The phrase “Australian values” is often invoked in times of political tension. It is used to draw boundaries – to decide who belongs, who does not, and who must prove themselves worthy. Yet the phrase itself is rarely defined with precision.
If we are to speak of Australian values seriously, we should anchor them not in sentiment or symbolism, but in the civic principles that underpin our democratic life.
At their core, Australian values are not about ancestry, cuisine, or sporting allegiance. They are about how we treat one another under a shared system of law and liberty.
Newly elected Opposition Leader Angus Taylor wasted no time invoking “Australian values” amid the heated immigration debate. He has argued for closing the door to those who don’t share what he sees as our core beliefs – particularly targeting people from certain backgrounds or religions whom he suggests may not align with them.
This stance raises a pointed question: whatever happened to the great Australian tradition of giving everyone a fair go?
A commenter on our site offered a thoughtful list of what many consider to be true Australian values:
• Respect and equality for women and minority groups
• Tolerance of diversity in people and opinions
• Acceptance of the rule of law
• Separation of church and state
• The right to free speech
These principles stand in direct contrast – in part at least – to the selective, exclusionary tone Angus Taylor has adopted. They deserve to be heard and defended.
Let’s open the floor: do these values still define us as a nation, or are they being redefined in ways that betray the very idea of a fair go? What do you think?
Respect and equality
Australia’s democratic evolution has been marked by an expanding recognition of equality – for women, for minority groups, and for those historically excluded from political and economic power. From women’s suffrage to anti-discrimination protections, progress has not been automatic, but it has been deliberate.
To affirm equality is not to claim perfection. It is to commit to the principle that no citizen’s dignity is negotiable. Respect is not cultural ornament; it is a democratic requirement.
Tolerance of diversity
Australia is one of the most culturally diverse societies in the world. Diversity is not a recent imposition upon a static culture; it is a defining feature of modern Australia.
Tolerance does not mean agreement. It means accepting that others may hold different beliefs, speak different languages, worship differently – or not at all – and remain fully Australian. A confident nation does not fear pluralism; it manages it through law and mutual restraint.
The rule of law
If there is a single principle that distinguishes democracy from tribalism, it is the rule of law. Governments change. Parties rise and fall. But the law – publicly known, equally applied, and subject to independent courts – remains.
No leader stands above it. No citizen stands beneath it. This commitment to legal equality is what prevents politics from sliding into personal power.
Separation of church and state
Australia is a religiously plural society. That pluralism is only sustainable because the state does not enforce theological doctrine.
Faith may guide private conscience and public debate, but law must remain secular. When government privileges one belief system over others, equality fractures. The separation of church and state protects both religious freedom and civic neutrality.
Freedom of speech
Free speech is not the right to avoid criticism. It is the right to participate in public debate without fear of state punishment. Democracies rely on argument. Progress depends on dissent.
Speech carries responsibilities, but its protection is essential. Once governments begin deciding which opinions are permissible, liberty narrows quickly.
Summary
Australian values, then, are not ethnic tests or cultural checklists. They are civic commitments: equality before the law, tolerance within diversity, freedom within constitutional limits.
They apply equally to those born here and those who arrive later. They bind citizens and governments alike.
A nation confident in its values does not use them as a weapon against newcomers. It lives them consistently.
If we are to defend “the Australian way of life,” we should begin by naming it clearly – and by ensuring that it includes the very freedoms and equalities we claim to cherish.
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That’s a pretty good list of values but are completely anathema to the LgNP and other assorted RRRWNJ’s. Anus…Angus’s version of values are The Donalds version of values, just with “Australia” copied and pasted in to replace the USA and America to make it his own.
Do Angus Taylor’s list of Australian Values include nefarious vested interest activities around the sale of water licences, forging a signature on another person’s document, fomenting disloyalty and instability in his chosen political party to gain leadership?
An excellent list of ”true Australian values” that the LIARBRAL$ deny at every opportunity.
1) Respect & equality for women & minority groups ….. How many women and non-Anglo-Celtic LIARBRAL$ politicians have been given pre-selection in electorates that the party could reasonably expect to win?
2) Tolerance of diversity in people & opinions ….. See above comment. Funny how the ZIONAZIS are unwilling to accept any opinion about the GAZA GENOCIDE by the amoral IDF directed by the Butcher of Gaza with the authorisation of the ZIONAZI Knesset and everybody else is wrong to think that this is just a ”self defence” strategy ….. to clear fell the Gaza Strip in preparation for the displacement & dispossession of Indigenous Palestinian landowners for the benefit of the international carpet-baggers seeking to re-build as the GAZA GOLD COAST for more ZIONAZI colonist settlers.
3) Acceptance of the rule of law ….. does that include considering BOTH civil & criminal law when dealing in empty glasses of MDB water to be sold to the Commonwealth??
The ZIONAZIS in the West bank and Gaza Strip are conducting evictions of Indigenous Palestinians at gun point, but that is OK according to them because they have given themselves the right to takeover proprietorship of the Palestinian lands without making any payment.
4) Separation of church & state ….. it would be nearly impossible to separate the Roman church from state matters, given that in many electorates pre-selection requires tacit endorsement by the local clergy.
Equally ZIONAZISM has been entwined into Judaism on the basis of an incomplete historical assertion, subsuming the ancient Judaism to promote the White Supremacist colonist settler theology to overcome centuries of Judaism persecution across Europe, thanks to the imperialist dreams of an early Pope.
5) The right to free speech ….. comes with the responsibility to be accurate in any assertions and without personal slurs.
Again, the ZIONAZIS claim exception to any thought of free speech that does not align with their self-serving motives. Think the BDS Scandal (Ban, Divest, Sanction Isrevil goods & services) at University of Sydney where academics were taken to Court to defend their own free speech because of the professional whingeing ZIONAZI cultists.
So now both the NSW and feral LABOR governments have shown clearly that they are toadies for the GAZA Genocide, the only action available to concerned Australian is the anti-Vietnam approach of the 60s & 70s.
Suffice it to say that Taylor’s values aren’t yours or mine. To the manor (manner) born, a silver spoon in the gob, scion of a generational land-holding family, schooled at The Kings School, Parramatta – the most elite such institution in the country – a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, a hack at the global consultants, McKinsey & Co, and something similar back here in Aust… I’ve met these types of people over many years of ping-ponging around the coalfaces of various industries and enterprises, and they’re definitely not like us.
Empathy towards socialism or, god forbid, marxism… never in a lifetime, absolute anathema. Empathy towards the average citizen in the street, the same, zero, cold indifference. Self-interest, number one. Hob-nobbing with those of the same social echelon, number one. Using the system, by whatever means, even if illegal, for self-enrichment, number one. Conceited disdain for honest toil and struggle street, number one.
Taylor’s preferred type of persons are the privileged self-serving individuals, Alexander Downer or Ian McLachlan, for example, people that you meet at the polo matches, or the annual tête-à-têtes at the Governor’s residence or the box seats at the test cricket or Australian Open.
And, of course, it goes without saying that for Angus, it’s a man’s world, always has been, always will be. The wife is merely an adornment, to be shown off and impregnated as needs be, and if good in the kitchen, all the better.
Thank you Roswell, I think expressing and debating a set of values is important.
Those that oppose uncontentious ones (such as the above) can be identified for what they are- bigots, misogynists and racists.
Values help set the framework for discussion – and whether policies advance or hinder them.
Those that don’t agree can self select out.
Thank you, AC. Did you notice I snuck your name in the piece?
Yes, thank you! That should ensure the thread is avoided!
I laugh whenever I come across this “Austrslian values” tripe every so often, but only not to cry.
Gaza and Australian values.
Good article. Pretty good list of core values. Sometimes those values are more aspirational than actual, but we have to keep trying to make them universal.
“Newly appointed shadow treasurer Tim Wilson said his focus will be on an economic agenda that ensures hard work pays off”… says the man who’s never done a hard day’s work in his life.
‘an economic agenda that ensures hard work pays off’… what exactly does that mean, or is it just more meaningless drivel?
Widdle Timmy Willy must be just about creaming in his panties, to have ascended to such heights so soon after his ignominious thrashing by Zoe Daniel a couple of years ago. Strange days indeed.
Maria Millers’ article, a little earlier this the mark. Do we want a regression to the memories of 1950’s Australia?
And if we could, would we like the world we returned to?
Memory, as Maria points out is very selective, filtering out the worst, remembering a past through the rainbow filter of imagined good times.
My family arrived here in 1954, our first home was expensive to rent, so we shared, it with other immigrant families while we waited for our Housing Commission home, a four year wait. Employment opportunities for my father were limited, there being no recognition of his qualifications since they were not acquired in Britain, and like in coming migrants today, we sought comfort in a church environment which was from our cultural heritage, we sought friends community, within that community, gradually ‘assimilating’, not so much my parents and my older sisters, but more so the younger children.
And is that not what immigrants do today? Find comfort and solace among their own as they slowly become ‘Australian’?
Of course we could pre-date those Australian Values to before the 1950’s, not just a white Australia, but one which fails to recognise the damage dome to our first nations people, and continues to be done to them as the close the gap is almost a pie in the sky dream.
Australian Values, when we go back just a little, are hardly values to aspire to, they are racist, based on a white supremacist ethos.
Heaven help us if we continue that path.
Nah, it’s all about house values, in fact prices, where people know the price and cost of everything, but the value of nothing including progress?
These are not just ‘Australian values’. They should be universal values.
We should beware those who appeal to ‘national values’. People assume it is what they believe in as a good citizen of whatever nation.
But different people will have different values, and the politicians will most likely have something different again in mind. But what? Beware.
Hmmmmm ….. With Senator David Sharma, former MP for Wentworth in Easten Suburbs Sydney, being handed the spokesperson role this week I may be paranoid but is this the first move in a push to install Widdle Timmy ZIONAZI Wilson as LIARBRAL$ Opposition (mis)leader with Sharma as Deputy, prior to a removal of the Anus Faylure – Just Humus make-believe ”leadership” for the benefit of foreign owned multinational corporations?
It is Angus Taylor going around espousing a return to “Australian values”, so I understand that people would discuss this with him in mind. But, he is not in government, the Coalition is not making policies that affect us, and the next election is years away. It is the stinking Labor government that should be held to account. Labor has just engineered a violent assault on fellow Australians, on peaceful protesters to shut them up and we’re talking about Angus Taylor?????
How does Labor look based on these “Australian values”?
‘Respect and equality for women and minority groups’
155 women were murdered in domestic violence attacks (that we know of), with 53 in NSW alone, last year. After the Bondi shootings, where 14 Australians were murdered, Labor rammed through hate laws to jail people who allegedly spread hate. In the four years it has been in power has Labor introduced similar laws where if a hypothetical reasonable person hypothetically thought that a person had or was going to commit an act of coercion or violence against a women or family member they would be jailed for years? Has Labor given the relevant minister the powers, similar to the powers in the hate laws, to proscribe a person with a history of abuse as a risk of offending again and send that person to jail? No, they haven’t. Why not? The new hate laws are bad legislation, but Labor brought them in within a matter of weeks, not years – so much for what Labor thinks of equality for women compared to appeasing the pro-Israeli lobby.
‘Tolerance of diversity in people and opinions’
You jest if you suggest Labor is tolerant of a diversity of opinion. Labor has framed protesters for actions they didn’t do, demonized them and now engineered a vicious attack on peaceful protesters with opinions that Labor didn’t want others to hear.
‘Acceptance of the rule of law’
Australians were kidnapped, assaulted and abused in an act of piracy on the high seas by the IDF, did Labor support the rule of law and demand justice? What of the murder of Zomi Frankcom by the IDF? Labor has enabled the undermining of International law at every step the US and Israel have taken.
‘The right to free speech’
Labor support the right to free speech? don’t make me laugh. Labor’s new hate laws are a savage attack on free speech in Australia. I have often wondered how countries can be drawn into dictatorships – these new hate laws are a means to that end.
‘Separation of church and state’
I don’t intend to prosecute an argument on this ‘value’ strongly as I regard my argument as tenuous, but the new hate laws contain a carve out, an exemption, for quoting from religious texts (as well as advocating in favour of genocide, mind you) – arguably, even if tenuously, a breach of separation of church and state.
Labor has already taken Australia to a dark place with its brutal, unprovoked, violent attack on Australians peacefully opposing a genocide. Labor is taking us to even darker place yet.
It is Labor who are in power, the priority should be holding Labor to account, not allowing ourselves to be distracted, at this stage in the electoral cycle, by the moronic, outrage-baiting utterings of Angus Taylor, Pauline Hanson, Barnaby Joyce or the Coalition.
Labor has long become an establishment party, it serves a corporate elite, big Capital if you like, and not the Australian people.
Gonggongche, makes very valid points. Why are we discussing Angus Taylor when he, or his successor, are unlikely to be in government in the foreseeable future. As s/he points out we need to be tackling Labor for its attacks on practically every aspect of what some/most of us would recognise as the ‘AustralianValues’ we subscribe to. One of my biggest concerns is the pernicious influence of religion in politics. I am thinking particularly of those adherents whose views on education have led to the imbalance in funding between public and non government schools or whose views (???) on health have led the expansion of private health funds, two areas where the government now uses public funds which could be better used supporting the public systems. It’s probably a bit extreme but should political aspirants be ruled out of pre-selection if they profess an adherence to any religion? And why, for instance, do Parliaments still open proceedings with the Lord’s Prayer? Is the predominant secularity of Australian society accurately represented in Parliament? Perhaps a statistician knows the answer.
Strong post from Gonggongche.
Is Taylor a threat?
Well, crass populism worked for Tony Abbott?
A study into the values and changing Australian culture does give some hope and indicates that Angus hasn’t realised it yet.
Have a look at https://www.routledge.com/Indigenous-Research-into-Mainstream-Australian-Culture-Shifting-the-Lens/Muller/p/book/9781032161686
Sickening, vomitous, ludicrous, the posturing of idioticskulled Hanson and others, raving away about Australian values to listeners and readers of a yankee turd’s maggoty media, gobbling Mc.Dogshit hamburgers, hooning in Ford and Dodge trucks, watching foreign usually yankee wankee T V ads and repeats, and embracing evil foreign stupidities, slogans, savagery.