In his 2006 speech entitled "Can Australia Survive the 21st Century?", noted Australian businessman Hugh M. Morgan outlined some very important and thought-provoking points about the low value we attach to Australian citizenship and nationhood. He attributed this national self-deprecation to our "intellectual elites" and their contemptuous attitude toward our Anglo-Celtic inheritance.

Morgan noted:

"Australian civilisation is an off-shoot of the confident and outward looking civilisation of 19th century Britain. We share with the other countries of the Anglosphere the inheritance of the common-law, democratic political institutions, and the freedoms which were prescribed in the Magna Carta. It is this inheritance which makes Australia a nation which is envied by so many people in other parts of the world. And our immigration policy must be coherent with sustaining our civilisation and our culture.

Any discussion about immigration must canvas those issues which arise from Australian citizenship, and the value which we should attach to Australian citizenship. I am convinced that as a nation we do not value Australian citizenship as highly as we ought. One of the reasons for this serious undervaluation is that our intellectual elites, or most of them, are competing with one another to write down Australia as morally deficient, to the point where our legitimacy as a nation is under constant attack."

Full speech:

http://www.henrythornton.com/article.asp?article_id=4028

This across-the-board assault on Australia's Anglo-Celtic heritage probably began as a reaction to Menzies era Anglophilia. It's now reached a situation where we've gone from one extreme to the other, from Anglophilia to Anglo denial and even Anglophobia. The "intellectual elites" Morgan referred have shown that they will not rest until every vestige of traditional Anglo-Celtic Australia is completely expunged. Only then will Australian nationhood, in their eyes, be considered worthy of celebration.

So, what is behind this burning desire to completely redefine Australia's national identity, even against the will of most of its own people? What is so wrong with recognising Australia's core cultural heritage and celebrating the leading role it played in building one of the world's most stable, free and prosperous nations?

There are a few technicalities here in Australian history Oligarch.

Interesting points never-the-less.

You assume all British / Australian colonial history is from C19th Britain. The folds go back further in time.

OK, I'm not touching Aboriginal culture here, which is another topic.

We have here at least 5 different colonial histories in Australia. The oldest is in NSW.

The old ghosts rattle chains in defiance of tyrrany. Yet Anglophobia goes back beyond the Rum Rebellion before C18th Bligh. The authorities and the elite of the colonial establishment in NSW weren't entirely loyal to the British Aristocracy.

In the period between the rum rebellion and the arrival of Macquarie, NSW was independent from the Empire. This was not in the name of liberation; this was power hungry tyranny. The convicts cheered when the Royal Empire regained control of the colony. Law and order reformed when Macquarie's garrison returned civilization from the NSW colonial police autocrats.

The Police state was always contemptuous towards the aristocracy, and also towards the weak and underprivileged.

Victoria was a free colony that only once had a convict hulk in Hobson's Bay and that was temporary. It always prided itself on being more "decent" in the name of the Queen, and away from the corrupt NSW constabulary.

No wonder under C20th Australia: the Menzies Government, from Victoria, were Anglophiles. NSW authorities partly wanted to do their own thing.

South Australia was different always being a free colony.

Victorian Liberals like Menzies tended to be nation builders, pompous and Royalist yet in most ways, fair. NSW Liberals had a more separatist background yet they tended to be free traders and more cold blooded in economics. Hence Howard and soon, the Republican Liberal leader: Malcolm Turnbull.

There is not one Australian colonial story, there are at least 5: pre-Federation influences, especially when you talk about C19th culture.

The poor in Australia are slow to work the difference between dignity and a hunger for power from our leaders.

In my hungry childhood in Bowral and other parts of the southern Highlands of NSW I grew weary of English Australians.
The Menzies like talk of England being home still turns my blood to heat.
Yet I have no wish to Dennie our past or to turn away from the fact while clearly different we are a nation based on mostly British blood lines.
I like most would not fight against the fact we are closer to Asia but just as different from them as we can be.
What s so wrong in just being Australia?
If any of those Aussie Poms still talk of home in Bowral please go! home I MEAN,

I can assure you that I have no misty-eyed longing for the grand old days of the British Empire.

Australia has long outgrown its former status as a "branch office of empire". Australians forged their own unique identity long ago, boasting a proud history in art, music, literature, sport and film, with achievements in every scientific field.

But yet the "intellectual elites" disparage the early settlers as nothing more than transplanted Britons or Irishmen, completely ignoring their nation-building efforts and their founding role in forging a unique Australian identity. An identity that was heavily Anglo-Celtic influenced, but uniquely Australian nonetheless.

Belly said: "What s so wrong in just being Australia?"

Half a century ago, we saw ourselves as an outpost of Europe in the South Pacific, but we now say that we are part of Asia, a proposition that is culturally and geographically erroneous. The problem today is that we've so emphasized integration with Asia that we have forgotten the importance of Australia, even going so far as to downplay our own culture and heritage.

Hugh Morgan has long had more influence on Australian ideas than any (more worthy) people I know. What he argues for is a simplistic, racist, hegemonic discourse that he can be KING of.
Most of the more erudite intellectually elites he speaks of have merely been challenging us be better, think more critically and productively and engaged with others on the same plain.
But for luddites like Morgan this is self depreciation.
What a tosser!

Another shock and awe campaign from a culture warrior. Don't you guys ever get sick of this stuff?

Nobody has suggested we should be part of Asia for more than a decade now and these academic elites you're all so set on crucifying could be counted without taking your shoes off.

How come you guys are so easily frightened?