Australian Contemporary Society

The essay discusses the modern Australian society with reference to the changes in policies and the system, which will portray the image of the country in the global context. It covers the Australian culture, lifestyle, migration, and multiculturalism.

Running head: AUSTRALIAN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY
Australian Contemporary Society
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1AUSTRALIAN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY
The Australian culture originates from the western culture that prevails in Britain and
includes the culture of the Aboriginals and the Torrent Islanders. With the advancement of the
British colonization of Australia in 1788, it marked the commencement of multi-ethnic
migration. The contemporary Australia is a pluralistic society that is deeply rooted within the
liberal democratic traditions giving rise to egalitarianism and informality that reflects in the
societal values. With the advent of globalization, Australia has prospered in several aspects and
has always managed to be tied to the world and its own region. A contemporary society is
recognized from technological innovation, current political and social climate along with the
increasing human inter-connection and globalization. The essay aims at discussing about the
modern Australian society with reference to the changes in policies and the system, which will
portray the image of the country in the global context (Bessarab & Forrest, 2016).
Smith, Messenger and Soderland (2017) states that the national symbols and national
Australian places signify the extent to which the country is related to Britain. The citizenship
ceremonies, loyalty oaths and even ceremonial days are also deeply related with the British. As
mentioned earlier, that the modern culture prevailing in the country reflects the aboriginal or
indigenous culture as is evident from the citizenship rights that has been accorded to the
aboriginals. In the past, the aboriginals were not even considered as Australian citizens until the
High court decision in Mabo v Queensland in 1992 has made the legal system of the country
accept that the country was not merely an empty continent.
Dudgeon and Walke (2015) argues that even in the present day the constitution of
Australia does not identify the sovereignty of indigenous Australian still experience issues owing
to their neglect, colonial dispossession and removal. Jacobs (2016) states that after citizenship
accorded to the indigenous and the celebration of the aboriginal art and festival celebration

2AUSTRALIAN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY
marks acceptance of the indigenous culture as part of their national identity. This further
establishes that the indigenous population of the country celebrates strength and survival of its
culture.
The lifestyle of Australians usually demonstrates traditional virtues of classlessness,
egalitarianism, mate ship, stoicism and fair go. According to Mansouri (2016), it is sometimes
referred to as ‘national ethos’ which implies that a particular life style is perceived to be in the
best interest of the entire community instead of one particular class of society. Given that, the
country is one of the most multicultural societies in the world, Luke (2018) states that the
contemporary visions of the diversity of Australian multiculturalism fits into the lifestyle of the
Australians by way of accepting diversity and the choice with respect to every aspects of
lifestyle, religion and culture.
This multiculturalism of the country is an outcome of its migration program. However,
this change in the composition of the Australian population has undergone drastic changes. The
country has embraced multiculturalism as an outcome of the expansion of the concept of ‘fair
go’ because it made the country develop non-discrimination policy in the context of immigration
moving away from the White Australia Policy introduced by the British.
By 2000, the Australians born overseas comprised 24 percent of the population while the
largest growth in respect of Australia’s population is attributed to the long-term visitors that
mostly comprised the overseas Asian students. Freeman and Staley (2018) states that while such
continued migration has given rise to several issues to the population policy of the country with
respect to prohibit extending support to people by providing jobs and welfare payments (if
necessary). This led both major political groupings including the Coalition and the Labor Party

3AUSTRALIAN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY
to develop a more stringent and effective migration program. The present migration program
includes two streams- one for skilled and family stream migrants whereas the other program is
for those with humanitarian needs such as refugees. The priority of the government is to target
skilled migrants who are capable of contributing to the Australian economy especially within the
regional parts of the nation.
Migration has changed the religious perception of the country significantly, which is
evident from the present religious diversity of the country that encompasses Hinduism,
Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, orthodox, Lutheran and many others unlike former Australian culture
where it was largely grouped into Christian denominations (catholic, Anglican, etc).
According to Cogan and Derricott (2014), Australia has developed significantly in the
past decades as an economy, political entity and as a society. From the above discussion, it can
be inferred that the country has come a long way from being an isolationist, parochial colonial
past to being a contemporary modern society. The Australian notion of ‘fair go’ has also
undergone a considerable transformation as it was extended to women enabling them to take part
in the elections. The principle has been further extended to permit women to seek education and
employment opportunities. The other group of people who were considered as beneficiaries of
the expanding ‘fair go’ concept is people with disabilities. This is evident from the fact that the
country has the most effective legislations dealing with disability discrimination that is, the
Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and other Disability Standards like that of National
Disability Insurance Scheme [NDIS].
The globalised acceptance of migrants has mainly attributed to the changed Australian
society that has become linguistically and culturally diverse as such diversity has a significant

4AUSTRALIAN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY
implication on the contemporary society (Jacobs, 2016). The contemporary values and attitudes
not only portrays history of the nation but is also likely to shape the national identity in the
future. The contemporary Australian multiculturalism aims at integrating human dignity and
human face and enable to transfer the linguistic and minority cultural heritage to the next
generation that does not conflict with the core values of Australian society. This is because the
multiculturalism nature of the Australian society does not imply ability to maintain the diverse
cultures and backgrounds instead it is the congregation of responsibilities and rights. A balance
is maintained between the right to maintain the language, religion and custom and the equal
responsibility to work, find employment, respect culture and heritage as well as accept women as
equals.

5AUSTRALIAN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY
References
Bessarab, D., & Forrest, S. (2016). TODISCUSS COMMUNITY development is to engage with
a term that has its foundations in Western ideology and epistemology. Within an
Indigenous Australian context, before colonisation, this raises the question: Did
community development as a process take place pre-colonisation and, if so, what did it
look like? Was it similar or different to current Western understandings and processes?
Living in today’s society and modern world, we may never know the answer to these
questions but what we can do is examine .... Mia Mia Aboriginal Community
Development: Fostering Cultural Security, 1.
Cogan, J., & Derricott, R. (2014). Citizenship for the 21st century: An international perspective
on education. Routledge.
Dudgeon, P., & Walker, R. (2015). Decolonising Australian psychology: Discourses, strategies,
and practice. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 3(1), 276-297.
Freeman, L. A., & Staley, B. (2018). The positioning of Aboriginal students and their languages
within Australia’s education system: A human rights perspective. International journal of
speech-language pathology, 20(1), 174-181.
Jacobs, K. (2016). Experience and representation: Contemporary perspectives on migration in
Australia. Routledge.
Luke, A. (2018). Literacy and the other: A sociological approach to literacy research and policy
in multilingual societies. In Critical Literacy, Schooling, and Social Justice (pp. 243-261).
Routledge.

6AUSTRALIAN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY
Mansouri, F. (2016). Cultural, Religious and Political Contestations. Springer International
Publishing: Imprint: Springer,.
Smith, G. S., Messenger, P. M., & Soderland, H. A. (Eds.). (2017). Heritage values in
contemporary society. Routledge.