Australia is a nation that is dominated by its' insecurities both from our inability to handle our history and because we are trivialised and ignored by the rest of the Western world who view us as nothing more than quaint, rough British colonials, or by Asia where we are viewed with utter suspicion, disdain and at times even contempt when we're not being accused of racism or exploited economically.
Your average Australian has become woefully apathetic and pig-headedly conservative whilst putting up idiotic soldiers and athletes up on pedestals and ignoring any and all other types of achievement. In fact, most Australians ignore or cringe at their own culture: and have no idea who people like Patrick White are.
Politically, we have become incompetent - as both major parties have ignored their respective traditions and both moved far too much to the right of their original positions, all to entertain the needs of special interest groups (including foreign powers), autistic deregulation-obsessed economists and egotists utterly pointless quest for so-called 'power'. Our public service has also become politicised and rather lazy. Public discourse on controversial issues like Aboriginals or asylum seekers has become a cesspool of misinformation and generalisation, and characterises the Australian inability to handle reasonable debate.
Our anthem is so unmemorable that hardly anyone actually knows the words (actually I kind of like this now that I think of it); our flag has another country's on it which undermines our independence and the manner in which the country is viewed; and we still continue with a useless monarchy that costs us when any of the family visits and whose very nature flies against the positive Australian values we are supposed to possess (egalitarianism mostly) and who don't even provide that much of a constitutional safeguard if Fiji is anything to go by.
