Australia's Place in the World

Abstract

Australia is an extraordinary accident of history. Europeans came to live on this continent only the equivalent of four of my own lifetimes ago. From the earliest years of European settlement, Australia has been redefining itself, shifting its image of what it means to be Australian in response to a changing world. Paul Keating [The East Timor operation] has done a lot to cement Australia's place in the region. We have been seen by countries, not only in the region but around the world, as being able to do something that probably no other country could do; because of the special characterisitics we have; because we occupy that special place – we are a European, Western civilization with strong links to North America, but here we are in Asia. John Howard Australia has always been identified according to its geographic location – terra australis (the southern land); the antipodes (the part of the earth diametrically opposite Europe); “down under”. But for a nation with such a clear sense of geographic location, Australia has been beset by a series of unresolved debates about where it sits politically, strategically and even ethnically among the alignments and confrontations of the world's states. In many ways, a nation's sense of where it fits among the complex mosaic of roles, positions and commitments assumed by the world's states forms the foundations of its foreign policy.