"I want an Australian accent!"

It's Australia Day tomorrow, which means that we're all enjoying a long sunny weekend, and hopefully thinking about how fortunate we are to live here in this big, dry, beautiful and predominately peaceful and prosperous place.


The Good Weekend magazine in yesterday's The Age had a wonderful feature on just this subject - a photographic essay on kids who were born in another country but now live here. It's worth checking out - there's a multi-media feature based on it here on The Age website too.

(I know one of the kids featured too - he's one of my eldest son's best friends.)

Reading this yesterday made me reflect some more on one of the things that President Obama said in a recent speech - that his extraordinary story could only be possible in the United States of America. I don't think that's true; I like to think that what was once unthinkable is possible in Australia too. I hope so.

Gen-No-Name

I've always been rather chuffed about belonging to a small group of people who are without a generational label. Too young to be babyboomers - apparently you have to be born between the end of the Second World War in August 1945 and 30 June 1961 to be one of those - and too old for Generation X, we early 1960s babies have been happily wandering around the planet this past 40-odd years without a moniker.

So, it was with some disappointment that I found it reported on the front page of this morning's The Age, that I, together with Barack Obama, the late Princess of Wales, Meg Ryan and kd lang, belong to Generation X.

Oh no I don't. I'm sticking with the definition that Gen-X started with babies born in 1965, because that way, I don't have to conform to any generational stereotypes. (Don't get me started on the current workplace obsession with the needs of Generation Y.)

It's all to do with perception of course. In the same week that I turned (gulp) 47, I was happy to hear another 1961 baby - Obama - repeatedly described as a young, fresh leader. Although, the new conservative Prime Minister of New Zealand John Key is only 'relatively young' at 47, according to The Age. Then again, Mr Key is a whole five days older than Senator Obama.

Whatever. Just let those of us born between mid-1961 and 1964 keep our label-less state.

Of beauty rich and rare

As a healthy middle-class, white, university-educated, employed woman, whose ancestors immigrated from England, Scotland and Ireland well over a century ago, I've always felt my great good fortune in being an Australian. Life may be a struggle sometimes, but in essence, together with my extended family, my friends and the community I am privileged to be part of, I have little to really complain about. If something goes wrong, I have the resources and support to do something about it.

Our Governor General noted yesterday at the opening of our 42nd parliament that we are blessed to live in country which can change its government without bloodshed, and for the most part with goodwill.

I felt that good fortune and goodwill today in being one of millions of Australians to witness a pivotal moment in our history - our new Prime Minister offering a heartfelt, unequivocal apology to the indigenous people of this land. It has been a long time coming, and not a moment too soon. And importantly, he expressed sorry as a place to start, not as an end in itself.

I found it a moving moment to share with my own children too. Even my five year old understands that our prime minister is saying sorry for previous generations taking children away from their parents. I'm sure that as my kids grow older, they'll refer back to today when we discuss our country's history.

Of course, this being a democracy, not everyone agrees that sayng sorry has been the right thing to do. As well as some unconvinced opposition politicans who didn't participate in the motion before parliament, or who offered a strained response to Kev's apology, there have been some dissenting voices among the general population. Like the author of a letter to the editor in today's Age newspaper, who believes he "might be owed an apology [because] possibly one of my ancestors was poorly treated, beaten and lived in harsh conditions for being suspected of eating bread that was not theirs".

Besides it being a stretch to compare these two experiences, surely the point is that, for indigenous Australians, today's apology is about experiences within living, painful memory for an entire community of people, who are dealing with the ramifications of our actions on a daily basis. A true apology shouldn't have to be conditional.

Sorry.

Zen sardines

I started my first contract this week. It's a bit strange to be working again - especially as my contract is with a huge organisation I worked for previously for nearly a decade - but I'm enjoying it. The work is interesting, involving some research into an area of communication that I've not worked on for a while, but it's not stressful. And I'm only there for four weeks, three days a week, so 'yay'!

What is stressful, though, is the travelling. One of the good things about my last job was that it was located outside of Melbourne's central business district and very close to home; I caught a leisurely tram there every morning, and only had to go about four stops. Ah, the ease of it all.

My current contract is in the city, however, which means that I need to catch the train to and from work during the rush hour. This is not something I've done for five years, and I've not missed it a bit. And after only three days of doing it, I am shocked at how bad Melbourne's rail system has got recently.

The apalling state of our trains has been getting a lot of attention in the news recently. I've also heard The Hubster complain a lot about the frustrations of getting around on the train too. But I didn't really appreciate how bad it is until I became a train-traveller myself this week.

Trains are cancelled. They don't turn up when they are meant to. Some travel at a snail's pace. Or you're kept waiting outside a station for five minutes.

Worst of all is the constant misleading communication about what's happening. Last night I was at Southern Cross station (which looked very impressive in the dark of the early evening) attempting to catch a train on the Sandringham line. It was just before 6pm, and the screens told me that there were two Sandringham trains, one scheduled at 5.52pm and the other at 6.04pm; the wait for both of them was listed though at 36 minutes. If a train is going to arrive at 6.36pm, I don't think you can really pretend it's a 5.52pm train, can you?

(Eventually I worked out that the best thing was to get to Flinders Street, where I caught the 6.12pm train at 6.20pm.)

Of course, with all of this confusion, the trains are incredibly overcrowded and uncomfortable. So it was with some irony that, while travelling home, I read the following passage in the novel I'm currently reading, Lionel Shriver's The Post-Birthday World.

"With no explanation over the loudspeaker, the train lurched to a standstill. Sitting for fifteen minutes under a quarter-mile of rock was so commonplace on the Northern Line, the city's worst, that none of the passengers bothered to look up from their Daily Mails. In relation to the eccentricities of the Underground 'service', regular riders would have long since passed through the conventional stages of consternation, despair, and long-suffering, and graduated to an imperturbable Zen tranquility. One could alternatively interpret the passangers' expressions of unquestioning acceptance as sophisticated, or bovine." (the first Chapter 3, p86)

I suppose I shouldn't complain too much, because I've only joined this downtrodden community of train-travellers for a short while. I wonder how long it takes you to become a Zen-like sardine?

Just how out of touch are you?

It's been a big weekend here in Melbourne, with the U2 tour coming to town and the G20 summit. And the two have been very much linked, with Bono being Bono, and the government being ... well, rather out of touch.

Earlier today, I noticed a rather surprising comment on The Age website. Apparently, our Treasurer Peter Costello isn't really aware of U2 or any of their songs.

Peter, Peter, Peter. Aren't you only 49 years old? You and Bono - who is about 46 - belong to the same generation.

Granted, you may not know any of the more obscure musicians from the last 20 years - like Echo & the Bunnymen, Altered Images, The Stranglers, or Kylie Minogue. But this is U2! How could you miss their prolific output these past two and a half decades?
To his credit though, unlike the man whose job he wants, he did at least agree to meet the Irish one with the rock star ego and the big ideas. I just hoped he listened.

(Interesting to notice that both men chose to wear stripes for their big date. Shame Peter left his shades in the car.)