australian Values" put forward in a recent post is presently NOT enshrined in our legal system?

>>Courage, Strength, Honesty, Integrity, Responsibility, Fairness, Compassion, Equality, Mateship of the Anzac type, Allegiance to the sustenance and improvement of the Australian Nation.<<

And if you consider it necessary to reinforce them with laws, how would you phrase legislation for "Strength", or "Compassion" - or any of the others for that matter - that is any improvement over what we already have?

Therein lies the utter nonsense behind all this claptrap about "Austrayan vayyews". We have a society that is held together by laws, which are passed in response to the cultural norms and express wishes of the populace. Thus, we do not cut off the hands of thieves, nor do we execute rapists. If the mood of the Australian people shifts sufficiently for it to be noticed by politicians as an issue that might be prerequisite to their re-election, hey presto, it becomes law.

We can argue 'til the cows come home whether "mateship" is an Austrayan vayyew, or whether it is a reassuring but mythical social construct designed to fill a cultural void. But the fact remains that it is an absolutely pointless exercise unless you are prepared to translate it into something that is both unmistakeably recognizable and utterly consistent.

I dont think there would be any difficulty getting people to profess a similar set of values - it is practicing them that seems to be the problem, take for example 'honesty'.

Anybody recall John Howard as Treasurer concealing a $7bn 'black-hole' in the economy until after Fraser's re-election. Or, something about 'throwing children overboard' and then wasnt there something about 'weapons of mass destruction'.

Sure, Howard can profess 'honesty' as an Australian Value but it actually means nothing to him. To quote John Hewson, 'John Howard will say anything to get elected' where is the honesty in that. (Rhetorical question signified by lack of question mark.)

I didnt infer that there was a discrepancy between the values of the Scots and the Irish transports - they hated the English overlords with equal fervour.

I've seen dozens of people pass exams in a language they barely understand, so I don't believe that any test is going to prove much of an obstacle to most literate people, especially considering the effort they've already made to move themselves here. The questions won't matter (unless the test is arbitrarily administered a la White Oz Policy). A citizenship test is, though, a terrific political tool to placate those who quote "we were here first" as a fundamental Australian value (hey, it worked for the Aborigines).

As for what's uniquely Australian, that's both in flux and, in many ways, untested. Life has never been that difficult here. Any cultural test will become an anachronism, like a driver's licence test I did o/s that demanded mechanical knowledge of a 1966 Morris Minor. If we'd set the test 50 years ago what would we have asked about the status of women? Another example is "barracking for the underdog" - since we became competitive in world sport we don't do that any more. The notion of a "fair go" has become politically inconvenient (especially to immigration policy) and is on the way out. We are still growing out of colonialism and constantly challenged by a rest of the world that is now a lot closer than it used to be. Right now we're finding out which identity we value greater - a diverse "nation of immigrants" (as if we would ever borrow an idea from the US) or a homogeneous backwater determined to deny that the the rest of the world exists. But whichever we choose, many of us won't subscribe to it, and it will always be subject to change.

Howard encapsulated the value that spawned the test in the first place when he used the words "conform to the mainstream". That one's been around for a while and in the current political environment it'll be around for a while yet.

A test for civic values? Well, that's different.

Conform to the mainstream - best suggestion yet.

Then we could all conform to the mainstream every time it changed its mind about what we're supposed to be conforming to.

It would require constant opinion polling to determine what the mainstream is currently conforming to, but we've got that pretty well covered already.

Apparently Australians are far more concerned about our lap dog attitude to the US and participation in Iraq than they are with either terrorism or Muslim extremism. Huge majorities are concerned about climate change and want us to sign Kyoto. Few want a nucular power station in their neighbourhood.

Yep, I'll conform to the mainstream any day. The real mainstream, not the one the media and politicians fondly imagine.

Rob51...,
Apologies, i got the wrong 'feeling' from your Scot and Irish quote originally. Getting the topic back on thread, I am in complete agreement about the difficulty of ensuring 'conformity' with the set of values I am asking Australians to put forth as the ones they wish to confirm as being uniquely representative of a 'True' Australian or for 'all' Australians. (I recognise the difficulty of ever locating such a Magnificent Beast in this continent).

If i wanted negativity i would have sought the Opinion of my Ancient Aunt, she is capable of nagging God and telling Him all his faults and why his dumb ideas can't possibly work.

Instead I came to this place of intelligent people seeking positive suggestions. At least more positive and better ones than our current under-performing crop of Politicians are capable of giving us leadership in.

Some here choose to denigrate other's rather than inspire to great visionary heights, something they share with today's leaders. Frankly I'm sick of it and want to do something better.

Anyone else besides the one or two who have been able to make positive suggestions able to contribute something?

Australia's Values should be: Honesty, Respect, Courage, Strength ( through diversity?), Integrity, Responsibility, Fairness, Compassion, Equality, Mateship of the Anzac Spirit, Allegiance to the sustenance and improvement of the Australian Nation.

We are to refer to and aspire to these Values equally (as humanly possible)in all endeavours we put our Will towards.

This is not a 'test' by which we kick applicants out a-la-Big Brother or Idol.

Although our Justice System is designed to 'reflect' many, if not all these, I want them made CRYSTAL, not just 'implied'.

I want to try and define a simple, complete, written set of Aussie Values to teach our kids and new immigrants, as well as current occupants, by rote, if necessary, and make sure ALL Australians understand and even discuss them at party's instead of comparing house prices.

I do NOT want to indulge in the kind of populist vote-catching crap i get from party politicos.

Am I being clear here,now?

Hang on chainsmoker - you're not advocating actual democracy, are you?

BrainDrain - a commendable effort which I've no doubt is made with the very best of intentions. However, once you start prescribing aspirational values that ought to be made 'crystal clear', you've lost me. When you include "Mateship of the Anzac Spirit, Allegiance to the sustenance and improvement of the Australian Nation" in these compulsory values, then I'm not even quite sure what you're describing - probably because they're more correctly termed 'ideologies' than 'values'.

Compulsory ideologies - even if made more explicit - equate in my book to totalitarianism. While I'm none too sure about what constitutes Australian values, I'm pretty bloody sure that a strong aversion to totalitarianism would have to be included.

In my opinion, this manufactured 'debate' about our so-called national values functions as a smokescreen to obscure the real issues that emanate from the fact that we have no Bill of Rights in this country. Give me the latter anyday.

Fair Comments CJ.

Correct me if I'm wrong... but doesn't the US have a Bill of Rights?

You think their politics/society/intolerance/injustice/inequity is in any way superior (or inferior) to ours because of it??

I cannot see how exactly, myself.

I defined Mateship with the Anzacs to keep it separate from John Howard's recent association with that mainly 'Aussie' term and also to separate it from the Croneyism of people like Brian Burke in WA who called the politician he had basically 'bought' 'Mate' about 20 times in a five minute CCC secretly-taped phone call.

Mateship is about selfless sacrifice, not 'what's in it for me and my mates?' This may not be obvious to some who read Aussie Values for the first time and so the need for public discussion to keep clarifying the point that any Value is open to abuse and we all bear Responsibility (another Value) to keep telling each other the Whole Truth so we don't fall into the traps of the past.

I limited the Australian Nation the way I did to prevent the Value from being hijacked by any one group who might want to improve Australia their way and by kicking out anyone who does not measure up to THEIR standards as opposed to Aussie ones (Totalitarianism). It could have been replaced by the Value 'Loyalty' but i rejected that as Muslim extremists are no doubt also 'loyal' to their causes.

The difference between my intent and totalitariansim is: I seek to include all Australian's views 'in toto' in determining a set of values we can all look up to for guidance in, and measure the actions of, our daily lives instead of indoctrinating everyone and forcing them to believe in something that denies something within themselves. (other than mischief or evil). I seek agreement on something WE can IMpel ourselves towards, not something somone ELSE COMpels us all to adopt.

Do you support this plan? Or will you find fault with it in order to prevent it coming into reality??

The government's smokescreen should be denounced far more for what it is.

The best Australian value that we have is encapsulated within the coat of arms with a Kangaroo on one side and an Emu on the other. Since neither of these animals can take a step backwards there is an inherent value enshrined within the symbolism.

Unfortunately there is a down side to this Aussie value - a Prime Minister who wants to "stay the course" in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Then again we have another Australian icon which is called "Bush bashing" which of course refers to our inability to stay out of our own back yard and which requires that we go in four wheel drives tearing up the country.

Of course there is a positive side to this activity these days when "Bush bashing" has come to mean something completely different, namely meting out a good belting to our friend and neighbour George W.

Garpet1,
Well put!

I do think that if we ever end up in a blind alley with only one way out it is a good idea to retrace your steps back to the point where better options are able to be taken for your long term survival and future direction.

The biggest problem I see with our current leader is that he 'leads' while always looking backwards to 'better' times, keeping his eyes firmly on the Monarchy during the Republic issue. Depends upon maintaining coal's prime century-long position as an energy source by putting more into geosequestration research than into renewable energy development. When a chance for new ideas to supply our future energy needs presents itself he prefers a 50 year old technology in favour of developing ideas better suited to Australia's Unique geographic position. Fines people for bringing electric powered cars into the country that threaten the Oil Company's monopoly on transport. Ties us into backwards thinking Good-vs-Evil politics of GW Bush instead of leading us towards a safer future through an independent minded ability to choose who to take sides with in, or better yet to refuse to fall into the Bush trap of, 'the War on Terror'. Any War IS terror, ask anyone who has been on the front line of one.

I hope that Australia never has to face the terror of a war on our soil and believe if it should ever happen we should be strong enough to do what is right and defend the values I am attmpting to define and raise support of here.

I hope that by uniting under these values, by expressing them in all areas of our lives as individuals and as a nation we can then develop ways to make them universal in all cultures and export them around the world and become a world leader in Peace.

It is a Dream now, if enough people share it, it will become reality.

Can you support it or will you be one of the ones pulling it down?

All on-thread input welcomed.

“All on-thread input welcomed”, eh BrainDrain? Unless, of course, you don’t like the content and then you squeal and lash out, showing your “values” don’t include accepting other people’s rights to hold opposing opinions.

BrainDrain is certainly an appropriate name for you. I suggest that you get your own act in order before you start dealing with the values of an entire country and its people.

Braindrain, seems like you are talking about human values, which is a good thing, but I think that the Dalai Lama is very much on the right track about this and might save you a lot of work :)
http://www.atc.org.au/index.phpoption=com_content&task=blogsection&id=7&Itemid=52

"...on the level of a human being, His Holiness’ first commitment is the promotion of human values such as compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, contentment and self-discipline. All human beings are the same. We all want happiness and do not want suffering. Even people who do not believe in religion recognize the importance of these human values in making their life happier. His Holiness refers to these human values as secular ethics. He remains committed to talk about the importance of these human values and share them with everyone he meets."

Leigh,
Apparently you are a Senior Cit, or damn close to it, so i will try to keep a civil tongue in my head since i come from the last time people were taught (forced) to respect their elders when their elders often quite clearly were not worthy of it for any reason other than their advanced years.

I've read your last ten posts (what a chore) to get a better picture of the kind of man you are. I am going to say something personally shocking to you now - perhaps it best you look away?

I see things in you i see in myself!

Fortunately for my will to live it is the differences i see (like the perception of and willingness to alter those things) that prevents me from ending it all now.

You are a sad, bitter, grumpy, little old man and a part of me is heading down that same path.

Look at your own comment: 'Surprised to see you doing a "Second Hand Rose" post - commenting on someones else's comment. That's usually the refuge of people who are incapable of making a personal comment on the subject at hand, preferring to lurk until someone says something thay can rubbish. "

While you are oh-so-quick to make personal comment they are exclusively negative (rubbishing) and do nothing to improve the situation here or in the real world. When have you ever written an article or discussion expressing your world view opinions for comment on by others?

I have done it twice in the month or more i have been in OLO.

All you can do is snipe at those who are willing to try to improve things, making sad little observations (often the first on OLO) showing how little else you have time for.

I see in you an aging dinosaur unable to keep up with the pace of change in today's society and longing for better, as your mind believes it should be, without the guts to actually do anything other than criticise here, to try to bring it into being.

cont.

Show me one positive comment you have made that does not deride the present way things are done in favour of your own, impossible to achieve, simplistic world view.

Despite the topic of this thread and my repeated calls for Opinion of others, You have yet to tell me just ONE Aussie Value you hold dear and true to, and you express in your actions here.

Sad. Just Sad.

This is an Opinion forum - that is MY opinion, based ( since I don't know you from a bar of carbolic) entirely upon YOUR choice of words to show others just how you think.

Think you are making good choices of words and ideas to express to others there Champ?

Read my last ten posts (I dare you). See any difference to yours? besides that they are frequently longer!

I get angry at people with tiny bigoted little views who really should, by now, know better. Their opinions are fine with me, if and only if, they are based in solid, provable fact and they are making valid comments based upon those facts. Anyone who bases their ill-informed opinions upon entirely false beliefs i will hunt down and kill with all the powers at my disposal. I hate those who intentionally spread FALSE belief. I also hate with a passion, ignorant racially-biased people and those who believe that 'we' can only do good while 'they' only do bad without seeing how very bad 'we' are at the same time.

So if your feelings get hurt by the things i write to others and to yourself...It's because i can see hateful (to me and MY opinion) things in them. Maybe you should consider what you put into your next post from a slightly wider view of people and the world? (it is called Growth not Grump).

nearly there now...

All people are different and hence there will be differences of opinion. Most opinions are based upon the facts as we choose to see them. Now you KNOW the facts as I see them. I hope you have the ability to adjust your Opinions (of me at least) accordingly.

Since people still don't get it.... ALL opinions welcome. I reserve the right to try to shoot to pieces and to show for just what they truly are, tiny minded, ill-informed bigotries posing under the more 'acceptable' idea of 'personal opinion' and any that are just dumb opinion based upon poor research. You all have that same right, in MY opinion.

Celivia, Sorry, my Dear, the link you posted was not available ( cannot be found) when i tried it.

Braindrain,

I didn't bother to read your entire rant, but just scrolling down shows you put a lot of work into proving your pigheaded ignorance. I concede that there would be more people like you around these days than silly old senior citizens like me, but that is nothing to be happy about.

When I realise that it is clowns like you who will one day make decisions for Australians, I am very glad that I am on the down hill run.

"When I realise that it is clowns like you who will one day make decisions for Australians, I am very glad that I am on the down hill run".

And so say all of us!

Rainier,

You're a wicked, wicked man!

A feature i find most attractive I might add! ; )

Care to add your own perspective on values to be included in the list or are you happy with what this discussion has highlighted so far?

BrainDrain, you have yet to answer my question - which of the values in the list you appear to have settled upon is not already fully supported by existing laws of the country?

If the answer is "none", what exactly is missing?

If on the other hand you are able to isolate a value that is not fully supported by the force of our laws, what legislation would you propose in order that it becomes so supported?

I still find that the search for these mythical beasts is some kind of cover-up, perhaps for more draconian laws, perhaps just as a cry of frustration that "other people" don't conform to ones own particular norms.

What is your motivation, BrainDrain?

Forgive me Pericles, I thought you might have read the posts here and accepted what was written as honest.

Perhaps you are too busy to read all of the posts you write to so to make it easier for you i'll cut and paste the parts of this post relative to your questions:

'Although our Justice System is designed to 'reflect' many, if not all these, I want them made CRYSTAL, not just 'implied'.'

'I want to try and define a simple, complete, written set of Aussie Values to teach our kids and new immigrants, as well as current occupants, by rote, if necessary, and make sure ALL Australians understand and even discuss them (to master common understanding) at party's instead of comparing house prices.'

'I pose the question: Just which values are we going to claim as Australian and seek for all Australians to uphold at fear of Expulsion or Deportation (and just who are we going to make accept our 'rejects' is another question entirely. Nauru perhaps? - new discussion please someone?)'(the last bit after 'to uphold' was said slightly tongue-in-cheek)

'I do NOT want to indulge in the kind of populist vote-catching crap i get from party politicos'.

Too complicated for you? Too much wishy-washy 'claptrap'?

Doubt my sincerity and suspect a hidden agenda, perhaps?

Your comment:
'We can argue 'til the cows come home whether "mateship" is an Austrayan vayyew, or whether it is a reassuring but mythical social construct designed to fill a cultural void. But the fact remains that it is an absolutely pointless exercise unless you are prepared to translate it into something that is both unmistakeably recognizable and utterly consistent.'
might reflect your desire to do nothing in the least bit constructive and to just pick and bicker, much like the lovely Leigh does, but i am not interested in arguing these values, only collecting them from as many Aussies as care to contribute something constructive and refining them into a simple and clear group as many of us as possible can agree upon.

unmistakeably recognizable and utterly consistent?
cont.

This is IT (currently): 'Honesty, Respect, Courage, Strength (through diversity?), Integrity, Responsibility, Fairness, Compassion, Equality, Mateship of the Anzac Spirit, Allegiance to the sustenance and improvement of the Australian Nation.'

For a more complete understanding see 'Australian Values' on my webspace at the icon link below.

Once done I shall be doing all in my power to raise support from Australians to make the politicians who try to sneak a few racist and patriot votes with their weasly suggestions for a 'test' new immigrants must pass (that many natural born Aussies would likely fail) enter them, as is, into statements in all areas of legislation under government constitutional authority, Executive, Judicial and Parliament, both Federal and State.

I'm sure this may seem simplistic to you and it is. Sometimes the simple is what is needed when we tend to make things overly complicated.

To directly answer your last questions (I thought i had answered your initial one in the replies i quoted and posted before, above, albeit not with a name for your identification):
What is missing is any agreement in Unity as to what Australian values actually ARE (they are not written down as a clear LIST, even for discussion), and
My Motive is to eliminate divisism and find commonality of purpose and clarity of what we as Australians most VALUE in terms of our Ideals (morally, ethically) and ensuring all Australians current and future appreciate them more and use them as a guide to all action and thought.

Now I have two questions for you:

Show me exactly where in the curent legislation the values i have gathered so far are defined and enshrined in our current legislation (I want to see them in writing, specifically)
and,
What values do you as ONE Australian hold fast to?

Do I put you down as a 'no' for supporting my plan to make the self-serving pollies actually do something decent and help lead the country to some unity for a change instead of making rabidly divisive comments and sniping at one another all day long in Parliament?