This article explores the political beliefs and the forms of reasoning about racism, national identity
and Other developed by young Australian women and men from different ethnic and class
backgrounds.

Since the second world war, significant changes have come about in senses of
Australian identity and historical self-consciousness. The nature and extent of these
changes can be seen in an analysis of racism and conceptions of culture, particularly
in the definition of ‘us’ and the ‘them’ of history: how ‘we’ define ourselves through
a delineation of ‘others’ who are different.

As this is Australia Day I would like to
reflect tonight on the issue of Identity, and also to explore with you how
Identity intersects with what my day to day work is – human rights.
Whilst my own background is in public policy and I have had the benefit of
Emeritus Professor John Power as one of my lecturers, and Professor Mark
Considine as my PhD supervisor (and I wish to acknowledge them both), I
don’t pretend to be up-to-date with the current public policy debates.

t may be argued that the emerging discourses focusing on the social, emotional, educational, and economic disadvantages identified for Australia’s First Peoples (when compared to their non-Indigenous counterparts) are becoming increasingly dissociated with an understanding of the interplay between historical and current trends in racism. Additionally, and if not somewhat related to this critique, it can be suggested that the very construction of research from a Western perspective of Indigenous identity (as opposed to identities) and ways of being are deeply entwined within the undertones of epistemological racism still prevalent today

There is a dearth of empirical evidence on the extent of racist attitudes,
broadly defined, in Australia. A telephone survey of 5056 residents
in Queensland and NSW examined attitudes to cultural difference,
perceptions of the extent of racism, tolerance of specific groups, ideology
of nation, perceptions of Anglo-Celtic cultural privilege, and belief
in racialism, racial separatism and racial hierarchy. The research was
conducted within a social constructivist understanding of racisms.

In this, the second week of the course, Sara Cousins asks: What does it mean to be
Australian in a multicultural society? Is there an elusive quality, a ‘national identity’,
which binds us all as Australians? And what about the ‘Australian way of life’? Does it
still reflect the traditional virtues of egalitarianism, classlessness, ‘a fair go’, stoicism and
mateship?

The ideal of ‘White Australia’ formed the foundation upon which Australian national identity in the
period 1880-1914 rested. An individual’s self-identification as belonging to the nation in which they live
is an empathic connection facilitated by national identity, which becomes an “important component of
self”1
. National identity is a “socially constructed idea or myth”2 unifying its population; its espoused
characteristics often reflect ideals the population desires their nation—and thus themselves—to be
seen as embodying.

I have always believed in Australia as a big country big in size, big in spirit, big in its egalitarian ways. These are the values that will guide a future Labor Government. Always reaching out to our fellow citizens. Always trying to build a more cohesive and just society. Always standing up for Australian independence and Australian sovereignty.