why this project

Eight reasons why your stories matter on Being Australian...

Besides providing people around the world with a fun and meaningful way to laugh and learn about Australian life, Being Australian is a response to the times we live in.

Social Isolation...

'Australia is like an island within an island. We all live apart in these big cities, but really these cities aren’t connected much at all. Without the national media networks we’d just all drift off into our own little neighbourhoods and forget about national identity altogether.'

(Source: 'Pontificating on the local scene with Daniel Jumpertz aka Alpen' | Interview published 04.07.2005 on Australian music Online | http://www.amo.org.au/qa_interview.asp?id=835)

Fragmentation...

'...What we find when we talk to people when we are doing social research these days is that people lament the passing of a sense of community, the sense of support that used to be there in the neighbourhoods..'

(Excerpt from a speech by John Buchanan, Deputy Director of Australian Council for Industrial Relations Research and Training, to the Politics in the Pub forum on 18 February 2005

'Thirty years ago thirty percent of Australian women were married by the time they were twenty and seventy six percent of all Australians - men and women - were married by the age of thirty. Today a mere five percent of women are married at twenty and thirty six percent of men and women are married by the age of thirty...Such trends work against the maintenance and enrichment of traditional local suburban communities.'

'Today, almost fifty percent of Australian households contain only one or two people and the average household size is down to 2.6 persons.'

(Source: 'Right & Wrong: How to Decide for Yourself' by Hugh Mackay; p29)

Pressure...

'Social pressure is creating a generation of very lonely people'

(Source: Amanda Platell, 'The Great Myth of Singledom', article published in 'The Daily Telegraph' P.25, 22 November 2004)

Grasping for unity...

'Asked what are the long-term challenges facing Australia, [Tony] Abbott immediately nominates national unity as 'the essential challenge.' "Every Australian needs to feel some kind of mystical bond and union with every other Australian. If that is ever lost, if it is just a sort of collective self-interest as tenants in the same building, that's not enough for a nation to survive."'

(Source: Weekend Australian Magazine, p22, 13-14 December 2003.   

The Wellness Revolution...

'Pundits, including one prominent US economist, are tipping that the trend to food living, healthy eating, prevention-not-cure philosophy and all forms of wellness - body, mind and soul - will be worth a trillion dollars in the US over the next decade and $75 billion in Australia...The wellness trend is about hope.

(Source: The Weekend Australian Magazine, p32, 8-9 November 2003)   

Cocooning...

'Today's 20-somethings spend big and are reinventing the daggy pastimes of previous generations, fuelling a resurgence in knitting, bowls and board games.'

(Source: Sharon Labi, The Sunday Telegraph, p24, 19 June 2005

'The desire to live in the moment, have fun and express their identity are key influences on the lives of busy young adults...The report identifies key trend in the five "lifestyle" pillars of young adults - music, sport, fashion, entertainment and travel.'  

(Source: 'Young People, Reckless and Ready', The Australian, 9 June 2005 except from the Urban Market Report-2005) 

The need to be taken seriously...

'The most fundamental human need is the need to be taken seriously. Everything else flows from that.

If the need (to be taken seriously) is truly fundamental, it may explain whey so many people, frustrated by the lack of attention paid to them, resort to taking themselves too seriously.

There's a certain undeniable logic in the strategy that says: "If other people won't take me seriously enough, why not do the job myself.

Being taken seriously by someone else is like rocket fuel for the spirit, but taking yourself too seriously is like a poison.'

(Source: 'Right & Wrong: How to Decide for Yourself' by Hugh Mackay; p56)  

Connections make for better decisions...

'The rising generation of young people are the most assiduous herders of all...Their big message to the rest of us is clear: if you want to survive in a world that is trying to push you apart, you need to connect.'

'Personal relationships create our sense of connection and relationships are the very thing put at risk by the pressures of social and technological change. So the primary challenge is not to teach people 'values'; it is to put people back together again. The more we feel connected to our various communities...the better equipped we will be to make enlightened moral decisions...'

(Source: 'Right & Wrong: How to Decide for Yourself' by Hugh Mackay; p41)