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Focus question 1: What sort of nation has Australia been? What sort of nation is it today?
Teaching and learning activities
Activity 1: Australian identity - yesterday and today
Here are some images of Australia, expressed in painting, sculpture and words. Look at them and read them carefully.
Refer to page 137 of Commonwealth of Australia 1998, Discovering Democracy Middle Secondary Units, Curriculum Corporation, Melbourne.
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Aboriginal people and the land
We heard the other day land being described as a 'piece of dirt'. That would be the same as someone who considered St Peter's as just a barnyard to Catholics. But for the Aboriginal people land is a dynamic notion; it is something that is creative ... Land is the generation point of your existence ... it's the spirit from which Aboriginal existence comes. It's a place; a living thing made up of sky, of clouds, of rivers, of trees, of the wind, of the sand, and of the Spirit that's created all those things; the Spirit that has planted my own spirit there, my own country ... It belongs to me; I belong to the land; I rest in it; I come from there.
Patrick Dodson describing the Aboriginal people's relationship with their land at a conference in 1976, in an introductory address.
Report of the Third Annual Queensland Conference of the Aboriginal and Islander Catholic Council, 1976, p 16. |
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Refer to page 138 of Commonwealth of Australia 1998, Discovering Democracy Middle Secondary Units, Curriculum Corporation, Melbourne.
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The Conciliation
Benjamin Duterrau painted this picture in 1840. The white man in the picture is George Robinson, a Christian missionary who worked with Aboriginal people in Tasmania. He became commandant of Wybalenna on Flinders Island, a 'resettlement' for Tasmanian Aboriginals. More than half died over a period of six years, but as one historian notes, 'Robinson never wavered from his belief that it was better for the Aborigines to die on the threshold of British civilisation than to live as savages in their own'.
Atkinson, A and Aveling, M (eds) 1987, Australians '38, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon, Broadway, NSW, p 306.
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Benjamin Duterrau, The Conciliation, 1840. Oil on canvas, 121 x 170.5
Collection: The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart (purchased 1945). |
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The Australian language
Balls up: to make a muddle or mess of
Bludge: to loaf, or an easy job; also Bludger, a person living off other people's work, lazy
[make it a] Boomerang: make sure it comes back to me
Bore it up them: shoot at the enemy rapidly and effectively
Browned off: bored, fed up
Hammer like a tack: tell off, punish
Have the game sewn up: to have mastered, to know how
Troppo: mad, loopy (from the impact of tropical weather on some people's nerves and well being)
Baker, Sidney J 1970, The Australian Language, Sun Books, Melbourne, pp 169-72.
In his classic work, The Australian Language, Sidney J Baker suggests that these and other terms have evolved in a language, aspects of which are unique to Australia. You might be able to think of other words and phrases that are unique to Australian English. |
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A Bushman's Song
Banjo Paterson, author of 'Waltzing Matilda', wrote many ballads about bush life in Australia. These verses from Banjo Paterson's 'A Bushman's Song' were sung to Russell Ward by Joseph Cashmere in the 1950s.
I asked a bloke for shearing down on the Marthaguy.
'We shear non-union here,' he said. 'I call it scab,' said I.
I looked along the shearing-board before I chanced to go,
Saw eight or ten dashed Chinamen all shearing in a row.
Chorus
It was shift, boys shift, there was not the slightest doubt
It was time to make a shift with leprosy about.
So I saddled up my horses and whistled to my dog,
And I left the scabby station at the old jig-jog.
Courtesy of JJ Cashmere.
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Kangaroo
DH Lawrence, an English writer, visited Australia in the 1920s. He was the son of a coalminer and hated the English class society.
There was really no class distinction. There was a difference of money and of 'smartness'. But nobody felt better than anybody else, or higher; only better-off. And there is all the difference in the world between feeling better than your fellow man, and merely feeling better-off.
Lawrence, DH 1981, Kangaroo, Penguin Books, p 27.
Reproduced courtesy of Laurence Pollinger Ltd and the Estate of Frieda Lawrence Ravagli. |
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1a If you had recently come from another country and had had no contact with Australians previously, what do you think the text and images could tell you about this country? Which do you think are misleading?
1b Choose one or two of the images and provide some background which would help an overseas visitor to understand them. Consider questions such as:
- What events do they relate to?
- What period do they come from?
- What else do you need to know to make sense of them?
1c Which of the images come closest to your idea of Australia as a nation today? Explain your answer.
a If you had to choose an image of your own to show your idea of the Australian nation today, what would it include? Do a labelled sketch, write a poem or a short piece of prose, or make a collage to illustrate your image. In notes, explain why you have chosen it.
b If you had to describe a nation, what things would you refer to? In the rest of this unit you will look at the population and the ways in which the country produces wealth and welfare (how a country supports people who are in need), but there are many other possibilities, for example the system of government, the types and amount of education that are available, and the nation's history. Working with a partner, list as many characteristics as you can, and then underline those that you think are the most important.
Your work will be assessed on:
- use of words and/or pictures to show a view of the Australian nation today and clearly explaining your view
- identifying important characteristics that describe a nation.
ESL activities
Back to 'What Sort of Nation? - At a glance'
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