Pearls of Wisdom: What Is The ‘Australian Spirit’?

By Pearl Bullivant on March 4, 2016 in News

Australia Day is not Pearl’s gig. The flag waving, the hands-on-heart US-style nationalism, the rousing versions of Waltzing Matilda – OMG, it makes Pearl cringe! I’m not one for Anzac Day either, though I’m risking my life admitting it publicly. It’s just another day of congratulatory back patting and political posturing disguised under a banner of ‘remembrance’ and memorial building. A day that should be reserved for mourning the fallen and reflecting upon the futility of war has morphed into a strange ‘Celebration of a Nation’ and a political and commercial opportunity to market the ‘glories of war’ to the young.

What is the ‘Australian Spirit’ and what are we celebrating on these holy days? Are we celebrating our ‘laid back attitude’, the ‘she’ll be right mate’ mantra that has seen us avoid internal unrest, but has allowed Australia to be governed by mega rich mining companies, banks and property developers? The relaxed attitude that has allowed us to watch, with little protest, the privatisation of public land and institutions, the disintegration of democracy, the signing of the TPP, the subsidisation of the wealthy at the expense of the masses? Alas, its this laid back attitude, with its focus on the economy and wealth accumulation, that has allowed us to ignore physical and economic perils and the dangers of climate change.

But ‘that’s all right, Jack’, because we Australians have the spirit of ‘mateship’ to see us through adversity, albeit adversity that could have been avoided if we had not been so bloody laid back in the first place. It’s easy to relax in air-conditioned comfort while our oceans are overfished, our natural river courses diverted, our land cleared for ugly housing estates, our reefs drilled for oil and our farms fracked for gas.

At the end of the day Australians will work together in the ultimate spirit of mateship and repair what could have been avoided in the first place, even though the end result is far more onerous on the economy and taxpayers. And once we’ve cleaned up the mess and received lots of media coverage for it, don’t we just love patting ourselves on the back for a job well done? The mateship, the unity, and the ‘egalitarian larrikin spirit’!

Oh, the egalitarian larrikin spirit – that authority-defying, Eureka Stockade-style gutsiness that Our Gina and Twiggy Forrest identify with so well. The spirit that allows us to apply the term ‘class warfare’ to tax impositions on the rich; the spirit that allows us to willingly rip off the next bloke, whether it be via social security fraud, the installation of dodgy pink batts or the exploitation of government subsidy schemes by private training institutions and nursing home operators. The larrikin spirit that bolsters up the stock market, charges up the credit card and idolises the mega-wealthy, yet screams for government assistance when it all collapses in a screaming mess.

Ah, that’s the Australian spirit… and that’s why Pearl is proud to be labelled Un-Australian!