Phillip Knightley: Australia: A Biography Of A Nation

By HUGH LARACY

What is it that makes a people, or constitutes a nation? What alchemy of place, time, experience and memory generates a distinctive consciousness or identity within a population?

Such questions readily lend themselves to trite responses based on a glib mysticism or on the semantic contortions of sociology. There has to be a better way of dealing with them.

What about a lively and well-informed, yet personal, narrative of the events that have had a major impact on a community, and of the sentiments that have surfaced conspicuously within it? That is, by linking successive episodes as parts of a process of collective becoming and shared awareness, but one that is not complete and has never been homogeneous.

Which is what Phillip Knightley has done in this history of Australia since it was born as a constitutional entity in 1901. Before that it was a collection of separate colonies.

Knightley is well qualified for the task. Born in 1929 and with a notable career in journalism, he has both observed and reported on from close range much of what he writes about.

For instance, in 1981 the press magnate Rupert Murdoch told him of the major contribution his newspapers had made to the electoral victory of Gough Whitlam's Labor Party in 1972, and then to its landslide defeat in 1975, after the scandalous dissolution of parliament by the governor-general. Things had changed, remarked Murdoch with enigmatic resignation. Maybe, but various established interests had felt suddenly threatened by that swashbuckling regime.

Nor is that all. Its demise also points to tectonic strains within the Australian polity, such as those which surfaced in the communist scare of the 1950s and 60s and in the dismissal of the New South Wales premier in 1932.

In contrast, Gallipoli, the body-line cricket series, the war against Japan, the Snowy River development scheme and the 2000 Olympics all fostered unity rather than division.

They also exhibit a spirit of resourcefulness and stern competitiveness. This was illustrated on the Kokoda Track late in 1942 when militia (intended for home guard duties) defeated a Japanese advance towards Port Moresby.

Among the defenders the traditions of mateship and generosity were reaffirmed. So, too, was the refusal to be intimidated or, as may be seen in more recent times, preached at.

Australia has freely accepted large numbers of immigrants and has done more than its share for regional defence and development. But, as the re-election of John Howard with an increased majority shows, its people are not prepared to be dictated to by gate-crashers, or by their abettors and apologists. Australia is sharply aware of its sovereignty.

Knightley's book has been well received in Australia. It should also be widely read in New Zealand, which is a de facto member of the federated Commonwealth, despite the short-sightedness of our politicians in 1901.

* Hugh Laracy is an associate professor of Pacific history at the University of Auckland.

Vintage, $27.95