Does Australia need a nation building project?

Does Australia need a nation building project that draws Australians back to a common good that makes for a just society? A project that principally recognises the beliefs and values of the mainstream of our society! Also recognising that the Christian tradition has done much at many levels to meet the education, employment and health needs of vulnerable Australians!

Or, do Australians want to live under the unstated beliefs of powerful global elites? E.g. the global financial markets in which the only value is money! Or, do we want to live in a land that becomes subservient to the wishes of powerful global military networks! Or powerful global intellectual elites!

Or, vested interests within Australia!

Or, global media networks that are actors in the programs driven by any of the above!

Do any of these networks deliver to Australians what most of us generally want for our families, friends and community networks? Meaning and purpose! Harmony! Wellbeing and prosperity!

Recently, I read about Singapore’s nation building project. The author, Lai Ah Eng from the National University of Singapore, wrote, “Based on its founding principles of secularism and multiculturalism, Singapore’s nation building project since 1965 has aimed to establish and maintain social harmony and cohesion. Its approach, enforced by various legal and structural institutions, is a combination of hardnosed pragmatism in management, judicious tight-rope walking for neutrality, and strong intervention where necessary.”

Then, she continued, “But it is ordinary people who live religions and navigate their everyday multi-religious environments, as collective communities, groups, families and individuals. In a wide range of public spaces, the processes of living and interacting over time have produced a level of tolerance, respect and civility that today serves as the standard of appropriate and expected behaviour.”

In “The Australian” on Saturday 27/8, an article titled “MPs won’t jump on same-sex bandwagon!”, claims The Australian Labor Party is approaching “the starkest repudiation of its long ties with the Christian tradition.”

Would Australians want this to happen? Would it serve the common good of this country?

The author(s) finish their article with this assertion, “In truth, the real debate has hardly begun.”

Bob Simpson

AMEP Associate

©The Australian Media Engagement Project Inc 2011