Demographic and social changes in Australia

Rural Australia is still a vital part of the Australian imagination. Our best poet Les Murray is an ardent advocate for country Australia. A good number of recent novels have all been set in the bush. But they tend to an old-fashioned view of rural Australia. And as for the film industry, it just sees the bush as a source of fabulous scenery and weird characters.

It has been left to the food industry, to Stefano de Pieri, in his ABC TV series "A Gondola on the Murray", to portray the country as home to interesting, vibrant individuals, and new experiences.

Through Stefano’s programs alone nearly one million Australians saw that country Australia does not consist of the stereotypes; rather it is a stimulating place, peopled with interesting characters.

My own personal suggestion to effect cultural change is to relocate Sea Change’s Laura Gibson.

I’d move her to a town like Mudgee, where I can assure her the Lawson Park Hotel has a selection of red wine much more to her liking. She might even find herself drinking it next to the winemaker. Max could move there and abandon his pretensions to a novel on foreign correspondents and write the real Australian novel.

Laura could befriend members of the local arts community, or the foodies. Perhaps there would be an idiosyncratic book-reading cook who’d challenge Max’s place in her affections.

Sea Change tapped that part of the Australian psyche that longs for space, for more time, for down to earth people. That’s all out there in rural Australia too, but city people will not know what country Australia has to offer us, unless we tell them.

There is no doubt there is a great divide today between metropolitan and non-metropolitan Australia: it is reflected in the statistics, in the anecdotes, and in how people from both the city and country feel. Bringing us together is a political challenge, it is a challenge to business, and it is a cultural challenge.

The alternative, to continue on the current path and to effectively abandon much of rural Australia, would greatly diminish us as a nation.