Strong Verbs Are Just Better

With a heavy focus on achievements at war and identifying "Australian values", it also nominates cricket as the nation's favourite international sport.

Aboriginal history before Europeans arrived is dispensed with in four sentences, yet a subsequent blow-by-blow description of settlement, industrial development and sporting achievement runs to12 pages.

Mr Andrews said the list of 10 values was likely to be"relatively uncontroversial".

They include freedom of speech and religion, equality of thesexes, support for the rule of law, peacefulness and compassion...

Homage is also paid to sporting heroes, the location of Phar Lap's heart is revealed and the dominant football codes in every state carefully explained...

A recounting of the post-settlement experience of indigenous Australians sits uncomfortably as a two-page breakout to the rest of history. But it provides an honest account of the "ruthless" killing of Aborigines and the removal of their civil rights in the late 19th century. "Aboriginals could be told where to live, had to seek permission to marry and could have their children taken away from them," it says, concluding: "Australia faces an ongoing challenge to ensure that the Aboriginals fully share in the life and prosperity of the nation." -SMH this morning

And may I direct you all  to the LJ of the globe-trotting niamh_sage as she discusses some of her concerns? Born in Zimbabwe, Niamh spent her teenage years and early adulthood in Aus, and is (so far as I know) a citizen here. She's now also a Cypriot citizen and a resident of the Netherlands. Point is, she's in a good position to postulate about citizenship and values and all that.