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by John G. White (Author)
Australia's national anthem assumes a fairness in the nation, a sense of equality, an invitation to share the richness and beauty of the land.
By its very title, Making Australia Fair suggests that fairness is not yet a reality and challenges many of the social foundations that frustrate fairness and encourage inequality. The author gladly acknowledges the advantages of being Australian but argues that the country is not as fair as it needs to be and could be if only we would make a couple of challenging but essential, radical, ethical changes.
He calls for changes to those central factors that determine our policies of capital-controlled economics, politics, systems of government, public finance, land ownership and social organisation.
He challenges our current social identities, largely inherited from British institutions and based on privilege, wealth and power. And he contrasts this with traditional Aboriginal models, with their focus not on the individual but the community.
He invites us - in the spirit of the Christian Gospel - to look beyond our narrow self-interest, to consider our connections to one another, our sense of belonging to the land and the planet; and offers alternative ways of being together, of learning from our Aboriginal guides and establishing a different kind of society that will truly make Australia fair.
