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Report of the Inquiry Into Nationhood, National Identity and Democracy

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Report of the Inquiry Into Nationhood, National Identity and Democracy The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee Nationhood, national identity and democracy © Commonwealth of Australia 2021 ISBN 978-1-76093-181-0 (Printed Version) ISBN 978-1-76093-181-0 (HTML Version) This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 Australia License. The details of this licence are available on the Creative Commons website: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/. Printed by the Senate Printing Unit, Department of the Senate, Parliament House, Canberra. Members Chair Senator the Hon Kim Carr ALP, VIC Deputy Chair Senator the Hon Sarah Henderson (from 3 February 2021) LP, VIC Members Senator Anthony Chisholm ALP, QLD Senator Nita Green ALP, QLD Senator Paul Scarr (from 3 February 2021) LP, QLD Senator Lidia Thorpe (from 6 October 2020) AG, VIC Discharged Members Senator Claire Chandler (to 3 February 2021) LP, TAS Senator Nick McKim (to 6 October 2020) AG, TAS Senator Amanda Stoker (to 3 February 2021) LP, QLD Secretariat Sophie Dunstone, Committee Secretary Emma Banyer, Principal Research Officer Antony Paul, Senior Research Officer Sofia Moffett, Research Officer Sara Lailey, Research Officer Brooke Gay, Administrative Officer Suite S1.61 Telephone: (02) 6277 3560 Parliament House Fax: (02) 6277 5794 CANBERRA ACT 2600 Email: [email protected] iii Contents Members ............................................................................................................................................. iii List of Recommendations ................................................................................................................. ix Chair's Foreword ............................................................................................................................. xiii Chapter 1—Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 Conduct of the inquiry ........................................................................................................................ 3 Structure of the report ......................................................................................................................... 3 Comments on Australia's democratic history .................................................................................. 5 Myths and realities of Australian democracy .................................................................................. 8 Chapter 2—Nationhood and democracy: International trends ................................................ 11 Indicators of democratic decline ...................................................................................................... 13 Declining trust ......................................................................................................................... 13 The rise of populism ............................................................................................................... 15 Authoritarianism ................................................................................................................... 20 Growing inequality ................................................................................................................. 21 Fraying social cohesion .......................................................................................................... 23 COVID-19 and democracy ................................................................................................................ 26 Australia's place in the world ........................................................................................................... 29 Committee view ................................................................................................................................. 30 Chapter 3—The Australian nation: Our history, our identities, our future ........................... 33 National stories and national identity ............................................................................................. 33 First Nations ............................................................................................................................ 36 The Australian nation ............................................................................................................. 41 A migrant nation ..................................................................................................................... 43 An independent nation: the Australia Acts ........................................................................ 45 An egalitarian nation .............................................................................................................. 46 A nation forged through military service ............................................................................ 48 A resilient, resourceful nation .............................................................................................. 50 Truth-telling and recognition ........................................................................................................... 51 Three great streams ................................................................................................................ 53 Constitutional recognition ..................................................................................................... 55 v Teaching Australia's history ............................................................................................................. 60 Teaching civics .................................................................................................................................. 64 Australian nationhood, the future .................................................................................................. 69 A new constitutional chapter? .............................................................................................. 71 Committee view ................................................................................................................................. 75 Chapter 4—The Australian people: Citizenship, culture and religion, social cohesion ..... 79 Citizenship .......................................................................................................................................... 79 What does it mean to be an Australian citizen? ................................................................ 80 Removal of Australian citizenship ....................................................................................... 85 Dual citizens in parliament ................................................................................................... 89 Treatment of non-citizens ...................................................................................................... 90 Committee view ................................................................................................................................. 92 Social cohesion .................................................................................................................................... 94 Australia's diversity ................................................................................................................ 94 Social cohesion: how are we doing? ..................................................................................... 98 Multiculturalism ................................................................................................................... 101 Racism, intolerance and mistrust ...................................................................................... 106 Identity politics ..................................................................................................................... 113 Strengthening social cohesion ....................................................................................................... 115 Research ................................................................................................................................ 116 Committee view ............................................................................................................................... 117 Chapter 5—Australia's democracy: Trust, satisfaction and belief ......................................... 121 How Australians feel about our democracy ................................................................................ 122 Contested views ................................................................................................................... 122 Trust in politicians and 'the government' .......................................................................... 123 Belief in democracy ............................................................................................................. 133 Why do we feel this way? .............................................................................................................. 134 Dissatisfaction with politics................................................................................................. 135 The media, social media and media literacy ..................................................................... 137 Committee view ............................................................................................................................... 141 Leadership ............................................................................................................................. 142 Declining civic
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