The stability Australia once had and the predictable, developmental place it once was, made it easy to be patriotic. One flag, one people, oneness in purpose and spirit. That was in the pre-Whitlam era when obligation and responsibility were part of the equation.

The changes toward fragmentation of community and the tearing apart of the warp and weft of the Australian perspective were down to Whitlam – an out-and -out leftist – and the focus of his government.

(I was not devastated or surprised when the Whitlam Government was dismissed by Sir John Kerr. At that time, I was a young educator at both Warburtin Ranges in WA (1974/75) and at Numbulwar, NT from July 1975 onward. 

In both communities, I saw firsthand what happened when PM Whitlam announced that Aboriginal Communities had to shift almost immediately from being managed, to owning and applying the principles of self determination and self management to their operations. Funding appropriations depended on this action.

Apart from staffing issues, the limited Warburton economy, based on cattle management, floundered.

At Numbulwar, a flourishing market garden, along with an established poultry industry—including 5,000 laying hens—went into immediate decline. Both enterprises had supplied market outlets from Groote Eylandt to Katherine. The market garden was left to be overrun by weeds, and the poultry industry completely collapsed.

[These are but two examples of the wanton run-down that followed the ‘enlightenment’.]

Whitlam Government policies at the time demanded an immediate ‘ownership’ being foisted on people who had not been readied or trained for these responsibilities.

Community ventures in many communities were lost to the forced policies of the Federal Government at that time. So much was lost because the government made ill-considered haste.)

Whitlam’s other major contribution was to open Australian borders to all and sundry who wanted to flock in. Discontinuing the White Australia Policy was a good thing, but the management of the multicultural infusion that has followed has become less constrained and more open to the point of ‘anything goes’.

In essence, we no longer control our borders. The dam wall behind which Australia was contained, has been blown asunder; regardless of their political affiliations and motivations for moving, anyone from anywhere is welcome at any time with few questions asked.

The foundations on which this country stood when I was younger have been jack-hammered and splintered. Australia is now an unpredictable and unstable country.

That makes it hard to quantify patriotism.