Lably
Skip to content

Culture of Australia

  • 62 min read
  • 12 chapters

Related on Lably

Through Australia, Parliamentary system and Federalism

Lab · Class 6–12Archaeology & DiscoveryLabFederalismLabFederalism

Aboriginal Australians arrived as early as 60,000 years ago, and evidence of Aboriginal art in Australia dates back at least 30,000 years. Spiritual beliefs endure among Aboriginal peoples. Torres Strait Islanders, another indigenous group, have their own cultural traditions.

The British colonisation of Australia began in 1787 and waves of multi-ethnic, primarily Anglo-Celtic, migration followed shortly thereafter. Several states and territories had their origins as penal colonies, with this convict heritage having an enduring effect on Australian music, cinema and literature. Manifestations of British colonial heritage in Australia include the primacy of the English language and Western Christianity, the institution of constitutional monarchy, a Westminster-style system of democratic parliamentary government, and Australia's inclusion within the Commonwealth of Nations. The American political ideals of constitutionalism and federalism have also played a role in shaping Australia's distinctive political identity.

The Australian gold rushes from the 1850s resulted in exponential population and economic growth, as well as racial tensions and the introduction of novel political ideas; the growing disparity between the prospectors and the established colonial governments culminated in the Eureka Stockade rebellion and the shifting political climate ushered in significant electoral reform, the labour movement, and improved women's rights ahead of any such changes in other Western countries.

Federation occurred in 1901 as the result of a burgeoning sense of national unity and identity that had developed over the latter half of the 19th century, hitherto demonstrated in the works of Heidelberg School artists and authors like Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson, and Dorothea Mackellar. The First World War and Second World War profoundly impacted Australia, ushering in the heroic ANZAC legend of the former and the geopolitical reorientation in which the United States became Australia's foremost military ally after the latter. In the seven decades following the Second World War, more than 6.5 million migrants settled in Australia from 200 nations, further enriching Australian culture in the process. Over time, as immigrant populations gradually assimilated into Australian life, their cultural and culinary practices became part of mainstream Australian culture.

Historical development of Australian culture

The oldest surviving cultural traditions of Australia—and some of the oldest surviving cultural traditions on earth—are those of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, collectively referred to as Indigenous Australians. Their ancestors have inhabited Australia for between 40,000 and 60,000 years, living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. In 2006, the Indigenous population was estimated at 517,000 people, or 2.5 per cent of the total population. Most Aboriginal Australians have a belief system based on the Dreaming, or Dreamtime, which refers both to a time when ancestral spirits created land and culture, and to the knowledge and practices that define individual and community responsibilities and identity.

The arrival of the first British settlers at what is now Sydney in 1788 introduced Western civilisation to the Australian continent. Although Sydney was initially used by the British as a place of banishment for prisoners, the arrival of the British laid the foundations for Australia's democratic institutions and rule of law, and introduced the long traditions of English literature, Western art and music, and Judeo-Christian ethics and religious outlook which shaped the Australian national culture and identity.

The British Empire expanded across the whole continent and established six colonies. The colonies were originally penal colonies, with the exception of Western Australia and South Australia, which were each established as a "free colony" with no convicts and a vision for a territory with political and religious freedoms, together with opportunities for wealth through business and pastoral investments. However, Western Australia became a penal colony after insufficient numbers of free settlers arrived. Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, grew from its status as a convict free region and experienced prosperity from the late nineteenth century.

Contact between the Indigenous Australians and the new settlers ranged from cordiality to violent conflict, but the diseases brought by Europeans were devastating to Aboriginal populations and culture. According to the historian Geoffrey Blainey, during the colonial period: "Smallpox, measles, influenza and other new diseases swept from one Aboriginal camp to another ... The main conqueror of Aborigines was to be disease and its ally, demoralization."

Calls for responsible government emerged, and the first political party was set up in 1835 to advance the cause. William Charles Wentworth, one its co-founders and an early proponent of Australian national identity, later spearheaded the creation of the first Australian parliament, established in New South Wales. From the 1850s, the colonies wrote constitutions which produced democratically advanced parliaments under the system of constitutional monarchy, with Queen Victoria as the head of state.

Women's suffrage in Australia was achieved from the 1890s. Women became eligible to vote in South Australia in 1895. This was the first legislation in the world permitting women to stand for political office and, in 1897, Catherine Helen Spence, an Adelaidean, became the first female political candidate. Though constantly evolving, the key foundations for elected parliamentary government have maintained an historical continuity in Australia from the 1850s into the 21st century.

During the colonial era, distinctive forms of Australian art, music, language and literature developed through movements like the Heidelberg school of painters and the work of bush balladeers like Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson, whose poetry and prose did much to promote an egalitarian Australian outlook which placed a high value on the concept of "mateship". Games like cricket and rugby were imported from Britain at this time and with a local variant of football, Australian Rules Football, became treasured cultural traditions.

The Commonwealth of Australia was founded in 1901, after a series of referendums conducted in the British colonies of Australasia. The Australian Constitution established a federal democracy and enshrined human rights such as sections 41 (right to vote), 80 (right to trial by jury) and 116 (freedom of religion) as foundational principles of Australian law and included economic rights such as restricting the government to acquiring property only "on just terms". The Australian Labor Party was established in the 1890s and the Liberal Party of Australia in 1944, both rising to be the dominant political parties and rivals of Australian politics, though various other parties have been and remain influential. Voting is compulsory in Australia and government is essentially formed by a group commanding a majority of seats in the Australian House of Representatives selecting a leader who becomes Prime Minister. Australia remains a constitutional monarchy in which the largely ceremonial and procedural duties of the monarch are performed by a Governor General selected by the Australian government.

Australia fought at Britain's side from the outset of World War I and World War II and came under attack from the Empire of Japan during the latter conflict. These wars profoundly affected Australia's sense of nationhood and a military legend developed around the spirit of Australia's ANZAC troops, who came to symbolise the virtues of endurance, courage, ingenuity, good humour, and mateship.

The Australian colonies had a period of extensive non-British European and Chinese immigration during the Australian gold rushes of the latter half of the 19th century, but following Federation in 1901, the Parliament instigated the White Australia Policy, which gave preference to British migrants. The post-World War II immigration program saw the policy relaxed then dismantled by successive governments, permitting large numbers of non-British Europeans, and later Asian and Middle Eastern migrants to arrive. The Menzies Government (1949–1966) and Holt government maintained the White Australia Policy but relaxed it, and then the legal barriers to multiracial immigration were dismantled during the 1970s, with the promotion of multiculturalism by the Whitlam and Fraser governments.

From the protest movements from the 1930s, with the gradual lifting of restrictions, Indigenous Australians began to develop a unity sense of Aboriginality, maintained by all Aboriginal artists, musicians, sportsmen and writers. However, some States and Territories of Australia retained discriminatory laws relating to voting rights for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people into the 1960s, at which point full legal equality was established. A 1967 referendum to include all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in official population counts was overwhelmingly approved by voters, singling the beginning of action and organisation at a national level in Aboriginal affairs. Since then, conflict and reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians has been a source of much art and literature in Australia. In 1984, a group of Pintupi people who were living a traditional hunter-gatherer desert-dwelling life were tracked down in the Gibson Desert and brought into a settlement. They are believed to have been the last uncontacted tribe.

While the British cultural influence remained strong into the 21st century, other influences became increasingly important. Australia's post-war period was marked by an influx of Europeans who broadened the nation's vision. The Hawaiian sport of surfing was adopted in Australia where a beach culture and the locally developed surf lifesaving movement was already burgeoning in the early 20th century. American pop culture and cinema were embraced in the 20th century, with country music and later rock and roll sweeping Australia, aided by the new technology of television and a host of American content. The 1956 Melbourne Olympics, the first to be broadcast to the world, announced a confident, prosperous post-war nation, and new cultural icons like Australian country music star Slim Dusty and dadaist Barry Humphries expressed a uniquely Australian identity.

Australia's contemporary immigration program has two components: a program for skilled and family migrants and a humanitarian program for refugees and asylum seekers. By 2010, the post-war immigration program had received more than 6.5 million migrants from every continent. The population tripled in the six decades to around 21 million in 2010, including people originating from 200 countries. More than 43 per cent of Australians were either born overseas or have one parent who was born overseas. The population is highly urbanised, with more than 75% of Australians living in urban centres, largely along the coast.

Contemporary Australia is a pluralistic society, rooted in liberal democratic traditions and espousing informality and egalitarianism as key societal values. Strongly influenced by Anglo-Celtic origins, the culture of Australia has also been shaped by multi-ethnic migration which has influenced all aspects of Australian life, including business, the arts, cuisine, sense of humour and sporting tastes.

Contemporary Australia is also a culture that is profoundly influenced by global movements of meaning and communication, including advertising culture. In turn, globalising corporations from Holden to Exxon have attempted to associate their brand with Australian cultural identity. This process intensified from the 1970s onwards. According to Paul James,

this consciously created interlock of the image of the multinational corporation with aspects of Australia's national mythology, has itself over the last decade [the 1970s to 1980s] contributed to the maintenance and evolution of those national themes. But paradoxically, during the same period it has reinforced Australia's international orientation.

Sign in to keep reading

11 more chapters are free with a Lably account.

More in Sociology

African AmericansEthnic and cultural group in the United StatesCensusCompilation of information about a given populationIndustrialisationPeriod of social and economic change from agrarian to industrial societyPew Research CenterThink tank based in Washington, D.C., USPatriarchySocial system with male ruleSocial exclusionForm of social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society