Reporter: Charles Woolley
Producer: Hugh Nailon
To coin a phrase, 'who the bloody hell are we'? Back in the convict days the answer was simple — a criminal record, a British uniform or a lust for land and adventure. Now, though, it's much more complex — certainly more complex than mateship, meat pies and a beer at the footy. And just the other day it became even tougher to be an Australian.
You might have missed it, but the Government has begun the biggest overhaul of our citizenship laws in 60 years. Later, too, there's the prospect of an Aussie values test for migrants to make sure we're all 'true blue'.
It's a change that affects every one of us and, as you'll see, a story just made for Charles Wooley.
Transcript
CHARLES WOOLEY: Australia Day in the year 2007, and in suburban Brunswick the taste of modern Australia is at once familiar and exotic.
ZAF SAAD: No, we are going to have an Australian barbecue — pork Lebanese way.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Oh, right, okay, so this is the blending of the cultures?
ZAF SAAD: Yes, Australian, Lebanese.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Like one quarter of Australians Zaf Saad was born overseas — a Muslim immigrant from Lebanon. It's been a successful cultural trade — as we have taken to Lebanese tucker, so has he embraced Australia.
ZAF SAAD: I've spent 30 years of my life here. Now, I was born in Lebanon, which is fine. This is my country, I belong here because I love it.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Zaf's father, the chain smoking 'king pin' as he's known around here, arrived in 1970 with nothing. Back then a job and hard work was seen as qualification enough to start a new life here. But today, the Government wants to test their grasp of Australian values before immigrants can become citizens.
ZAF SAAD: You can't force them to have some sort of test because no-one would pass it.
CHARLES WOOLEY: What did you know when you came here?
ZAF SAAD: I knew nothing. People used to call me names, I never used to know what they mean. But then, as you got older you'll learn the language. I wanted to learn. I was a kid anyway, I had to learn. If I didn't learn I used to get a whack behind the ear from my father.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Hello? Now I should declare a personal interest in this story. I was a migrant myself, and it was in rural Tasmania that my mum, Ella, and my dad, Charlie, started their new life. My dad, the pioneer.
CHARLIE WOOLEY: I remember all that, yes.
CHARLES WOOLEY: In 1952 the Wooleys emigrated from the gloom of post-war Scotland. Unlike most of today's immigrants they went bush as pioneers in the hydro power business. It was a big decision, but 50 years later they have no regrets.
CHARLIE WOOLEY: One of the things I admired about Australians is their optimism. No matter what happened, they thought something better was going to happen.
ELLA WOOLEY: Nobody shed a tear, that's what used to surprise me. Now they do, then those days they didn't.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Australians didn't cry?
ELLA WOOLEY: They didn't cry. They'd say, 'Well, we've got to begin again'.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Australia has been good to them. Dad's never had a day out of work. At 89 they're great grandparents and, I would say. model citizens, But would they pass the Government's test? How would you feel about being tested then?
CHARLIE WOOLEY: We wouldn't like it at all.
ELLA WOOLEY: I don't suppose I would like it, Charles. I would do it, I don't think I'd like it.
CHARLES WOOLEY: How would you go today? I mean, do you know the batting average of the Don, for instance?
ELLA WOOLEY: No.
CHARLIE WOOLEY: No, no, no.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Continuing … Dad here's a tough one for you. Who was the first Prime Minister of Australia?
ELLA WOOLEY: (Ella whispers) Barton. Barton.
CHARLIE WOOLEY: Barton.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Well done! Charles Wooley, you are an Australian citizen. With a little help from ... Like my parents, most of us might battle to answer the sort of questions a bureaucrat might ask. And anyway, just what are Australian values? I'm turning to our history for help. Remember, our nation's founders arrived in chains, so let's begin in the old nick.
BERNIE MATTHEWS, FORMER PRISONER: Freedom, freedom, Charles — that's what Australia's all about, freedom. Former bank robber Bernie Matthews has spent 18 years behind bars in some of Australia's most notorious prisons.
BERNIE MATTHEWS: Maybe it means more to me because I've been on the inside of the wall and looked at freedom, but that's what Australia is all about.
CHARLES WOOLEY: No-one appreciates freedom as much as someone who's looked out through the world through bars.
BERNIE MATTHEWS: Someone who's had it taken away from them, yes.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Like convicts 200 years before him, Bernie's done his time and emerged a better man because of what he believed is a great Australian virtue — optimism.
BERNIE MATTHEWS: No, there was always a light at the end of the tunnel, Charles, you have that light at the end of the tunnel. Once that's extinguished, well, there is no hope. And I guess everything is predicated on hope.
CHARLES WOOLEY: And do you think maybe that's where the Australian notion that, in the end, things will work out, she'll be right, came from?
BERNIE MATTHEWS: I think that notion is inbuilt same as our convict heritage, it's all part and parcel of Australia, isn't it?
CHARLES WOOLEY: In recent times there's been some doubt over whether she really will be right. Our tolerant and easy ways have come under attack from the likes of Sheikh Alhilali. And rarely in our peacetime history have we been so divided over what it means to be Australian.
ZAF SAAD: Look, I reckon if they want to live in a country here, in Australia, they should abide by its laws, it's that simple.
CHARLES WOOLEY: And if they don't want to?
ZAF SAAD: If they don't want to, they don't want to be here then! If they don't want to be here, they shouldn't be here. They should go back to where they came from, it's that simple.
CHARLES WOOLEY: For those like the Sard family, Australia has long been a haven for people looking for peace and escaping war. Yet foreign war looms so large in the Australian story. Our military exploits have done much to shape our idea of who we are as a nation. Even today, 3000 of our defence men and women are serving around the world, half of them in Iraq, and, like Corporal Rebecca Milne, proud of it. You' re an Australian who feels good about herself, aren't you.
REBECCA MILNE: Hell, yes. I wouldn't put this uniform on every morning if I didn't feel that.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Corporal Milne has just returned from southern Iraq — seven long months in the most dangerous place on earth. Her experiences leave her with no doubt about our most important core value.
REBECCA MILNE: I think our biggest one is our mateship, our unwavering support that if you've known someone for two minutes, two years, you will go into bat for them, you will watch their back you will support them.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Who's this important-looking chap?
REBECCA MILNE: That's my grandfather.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Corporal Milne's enthusiasm for Australia is underlined by a long military heritage — from her great grandfather's service in World War I to her uncle's tour of Vietnam. She is the fourth generation of her family to join up, the first girl to do so. And what do you think that these blokes contributed to the Australian character?
REBECCA MILNE: I think that they're the definition of it, they're the larrikins. Some of the photos there you can see they were the larrikin character, and they were doing their job, and they had absolute mateship.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Are you still allowed to do that in the modern Australian Army?
REBECCA MILNE: Definitely. And I think that's what helps us do the job is if we we've got that bit of character, that bit of real person in us, that's what helps us do the job.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Long before diggers ever meant soldiers, the world described adventurers of a different kind. It's not exactly instant gratification, is it?
CORDELL KENT: It's not, imagine doing this for 12 hours a day.
CHARLES WOOLEY: And today, Cordell Kent is the living embodiment of the great Australian tradition of get rich quick. Look at that, that's gold, isn't it? What a thumping great piece too.
CORDELL KENT: Yeah, that's real gold.
CHARLES WOOLEY: The Kent family have struck it rich in modern times and built a golden business thanks to the timeless virtue of hard yakka. You were on the bones of your arse, to quote yourself?
CORDELL KENT: When we got married we had nothing, we had nothing except our love for each other and we worked really, really hard.
CHARLES WOOLEY: And you did all this on the back of gold?
CORDELL KENT: We did.
CHARLES WOOLEY: In the 1850s, and the roaring days of the old goldrush, the foundations for our modern democracies were laid. At the Eureka Stockade Cordell's predecessors would fight for the right to find gold, convinced it was a noble cause, and freedom they won lives on today.
CORDELL KENT: We've got rights … they're important things, and if anything, we're guilty of taking our freedoms and our rights for granted.
CHARLES WOOLEY: And the right to prospect?
CORDELL KENT: Absolutely, absolutely. What better form of freedom is there to go out and dig up money? It's wonderful.
CHARLES WOOLEY: The Eureka uprising was fought under a rebel flag — the Southern Cross. Today, the Australian flag, still with the British Union Jack, has been embraced like never before. This summer, there was an uprising at the mere question of the flag being banned at a pop concert. Patriotism has become a booming Australian value, even if most of us still don't know the words to the national anthem.
ZAF SAAD: Every time I hear the Australian national anthem, I do get goosebumps, because I love it ...
CHARLES WOOLEY: You get goosebumps when you hear the Australian national anthem?
ZAF SAAD: Yeah.
CHARLES WOOLEY: 'Our land is girt by sea ...'
ZAF SAAD: Hey, mate, we're surrounded by sea.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Don't you think we need something a little more poetic?
ZAF SAAD: Mate, who worries about poetic expressions or not, mate? We know what it means, so we understand it, that's all that matters. CHARLES WOOLEY: Australia is, indeed, a country girt by sea. Eighty percent live on its shores — a far cry from the day when just as many of us lived on the land. Out here, a young bloke, Charlie Perel, founded a fortune from the other gold — the golden fleece. Since the turn of the century, the Perel family have bred prize-winning ribbon-wearing pieces of art.
GEOFF PEREL: My grandfather had 35 men on the pay role.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Those were roaring days.
GEOFF PEREL: People were happy, they lived, they made their own fun.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Fortunes were made too.
GEOFF PEREL: Oh, big ones.
CHARLES WOOLEY: This is drier than you've seen?
GEOFF PEREL: Oh, I haven't seen it like this.
CHARLES WOOLEY: But those roaring days are now just a melancholy echo of better times, with the ongoing drought and the changing climate of world trade, Geoff Perel and his wife, Jess, have never done it tougher.
JESS PEREL: I doubt if the rural world as we know it, or Geoff has known it, or Geoff's grandfather has known it, will ever exist again here.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Grandfather Perel would turn in his grave!
JESS PEREL: He would, I know. I can feel him turning right now, I know.
CHARLES WOOLEY: But before the sun sets on the Perel family dream, they're still surviving on what they believe are the core values of the bush.
GEOFF PEREL: I think self-reliance, initiative, independence.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Self-reliance — the ability to do it yourself, to fix it yourself, to make do?
GEOFF PEREL: Absolutely. Absolutely.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Back in the big smoke, driving a cab to support his family, Zaf Saad has known hard times too, but for him and his family this is still the promised land of plenty — plenty of kids and plenty of dangerously strong black Lebanese coffee. That's a Saad family coffee.
ZAF SAAD: There's nothing better than a country like Australia giving you a chance, a second chance.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Getting the second chance can make you love a place even more, can't it?
ZAF SAAD: Of course it does.
CHARLES WOOLEY: This year, 100,000 new settlers will come here in search of their second chance. But first, they'll have to pass that test — a test of Australian values that may, in fact, be a contravention in Australian values.
BERNIE MATTHEWS: When you are looking at a test like that, Charles, you're looking at somebody from a political standpoint or a policymaker view that isn't necessarily correct, it's their view.
CHARLES WOOLEY: It's a straightener in the regulator asking the question?
BERNIE MATTHEWS: Exactly, exactly.
CHARLES WOOLEY: It does sound like it's the warden rattling the door, doesn't it?
BERNIE MATTHEWS: It does, yeah, it does.
CHARLES WOOLEY: After all, we've all been new settlers at some stage, and so far we've mostly passed the only test that was on offer — to survive and thrive and to make our own contribution to the Australian character.
Zaf, thank you for introducing me to your considerable family ...
ZAF SAAD: No worries, mate.
CHARLES WOOLEY: … and for all the coffee. I'm going to go away and think about it.
ZAF SAAD: No worries, mate. Catch you.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Bye.
SAAD FAMILY: Bye.
