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What does it feel like to live in Australia?

Social trust

Perhaps the most distinguishing feature of Australia is that we have a very high level of social trust . When we interact with merchants, we expect that they are not trying to cheat us. We trust our government. It's relatively large, and employs a good portion of us, so we feel a sense of ownership over it. We know that good, decent people make up government employees, because many of our friends and family are in those departments. We generally don't resent our relatively high taxes, because we know that we get quality goods and services in return.
Aware of the wider context
I think that relative to many other countries, we're very outward-looking. We know we're a small and isolated nation, so we follow politics in countries around the world.

We're also aware that relative to the vast majority of the world's population, and particularly relative to most of our regional neighbours (excepting New Zealand), we're extremely privileged, and I think that we somewhat feel a need to "atone" for our unearned privilege. Consequently, we have a very high participation rate in organisations like Amnesty International, and are active in social justice campaigns. This is less pronounced in rural Australia.
Pragmatism trumps idealism
Our attitude towards social security leads me neatly into pragmatism. Aussies really don't get as worked up as many other nations about what's fair and what our rights are; I think we're more concerned with practicalities and getting an optimal outcome, even if it's not perfect. I also think we're more focused on fulfilling our responsibilities relative to asserting our rights.

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Free speech

I think most Aussies, unlike Americans (in particular), are perplexed by Voltaire's famous quote - "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it" - being applied to distasteful racist speech, for example. I certainly respond to that with: "No, I am not willing to defend, even with a signature, the right of a bigot to be hateful, and I'm certainly not willing to defend that conduct with my life." It seems that in many places, ideology trumps pragmatism. Australia's all about what's optimal: is it better risking one's life in a fight for a bigot to be allowed to be hateful, or have the bigot shut up? It seems an easy and obvious choice to me, and I suspect most of my fellow Australians.



Class

We're a very egalitarian society; we don't like class-consciousness, pomp and ceremony, and formality. Even though we do largely segregate into classes - in the sense that there are higher and lower socioeconomic areas - this is largely just because we accept that everybody wants to live in "as nice an area as they can afford", and it's not acceptable to think that that makes you "better" than people of other classes. (Though "bogans" - kind of like "rednecks" in the US - are fodder for a good number of affectionate jokes. Particularly if you imply that you're also a bit bogan in some ways - see self-deprecation further down.)



The underdog or "battler"

We love the underdog. We'll more loudly proclaim, and laugh about, our failures than our successes. Bragging and self-promotion is culturally frowned upon, but admitting your failures and laughing at them goes down really well. Before each election, both political parties work hard to give the impression that they feel sure they're going to lose, even if they have a lead in the polls, because research has shown it's a vote-winning strategy; we love an underdog!



Summary

We have an extraordinarily good quality of life. Expenses are very high, but so are incomes. Our "poor" are much less poor than in most of the world. We have very high levels of personal safety. We have world-class universities and healthcare. We love to laugh and are very irreverent. We have an abundance of sun and good weather. We are indeed very blessed. And I hope we'll keep working at ensuring that all Australians, and prospective Australians, have access to that quality of life, and that we share a bit more of it - intelligently - with the developing world.

Thanks for welcoming me

DodgyHagrid,
eAustralian President