What's Right And Wrong With Life In Oz
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday January 27, 1992
Stephanie ALEXANDER Restaurateur
The unique character of the Australian landscape. My feelings for its shapes and colours as well as its resilience contribute to my consciousness of being an Australian.
2. Australians are uncomfortable with the notion of excellence preferring the safer path of mediocrity. I would like us to aim higher in every aspect of life.
Rabbi Raymond APPLE
Senior rabbi, Great Synagogue, Sydney
1. How basically decent, helpful and optimistic we Australians still are, despite all our economic and social problems.
2. The fact that our cities and streets are becoming so unsafe and frightening and our houses have to be almost barricaded in order to protect ourselves and our families.
Eddie AZZOPARDI
Corruption campaigner
1. This is a wonderful country because it has freedom of the press. Without the press I would not get anywhere. It means that someone like me has the ability to fight hard enough and long enough and be able to get somewhere.
2. I would like to change the system so that people can get help even though they cannot afford it. That would allow everyone to get equal justice.
Ian BAKER-FINCH
Golfer
1. The open, free-and-easy attitude of Australians and the resultant freedom which allows everyone to enjoy its natural treasures like the beaches and open spaces.
2. The flip side is the "No worries, mate" attitude, which contributes to over-government - the problem I could go on for pages about.
Stephen BARRON
Fruit and flower seller, Martin Place
1. Our great democracy.
2. Wipe out the State Government, and only have two levels of power, Federal and local administration.
Rev Joy BARTHOLOMEW
Assistant minister, St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Corowa
1. The freedom to express my faith in God, through Jesus Christ, without fear or restriction.
2. An increase in value given by individuals to commitment with marriage and family relationships.
Geoffrey BLAINEY
Historian
1. I like best the land, whether tamed land or bushland. And I like the sea around Australia - the wild waves rolling on to western Tasmania, King George Sound at Albany, the giant tides at Yampi, the entrance to Sydney Harbour and Port Phillip Heads, and the long beaches.
2. I would like to see some change in attitude. We are too willing - except in spectator sport - to accept the second rate and the third best. A lot of our economic troubles come from the easygoing outlook which is also, at times, an attraction of Australian life.
Graham BLIGHT
President, National Farmers' Federation
1. Political stability and the Aussie fair play and tolerance.
2. Understanding of our trading position in the world, develop a competitive export culture, and educate people - that's our only way to a better standard of living. Donald BOOTH
Wool exporter
1. The easygoing, casual, friendly way of life that we have. For the most part we're not complex, we don't have the hang-ups a lot of other countries have. 2. I'd like to change attitudes towards working. If we worked harder and more conscientiously we'd be so far ahead of the rest of the world because of all our natural resources.
Allan BORDER
Former Australian of the Year
1. We have a wonderful country, freedom, a fantastic climate and great way of life, a certain amount of isolation, which keeps us away from the world's trouble spots. 2. I don't know whether it's something I don't like about us, but sometimes I think we don't realise just how fortunate we are in Australia
Garry BRACK
Executive director,
Employers' Federation of NSW
1. The typical Australian character - straightforward, informal and a healthy sense of humour; broadly tolerant, disproportionately inventive and potentially highly productive. If these traits could be effectively harnessed to the corporate and national good, we would be the continuous winners of the"Grand Slams" and "Ashes" of domestic and international business competition.
2. Our penchant for quick-fix solutions; our proclivity for confrontationist relationships at work, and the burden of stifling government bureaucracy. We have to make quality the central focus of every facet of our businesses: quality products, quality services, quality processes and quality people. This is the challenge of the '90s.
Tim BRISTOW
Former private
investigator
1. There is no better way of life, where there is freedom and people pull together. I have known all my life people who conform to that ideal and speak English - not foreign languages as so many do now.
2. I would like to ban knockers and applaud people who give support for everything. There are too many people prepared to pull others down rather than lift them up. People elected to office should be supported and not opposed, and I think that should apply everywhere. There should be respect for authority.
Colin BUCHANAN
Country music's 1992 New Talent award-winner
1. Australia's physical, political, economic and cultural blessings, which are beyond the wildest dreams of the vast majority of the world's population.
2. That each of us might come to cherish the privilege it is to live here and appreciate the contribution we each can make to the welfare of our country.
Tas BULL
General secretary, Waterside Workers' Federation
1. The level of egalitarianism. This permits more informal relationships than in most countries.
2. The increasing tendency to nationalism. This will blind us to our own shortcomings and encourage mediocrity.
Bob CARR
NSW Opposition Leader
1 The land itself - in particular the glimpse of ocean or harbour through gum trees when you know you can only be in Australia. And the people - the great diversity and the motley character of the Australian people. They are the friendliest people in the world, they are very civil and funny, which adds up to an exemplary national character.
2. I want our industries to burst their way onto export markets. I would like to see brilliant marketing of Australian products and services in the world economy, and to see the wealth from this channelled into making us a world leader in education and the environment.
Megan CARRIGY
Year 7 pupil, SCEGGS Darlinghurst
1. The fact that I have freedom of speech and freedom of access to information which allows me to form and express my own opinions.
2. The lack of government money to support our stars and champions because in other countries the facilities for arts and sport are much better.
Dennis CARROLL, Sydney Swans captain
1. I've just got back from a camping trip, so I would have to say our vast size and open spaces, there's plenty of room to move. To get away from everything is so easy to do in our country.
2. Our working ethics. As a whole we lack enthusiasm and pride.
Tom CARROLL
Twice world surfing
champion
1. I just love the raw competitive nature of Australians. It is a down-to-earth approach that can inspire other people when used positively.
2. Australians don't always appreciate what this country has to offer. They have to observe the outdoors a lot more - while it still exists.
Judy CASSAB
Artist, 71
1. As a painter, it is the Centre, where colour is a physical force, hitting one like a beam. I know when I first saw it why I had migrated to Australia.
2. When we came here everybody's back door was open. I would like to unlock those doors again. Steve COOK
Publican. Denman Hotel, Abermain
1. The culture of the fair dinkum, true blue Aussie battler. There's no-one better to have a beer with than the good old battler. 2. The politicians - all of them. You wouldn't give them a drink if they were on fire.
John CROOK
President, Gun Control Australia
1. That despite being a small country, separated from the major Western powers, we have still produced a great number of outstanding and committed thinkers, particularly in the science and arts fields.
2. This one's easy. The proliferation of guns in our society and the rude redneck radicals who force that proliferation.
Wally CURRAN
Unionist
1. I cherish the right to have a dissenting voice. The right of dissent is basic to democracy and should be untrammelled by laws or oppressive acts.
2. For that freedom to be enshrined so the enforcement and carrying out of laws are at all times separate from government, the political machinery. There is tendency for State and Federal governments, particularly conservative forces, to encroach on that right. Keeley DEVEREY
Netballer
1. The opportunities that exist. To do or be whatever you want to do or be
2. There is nothing I really want to change ... except for hot, muggy days and having my savings taxed.
Michael EASSON
Secretary, Labor Council of NSW
1. The generosity and friendliness of the average Australian is our most prized possession. It reflects one of the best things about this country: pride in ourselves. 2. The mood of pessimism that currently influences Australians is something worth dispelling. Regaining our national self-confidence is important to overcoming our economic woes and doing justice to the opportunities that are about. As a great US President once said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself".
Nick FARR JONES
Australia Rugby Union captain
1. How when a sporting team wearing Australian colours takes the field, the whole country gets behind it and not just the followers of the sport. The country becomes united through sport and I think it's terrific.
2. The tall poppy syndrome.
Tim FISCHER
Federal Leader, National Party
1. Terra Australis has always captivated me because of its wide diversity of terrain and open spaces; I prize most the wide brown land, with its people who generally have a fundamental code of fairness and who are willing to give a fair go.
2. One thing I would like to change most about Australia is the handicap from our vast distances. This tyranny of distance must be conquered through upgrading our road and rail systems to begin to match the advances in technology in integrated transport which are now taken as a matter of course at places such as Singapore and Japan.
George GITTOES
Artist and film-maker
1. Being able to drive for hours along an outback highway without passing another person. There is space for something born wild to stay wild.
2. The way original Australian creations and discoveries are ignored unless they are validated by overseas models.
Nick GREINER
NSW Premier
1. Our general spirit of tolerance and good humour to our fellow person, even if they make a mistake.
2. Lots of things.
Dr Des GRIFFIN
Director, Australian
Museum
1. Australia's ability to develop our own solutions to problems - for instance, a culturally diverse society.
2. The way Australia uncritically adopts proposed solutions wholesale, particularly in the economic field.
Ron HADDRICK
Actor
1. Sir Donald Bradman, because he was the greatest.
2. That his age could be reduced by about 60 years so we could all see him in his prime again.
Wendy HARMER
Humorist
1. In 1985 I was in New York and watched a (Ronald) Reagan motorcade. It involved 50 police, six or seven dark limousines and an open Cadillac seating security men with their guns drawn. I came back to Australia and watched (then Prime Minister) Bob Hawke drive around the Grand Prix circuit in the back of a ute.
2. I'd like to see a bigger population so that the Prime Minister could drive a better car.
Bob HAWKE
Federal Member for Wills and former Prime Minister
1. That we have opened our doors in a racially non-discriminating way enabling Australia over time to be enriched by the cultures and experience of people from all quarters of the globe. When built upon our own traditions of liberty and equality before the law, this means we are part of a nation growing in the potential for greatness.
2. I would like all Australians to understand that there is nothing particularly virtuous or attractive in a field of cut-down tall poppies. By all means cherish our famous tendency to scepticism about those in high places- but let us all be more generous in recognising excellence in all those fields where so many Australians can match, and often better, the rest of the world.
Dr John HEWSON
Federal Leader of the Opposition
1. Australians' good humour and easygoing approach to everyday life, coupled with their tenacity and drive in a crisis.
2. Our inability to know when to relax and when to go for it. I would like to change those attitudes which hold Australia back from realising its great potential. That means facing up to our problems rather than finding excuses. It means putting faith in the talents of individuals rather than in big government. It means giving incentives to Australian businesses to take on the best in the world and win, rather than cutting down tall poppies. Above all it means having confidence that constructive change is necessary for our children and grandchildren to prosper.
Professor Fred HOLLOWS
Australian Of The Year
1. The egalitarian nature of Australian society. There is no strong sense of class. Even our governor died of a working-class disease - mesothelioma .
2. A Constitution embodying the essential equality of Australian citizens. I would like something in it that says those are our rights.
Sue INGLETON
Housewife, architect, writer, performer
1. The men | Why? They are such a source of Humour and Rage, such a challenge to the Feminine Spirit | They keep me on my toes - occasionally for hours at a time.
2. The men | Because they have no sense of humour | They're obsessed with the end and forget the beginning. They can lie in bed not hearing the baby cry- for years at a time.
Michael JONES
Sydney Unemployed Workers' Union
1. The Australian ideals about egalitarianism and a classless society and the fact that everybody deserves a fair go.
2. The fact it is being run by people who are motivated by profit and, in the pursuit of profit, are prepared to put people like us on the scrap heap.
Paul KEATING
Prime Minister
1. The optimism of our people and their ability to "tell it how it is" and not stand on pomp and ceremony.
2. Our tendency to sell ourselves short when in reality we have the potential to be among the best in the world.
Father Ted KENNEDY
Catholic priest, Redfern
1. The presence of Aboriginal people because the sheer human liberation of the rest of us is intimately bound up with their struggle for liberation.
2. I would like non-Aboriginal people to discover the spirituality, the essential life-giving qualities and the humanness of Aboriginal people.
Stepan KERKYASHARIAN
Chairman, Ethnic Affairs Commission of NSW
1. The fact people from more than 160 different geographic and cultural backgrounds have together made a new country called Australia which is already a model of harmony for the rest of the world.
2. The eradication of any form of potential racial intolerance within our community so that we can raise a new generation of Aussies.
Fred LOVE
Teacher, Turramurra High
1. Our cultural diversity together with the tolerance and maturity we have developed over the past two decades.
2. Our preoccupation with quick-fix responses to our economic and social problems.
Jan MAGRIN
Communications officer, Broken Hill police
1. Ours is the most spectacular country in the world, with beauty ranging from the rugged outback to the mountains and the fantastic beaches all around
2. Definitely unemployment. It would be a much happier country if we could get things going again and give everyone a job.
Denis MAHER
NSW Aboriginal Land Council
1. Everything I need and want is here.
2. Remember the land is treasured by the original owners and this is why the media need to play a vital part in educating and changing attitudes towards the indigenous people.
Terry METHERELL
Independent MP
1. Australia's wilderness areas for their rare and endangered species, contribution to the world's ecology and enrichment of our human spirit with their natural harmony, peace and grandeur.
2. The low self-esteem conditioned by our history, so that by valuing ourselves more highly we could reach out to the world more confidently. With confidence in every sense, culturally and economically.
Bruce MILES
Principal solicitor, Aboriginal Legal Services
1. My passion for Australia began as a Watcher of an Australian wartime squadron (overseas during World War II). The deeds were astonishing, primarily in their irreverence. Back home, the irreverence gets better.
2. The prayer for reform is the granting of fairness for the Aborigines. Incidentally, the original Aussies are as casual as the rest. The excessive sun must turn all our heads.
Melissa MOORE
Olympic track qualifier
1. So many things ... down-to-earth people who give you a go, the number of sports available and the fantastic weather for sport.
2. Attitudes are improving but there still needs to be less bias regarding prize money and sponsorship with women in sport.
Sean MOORE
Senior firefighter,
Wentworthville
1. The freedom to live where you like and choose a career, and the freedom to better your life if you feel that is needed.
2. Without being seen as racist I think we should lower our immigration intake, so that we can keep our population at a comfortably sustainable level
Irene MOSS
Federal Race Discrimination Commissioner, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
1. Australians have a genuine concern for the preservation of human life. Look at the relentless search for the 56 uninvited boat people, the first life-saving movement, the Flying Doctor Service and volunteer firefighters.
2. Australia must work through its identity crisis. It is no longer a European nation which happens to be in Asia. It is an Asian nation with a European heritage.
Chris MURPHY
Solicitor
1. I love the unheralded substructure of Australia. The silent caring and protective character of an enlightened society, from the midnight City Mission van collecting drunks to the church ladies providing tea and scones at the coroner's court.
2. I would change the maledominated occupational class structures.
Margaret NEWTON
Matron, Parramatta Nursing Home
1. Our ability to have a go and succeed. From very humble beginnings and with a lot of hard work we have grown into a great country. 2. I find sympathy and empathy sadly lacking in today's society. Education will improve these attitudes.
Michael O'CONNOR
Manly Rugby League star
1. The sheer freedom in terms of expression, great outdoors and lifestyle. The ready mix of cultural backgrounds is a great plus.
2. Environmental damage must be reversed to ensure a safe and secure future for our children, the people who will have the energy and foresight to make Australia greater.
Phil PLAYER
Retired crook, spending his first Australia Day out of prison for 13 years
1. I treasure freedom, the freedom to be with those you love. It becomes more precious when it is taken away. My mind goes to many friends who haven't got it.
2. If I could only change the attitude of most Australians who all too soon forget about past heroes and champions once they have faded from the spotlight.
Ali ROUDE
Chairman Islamic Council of NSW
1. The guaranteed religious freedom enshrined in the Australian Constitution, which is a reminder as well as a symbol of tolerance of the beliefs of others.
2. To improve employment opportunities for young people, which also takes into serious consideration the particular needs of young Muslim Australians.
Jenny SHEAFFE
Isolated Childrens
Parents' Association, Booligal
1. Our freedom of speech and movement. It's important for everybody to have their say, from the Prime Minister to the humblest person.
2. For every child to have access to a free education, because children living in isolated outback Australia do not have that. We should be on an equal footing with our city counterparts.
Dale SPENDER
Writer and researcher
1. Radio National is the best | Now there's no excuse. All Australians can be well informed. And the nation has a quality cultural image.
2. There have to be changes in the attention given to sport. Men with balls are not good news.
Peter TAYLOR
President, NSW Farmers' Association
1. The natural wealth of the country in agriculture and mining and our well-fed, healthy population, which gives us the potential to have the world's highest living standard.
2. The industrial relations system, because it damages every aspect of our lives, whether we eat in a cafe on a public holiday, shop at night or post a letter.
John TRANTER
Poet
1. We often carry in our pockets a picture of a poet, and we don't know it| (Henry Lawson on the $10 note.)
2. The myth that we're uncultured colonials. In material support for the arts and widespread love of books, we come out ahead of the Americans, British and ancient Greeks and Romans.
Kevin WALLER
Retiring NSW State
Coroner
1. I love the incomparable lifestyle. Seafood with a bottle of Hunter semillon. Heaven indeed.
2. I would like to instigate a drastic attack on street crime. We live in cities where parks are so beautiful but where mothers are too afraid to allow their children to go unaccompanied.
Barry WILLIAMS
National president, Australian Skeptics
1. Easygoing scepticism that Australians display towards all forms of authority is a healthy attribute which largely keeps us free from extremist attitudes.
2. The tendency to be sceptical without knowing why. We should be better informed. Scepticism is good, informed scepticism is much better.
William YANG
Photographer and writer
1. In some countries I've had a feeling of dread where I have expected my film to be confiscated because photography was restricted. In Australia I prize freedom.
2. The language of the legal system, from archaic jargon to something simple and comprehensible. Justice by defending oneself is beyond the reach of an ordinary person.
Charlie YANKOS
Former Socceroos captain
1. The beauty of Australia - landscape, great beaches, and a fantastic climate. When you come home you know you wouldn't live anywhere else.
2. The tall poppy syndrome. A lot of people like winners, but I wish we were more receptive across-the-board to all the people who are just busting their guts for a particular goal. We have too many knockers here.
© 1992 Sydney Morning Herald
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