How Important Is the Concept of Trust in Australian National Identity? and How Does the Actual Australian Experience of Trust and Distrust, and Attitudes to Each Other and to Government, Fit Into the Theoretical and Historical Discussions of These Concept

The concept of trust is a very important aspect of the Australian national identity. The prime reason that trust is central to the Australian national identity is that it has sparked a debate over traditional Australian ways to define themselves, questioning what would have been concrete aspects of being Australian, such as egalitarianism, the policy of �a fair go’ and the ever elusive, yet pervasive idea of �mateship’.

Firstly, we must define specifically what is meant by the word �trust’. One of the most influential theories on trust is the theory of “social capital”. Broadly, social capital refers to relationships between people or groups of people that have beneficial outcomes for one or more of the participants. The definitions and applications of social capital theory are varied because, as the term refers to all human interaction, it is highly context sensitive. Some of the major influential proponents of social capital theory are Francis Fukuyama , Robert Putnam and James Coleman . In spite of the morass of literature dealing with the subject the most concise definitions of social capital theory comes from the World Bank “Social capital is not just the sum of the institutions underpinning a society—it is the glue that holds them together.”

Secondly, we must discuss and identify what national identity is, and specifically how that relates to Australia. For our purposes, we will use the broadest and most accessible definition of national identity as Proposed by Ian McAllister “the feeling of being associated with a national group, defined by common heritage which may be based on many attributes, the most common being race, territory, language and history.” Of course, all Australians could identify themselves in a multitude of different ways (Asian-Australian, Indigenous, homosexual, Islamic, etc.), and not all of these methods relate in any way to a sense of national belonging, be it Australian or otherwise. However, this is not the place for a discussion about the relative merits or relevance of a national identity in an age of globalization that seems to spell the death knell to nation-states.

For most of Australia’s relatively short history our national identity has been predominantly of an Anglo-Celtic nature, despite this group being one of the more recent arrivals to these shores, with the indigenous peoples having predated Captain James Cook, or rogue Portuguese explorers, by a conservatively estimated 45,000 – 50,000 years. In any case, the contemporary conception of national identity, in its traditional and broad terms is overwhelmingly white.

For evidence of this, one need only look as far as the latest Victoria Bitter commercial. Two words stick out: “Warnie” and “stubby”. Regardless of what this may say about the (questionable) association of quintessentially Australian values (sporting prowess) and adult beverages, what is of interest is that the advertising campaign relies on the existing national identity in order to associate slang Australian words for commercial gains. Foster’s uses this association, marketing their eponymous beer internationally as �the’ Australian beer, despite its conspicuous absence from the Australian esky.

So if that is trust as social capital, and that is contemporary Australian cultural identity (kind of), then how do these factors relate to post-1770 Australian history?

The first major cultural identification of Australia was as a British colony, specifically as a penal colony for the resettlement of convicts. The national memory of its convict birth has been explored by M. B. Schedvin and C. B. Schedvin in their paper “The Nomadic Tribes of Urban Britain: a Prelude to Botany Bay” . According to Schedvin & Schedvin the stereotypical notion of the Australian convict, as poor English citizens or Irish citizens required to commit petty larceny in order to survive in the modernizing, urbanizing and economically dichotomous English society who was then sentenced to transportation by an unforgiving legal system, is for the most part fairly accurate, as far as national myths go.

Much has been made of this dubious beginning, with Schedvin & Schedvin asserting that the first generation of white Australians were largely a drinking, gambling, libidinous, �dole-bludging’, accusatory group who used “cruelty and savage humour, abuse, swearing and vilification” to diffuse aggression, fuelled by appalling conditions in a harsh, unforgiving and foreign land with preordained authority figures. Egalitarianism was adopted as a method of excusing difference from the norm. Given this, one might be excused for showing disbelief that Australian society still exists.

Schedvin & Schedvin