Once again on this divisive day of national celebration, Australia’s leaders can be expected to indulge in official monologues of self-congratulation based on assertions of who we supposedly are as a country and a people.
Notwithstanding the perennial affront to many First Nations people’s sensibilities each 26 January, Australia will officially talk over the protests to cast itself as a tolerant, inclusive, egalitarian, self-sufficient, ruggedly individual nation of mates – always underpinned by a reverence for democracy and a hardy streak of anti-authoritarianism.
