Library & Innovation Centre

Trying to define national identity is like searching for the end of a rainbow.

It isn’t something that can be found or a place we can collectively reach; it’s something that unfolds over time and through generations. It’s also something that is contested and evokes a sense of belonging individually.

Acknowledging our inheritance should not engender a paralysing guilt, but rather a mature realisation of the moral obligations created by our past, which we won’t ever escape.

Australiyaniality is an awkward name for an exhibition that has embedded within it a call to action.

An amalgam of ideas exploring Australia, identity, place and “Liyan” - a word borrowed from the Yawuru people of Broome that describes the “internal spiritual core of strength that keeps you strong personally and culturally” - the exhibition attempts to reframe our attitudes to this continent and the life we have built here.

While it is important to understand that there is a difference between societal and personal values, it is the average of individual’s values that help us understand what is important to a particular society.

'Australian Values'. It's a phrase that simultaneously calls for unity, while also promoting exclusion and assimilation.

Legislation introduced to toughen Australia’s citizenship regime may be unfair, the Labor MP Linda Burney told the ABC’s Q&A program on Monday night as the opposition prepares to debate whether to support the proposed changes.

Australia is a vibrant, multicultural country. We are home to the world’s oldest continuous cultures, as well as Australians who identify with more than 270 ancestries. Since 1945, almost seven million people have migrated to Australia.

Australia has a unique history that has shaped the diversity of its peoples, their cultures and lifestyles today. Three major contributors to Australia’s demographic make-up are a diverse Indigenous population, a British colonial past and extensive immigration from many different countries and cultures.

Unity: An Australian society that values and recognises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and heritage as a proud part of a shared national identity

Essentially, culture refers to a people’s way of life - their ideas, values, customs and social behaviour. Culture includes things like the way we do weddings and funerals, the food we like to eat, the way we dress and the music we like. Culture is passed down from generation to generation, and while cultural practices and beliefs change and evolve, many of the basic aspects remain the same.

Identity is tied to the cultures that a person is raised in and how they identify with that culture.