About Australia
July 20, 2009 1 Comment
Australia’s History 
Aboriginal people dream on a timeless continent
Australia’s Aboriginal people were thought to have arrived here by boat from South East Asia during the last Ice Age, at least 50,000 years ago. At the time of European discovery and settlement, up to one million Aboriginal people lived across the continent as hunters and gatherers. They were scattered in 300 clans and spoke 250 languages and 700 dialects. Each clan had a spiritual connection with a specific piece of land. However, they also travelled widely to trade, find water and seasonal produce and for ritual and totemic gatherings.
Despite the diversity of their homelands – from outback deserts and tropical rainforests to snow-capped mountains – all Aboriginal people share a belief in the timeless, magical realm of the Dreamtime. According to Aboriginal myth, totemic spirit ancestors forged all aspects of life during the Dreamtime of the world’s creation. These spirit ancestors continue to connect natural phenomena, as well as past, present and future through every aspect of Aboriginal culture.
Britain arrives and brings its convicts
A number of European explorers sailed the coast of Australia, then known as New Holland, in the 17th century. However it wasn’t until 1770 that Captain James Cook chartered the east coast and claimed it for Britain. The new outpost was put to use as a penal colony and on 26 January 1788, the First Fleet of 11 ships carrying 1,500 people – half of them convicts – arrived in Sydney Harbour. Until penal transportation ended in 1868, 160,000 men and women came to Australia as convicts.
While free settlers began to flow in from the early 1790s, life for prisoners was harsh. Women were outnumbered five to one and lived under constant threat of sexual exploitation. Male re-offenders were brutally flogged and could be hung for crimes as petty as stealing. The Aboriginal people displaced by the new settlement suffered even more. The dispossession of land and illness and death from introduced diseases disrupted traditional lifestyles and practices.
Squatters push across the continent 
By the 1820s, many soldiers, officers and emancipated convicts had turned land they received from the government into flourishing farms. News of Australia’s cheap land and bountiful work was bringing more and more boatloads of adventurous migrants from Britain. Settlers or ‘squatters’ began to move deeper into Aboriginal territories – often with a gun – in search of pasture and water for their stock.
In 1825, a party of soldiers and convicts settled in the territory of the Yuggera people, close to modern-day Brisbane. Perth was settled by English gentlemen in 1829, and 1835 a squatter sailed to Port Phillip Bay and chose the location for Melbourne. At the same time a private British company, proud to have no convict links, settled Adelaide in South Australia.
Gold fever brings wealth, migrants and rebellion
Gold was discovered in New South Wales and central Victoria in 1851, luring thousands of young men and some adventurous young women from the colonies. They were joined by boat loads of prospectors from China and a chaotic carnival of entertainers, publicans, illicit liquor-sellers, prostitutes and quacks from across the world. In Victoria, the British governor’s attempts to impose order – a monthly licence and heavy-handed troopers – led to the bloody anti-authoritarian struggle of the Eureka stockade in 1854. Despite the violence on the goldfields, the wealth from gold and wool brought immense investment to Melbourne and Sydney and by the 1880s they were stylish modern cities.
Australia becomes a nation
Australia’s six states became a nation under a single constitution on 1 January 1901. One of the new national parliament’s first acts was to pass legislation, later known as the White Australia Policy, restricting migration to people of primarily European origin. This was dismantled progressively after the Second World War and today Australia is home to people from more than 200 countries.
Australians go to war
The First World War had a devastating effect on Australia. There were less than 3 million men in 1914, yet almost 400,000 of them volunteered to fight in the war. An estimated 60,000 died and tens of thousands were wounded. In reaction to the grief, the 1920s was a whirlwind of new cars and cinemas, American jazz and movies and fervour for the British Empire. When the Great Depression hit in 1929, social and economic divisions widened and many Australian financial institutions failed. Sport was the national distraction and sporting heroes such as the racehorse Phar Lap and cricketer Donald Bradman gained near-mythical status.
During the Second World War, Australian forces made a significant contribution to the Allied victory in Europe, Asia and the Pacific. The generation that fought in the war and survived came out of it with a sense of pride in Australia’s capabilities.
New Australians arrive to a post-war boom
After the war ended in 1945, hundreds of thousands of migrants from across Europe and the Middle East arrived in Australia, many finding jobs in the booming manufacturing sector. Many of the women who took factory jobs while the men were at war continued to work during peacetime.
Australia’s economy grew throughout the 1950s with major nation-building projects such as the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme in the mountains near Canberra. International demand grew for Australia’s major exports of metals, wools, meat and wheat and suburban Australia also prospered. The rate of home ownership rose dramatically from barely 40 per cent in 1947 to more than 70 per cent by the 1960s.
Australia loosens up
Like many other countries, Australia was swept up in the revolutionary atmosphere of the 1960s. Australia’s new ethnic diversity, increasing independence from Britain and popular resistance to the Vietnam War all contributed to an atmosphere of political, economic and social change. In 1967, Australians voted overwhelmingly ‘yes’ in a national referendum to let the federal government make laws on behalf of Aboriginal Australians and include them in future censuses. The result was the culmination of a strong reform campaign by both Aboriginal and white Australians.
In 1972, the Australian Labor Party under the idealistic leadership of lawyer Gough Whitlam was elected to power, ending the post-war domination of the Liberal and Country Party coalition. Over the next three years, his new government ended conscription, abolished university fees and introduced free universal health care. It abandoned the White Australia policy, embraced multiculturalism and introduced no-fault divorce and equal pay for women. However by 1975, inflation and scandal led to the Governor-General dismissing the government. In the subsequent general election, the Labor Party suffered a major defeat and the Liberal–National Coalition ruled until 1983.
Since the 1970s
Between 1983 and 1996, the Hawke–Keating Labor governments introduced a number of economic reforms, such as deregulating the banking system and floating the Australian dollar. In 1996 a Coalition Government led by John Howard won the general election and was re-elected in 1998, 2001 and 2004. The Liberal–National Coalition Government enacted several reforms, including changes in the taxation and industrial relations systems. In 2007 the Labor Party led by Kevin Rudd was elected with an agenda to reform Australia’s industrial relations system, climate change policies, and health and education sectors.
Australia’s Culture
Australian culture is founded on stories of battlers, bushrangers and brave soldiers. Of sporting heroes, working heroes and plucky migrants. It’s all about a fair go, the great outdoors and a healthy helping of irony. Today Australia also defines itself by its Aboriginal heritage, vibrant mix of cultures, innovative ideas and a thriving arts scene.
Aboriginal culture: a rich and timeless tradition
The Dreamtime is the sacred ‘time before time’ of the world’s creation. According to Aboriginal belief, totemic spirit ancestors emerged from the earth and descended from the sky to awaken a dark and silent world. They created the sun, moon and stars, forged mountains, rivers, trees and waterholes and changed into human and animal forms. Spirit ancestors connect this ancient past with the present and future through every aspect of Aboriginal culture. Rock art, craft and bark painting reveal Dreamtime stories, mark territory and record history, while songs tell of Dreamtime journeys, verbally mapping water sources and other essential landmarks. Their special lyrics have been passed down virtually unchanged for at least 50,000 years, and are often accompanied by clapsticks or the deep throb of the didgeridoo. Similarly, traditional dances reveal creation myths, enact the deeds of Dreamtime heroes and even recent historical events.
Colonial myths: battlers, bushrangers and brave soldiers
Australians believe in mateship and a ‘fair go’ and have a strong affection for the underdog or ‘battler’. These values stem from convicts and early colonialists who struggled against a harsh and unfamiliar land and often unjust authority. Australia’s most famous bushranger Ned Kelly protested against the poverty and injustice of a British class system shipped here along with the convicts. This flawed hero’s fight for ‘justice and liberty’ and ‘innocent people’ has been embraced as part of the national culture and inspired countless books and movies. On the goldfields of the mid-1850s, diggers were portrayed in stories and songs as romantic heroes, larrikins and villains who embraced democracy. The bloody 1854 Eureka Stockade, where Victorian miners rose up against an authoritarian licensing system, came to symbolise a triumph of social equality. Later, during World War I, the courageous ANZAC soldiers who served in Gallipoli gave new meaning to the term ‘tough Aussie’.
Australian English: speaking ‘Strine’
Australians have a unique colloquial language, coined ‘strine’ by linguist Alastair Morrison (imagine saying Australian with your teeth gritted to keep out the flies) in 1966. This combines many long lost cockney and Irish sayings of the early convicts with words from Aboriginal languages. We often abbreviate words and then add an ‘o’ or ‘ie’ on the end as in ‘bring your cossie to the barbie this arvo’. We also like reverse nicknames, calling people with red hair ‘bluey’, saying ‘snowy’ to someone with dark hair, and tagging ‘lofty’ to someone who is small in stature. We tend to flatten our vowels and end sentences with a slightly upward inflection.
Sporting heroes: the glory of green and gold
It’s no secret that Australians are sports mad. With more than 120 national and thousands of local, regional and state sporting organisations, it’s estimated that six-and-a-half million people in Australia are registered sport participants. Not bad from a population of just over 21 million! The number one watched sport in Australia is Australian Rules Football (AFL) with its high kicks and balletic leaps, while the brute force and tackling tactics of National Rugby League (NRL) reign supreme in New South Wales and Queensland. Australia’s national Rugby Union team, the Wallabies play on the international circuit and in the Bledisloe Cup, part of a Tri Nations tournament with South Africa. Australia is a nation of swimmers and Olympic medals attest to our performance in the pool. All summer we watch the Australian cricket team in their whites and in January, we flick channels to see the tennis Australian Open. Held in Melbourne, this attracts more people to Australia than any other sporting event. Football is a growth sport, we draw world-class surfers for the Bells Beach Surf Classic and on Boxing Day crowds gather to watch the boats sail out of Sydney Harbour for the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. On the first Tuesday in November, the nation stops for the famous horse race, the Melbourne Cup while and in March rev heads converge in Melbourne for the Formula One Grand Prix. The list of sports we love goes on, and if in doubt about the rules just ask a passionate punter.
An outdoor lifestyle: beach and barbeques
With more than 80 per cent of Australians living within 50 kilometres of the coast, the beach has become an integral part of our famous laid-back lifestyle. From Saturday morning surf-club training for young ‘nippers’ to a game of beach cricket after a barbeque, we love life on our sandy shores. We jostle for a spot on packed city beaches, relax at popular holiday spots and drive to secret, secluded beaches in coastal national parks. We go to the beach to enjoy the sun and surf or to sail, parasail, fish, snorkel, scuba dive and beach comb. It’s where we socialise and play sport, relax and enjoy romance. It’s also the site for celebration. On New Year’s Eve, revellers dance in the sand and watch fireworks at Manly and Bondi beaches in Sydney and Glenelg in Adelaide. Many beaches host citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day and on Christmas Day up to 40,000 international visitors converge on Bondi Beach wearing Santa hats and swimming costumes. Australia’s most famous beaches – Bondi and Manly in Sydney, St Kilda in Melbourne, Surfers Paradise on the Queensland Gold Coast, Cottesloe in Perth and Glenelg in Adelaide – attract locals as well as international tourists.
Multiculturalism: diverse food, festivals and faith
Since 1945 more than six million people from across the world have come to Australia to live. Today, more than 20 per cent of Australians are foreign born and more than 40 per cent are of mixed cultural origin. In our homes we speak 226 languages – after English, the most popular are Italian, Greek, Cantonese and Arabic. Our rich cultural diversity is reflected in our food, which embraces most of the world’s cuisines and artfully fuses quite a few of them. You’ll find European flavours, the tantalising spices of Asia, Africa and the Middle East and bush tucker from our backyard on offer everywhere from street stalls to five star restaurants. Tuck into Thai takeaway, dine out on perfect Italian pasta, do tapas in our city’s Spanish strips and feast on dumplings in Chinatown. You can also embrace our melting pot of cultures in the many colourful festivals. See samba and capoeira at Bondi’s Brazilian South American festival, dance behind the dragon parade during Chinese New Year or stroll through streets transformed into a lively piazza during the annual Italian celebrations. As a nation, we embrace a rainbow of religious belief and you’ll find Catholic and Anglican churches, Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist temples, mosques and synagogues lining our streets.
Australian innovations: from the Hills Hoist to Penicillin
Australia’s unique geography and relative isolation has made it a fertile ground for new ideas. In 1879, Australians developed a way for ice to be manufactured artificially, allowing us to export meat to Great Britain on refrigerated ships. In 1906, the surf lifesaving reel was designed so lifesavers could reach distressed swimmers with a rope attached to their vests. In 1929, Alfred Traeger built a pedal-powered radio as the communications for the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
Australians were also responsible for more everyday inventions such as notepads (1902), aspirin (1915), the pacemaker (1926), penicillin (1940) the Hills Hoist clothesline (1946), the plastic disposable syringe (1949), the wine cask (1965), the bionic ear (1978), dual-flush toilet flush (1980)anti-counterfeiting technology for banknotes (1992) and long-wearing contact lenses (1999).
Long before European colonisation, the Aboriginal people were already leading the world. They invented the aerodynamic boomerang and a type of spear thrower called the woomera. They were also the first society to use ground edges on stone cutting tools and the first to use stone tools to grind seeds, everyday tools which were developed only much later by other societies.
Culture cravings: theatre, film, books and visual art
From theatre to literature, Australians have a quiet love affair with the arts. We flock to the movies and our attendance at galleries and performing arts is almost double that for all football codes. Our cities play host to a huge array of cutting-edge cultural festivals, and offer music, theatre and dance performances and art exhibitions every day of the week. See traditional Aboriginal dance performance by the Bangarra Dance Theatre, throw yourself into the WOMADelaide international music festival in Adelaide and soak up theatre, ballet, opera and painting in Brisbane’s huge cultural centre on South Bank. In smaller towns you can catch performances by local musicians and see hand-made art and craft.
Australia’s facts
Our Landscape
A wide, brown land
Australia is the sixth largest country in the world. It’s about the same size as the 48 mainland states of the USA and 50 per cent larger than Europe, but has the lowest population density in the world – only two people per square kilometre.
Beach paradise
Australia’s coastline stretches almost 50,000 kilometres and is linked by over 10,000 beaches, more than any other country in the world. More than 85 per cent of Australians live within 50 kilometres of the coast, making it an integral part of our laid-back lifestyle.
Our island home
Australia is the only nation to govern an entire continent and its outlying islands. The mainland is the largest island and the world’s smallest, flattest continent.
Our exports
Opals in our eyes
Australia produces 95 per cent of the world’s precious opals and 99 per cent of its black opals. The world’s opal capital is the quirky underground town of Coober Pedy in South Australia. The world’s largest opal, weighing 5.27 kilograms, was found here in 1990.
Gold galore
Kalgoorlie in Western Australia is Australia’s largest producer of gold. It also embraces the world’s largest political electorate, covering a mammoth 2.2 million square kilometres.
Merinos and cattle calls
Australia’s 85.7 million sheep (mostly merinos) produce most of the world’s wool. With 25.4 million head of cattle, Australia is also the world’s largest exporter of beef.
Our Record-Breakers
Natural legends
Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef is home to the world’s largest oyster, weighing up to 3 kilograms, while the world’s longest earthworm, stretching up to 4 metres, is found in Gippsland in Victoria. The heaviest crab, weighing up to 14 kilograms, is found in Bass Strait near Tasmania. Australia’s tallest mountain is Mt Kosciuszko, which is 2,228 metres above sea level.
Longest road, rail and fence
The world’s longest piece of straight railway track stretches 478 kilometres across South Australia’s vast, treeless Nullarbor Plain. Australia’s longest stretch of straight road – 148 kilometres – is on the Eyre Highway in Western Australia. It’s just a tiny portion of the 2,700 kilometre sealed road that takes travelers from Perth to Adelaide. The world’s longest continuous fence – the dingo fence – was built to keep sheep safe from Australia’s native dog and runs for 5,531 kilometres through central Queensland and South Australia.
Our Flora and Fauna
A hopping icon
The iconic kangaroo is unique to Australia and one of our most easily recognised mammals. There are an estimated 40 million kangaroos in Australia, more than when Australia was first settled.
Unique wildlife
Australia developed a unique fauna when it broke away from the super-continent Gondwana more than 50 million years ago. Today Australia is home to a wealth of wildlife not found anywhere else in the world. We have around 800 species of birds, half of which are unique to this country. Our marine environments contain more than 4,000 fish varieties and tens of thousands of species of invertebrates, plants and micro-organisms. About 80 per cent of Australia’s southern marine species are found nowhere else in the world.
Flourishing flora
Australia also supports at least 25,000 species of plants, compared to 17,500 in Europe. That includes living fossils like the Wollemi pine and the grass tree, and brilliant wildflowers. There are over 12,000 species in Western Australia alone!
Our People and Culture
An ethnic melting pot
Since 1945 more than six million people from across the world have come to Australia to live. Today, more than 20 per cent of Australians are foreign born and more than 40 per cent are of mixed cultural origin. In our homes we speak 226 languages – after English, the most popular are Italian, Greek, Cantonese and Arabic.
Big country, big ideas
Australians invented notepads (1902), the surf lifesaving reel (1906), aspirin (1915), the pacemaker (1926), penicillin (1940) the Hills Hoist clothesline (1946), the plastic disposable syringe (1949), the wine cask (1965), the bionic ear (1978), dual-flush toilet flush (1980) anti-counterfeiting technology for banknotes (1992) and long-wearing contact lenses (1999).
Aboriginal advances
Believed to be the world’s oldest civilization, Aboriginal people have lived and thrived on this continent for more than 50,000 years. Aboriginal societies made many unique advances long before the Europeans arrived. They invented the aerodynamic boomerang and a type of spear thrower called the woomera. They were also the first society to ground edges on stone cutting tools and the first to use stone tools to grind seeds, everyday tools developed only much later by other societies.
Films, books and music
Film
Australia’s extensive film credits include a comic pig called Babe, the post-apocalyptic Mad Max movies, and the gender-bending road movie, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Our movies have pushed actors like Nicole Kidman, Judy Davis, Heath Ledger, Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and the swashbuckling Errol Flynn onto the world stage. Australia the country also often gets a starring role, with landscapes that range from foreboding to romantic and sublime.
Some of our starring locations:
The wetlands, waterfalls and rainforest of World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park featured in the hit movie Crocodile Dundee and the 2007 horror film Rogue.
Ten Canoes and Yolngu Boy were filmed in Aboriginal-owned Arnhem Land, 91,000 square kilometres of unspoiled wilderness to the east of Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory.
Director Phillip Noyce shot his thriller Dead Calm in Hamilton Island and the Great Barrier Reef, with stars Nicole Kidman, Billy Zane and Sam Neill. The animated cast of Finding Nemo also began their colourful cinematic journey amongst these World Heritage-listed corals.
Director Terrence Malick’s fictional World War II story The Thin Red Line was shot largely in the Daintree Rainforest in Queensland’s far north. Scooby-Doo, Lost World, Ghost Ship and Peter Pan were all filmed at Warner Bros. Movie World on the Gold Coast in Queensland.
Mission Impossible 2 and George Miller’s three Mad Max films capitalised on the surreal, dusty landscapes around Broken Hill and Silverton in outback New South Wales. For Babe, Miller chose the lush green pasturelands of Robertson and Exeter in the state’s Southern Highlands.
Sydney was the location for some of the heart-stopping stunts in Mission Impossible 2. It was also a location in The Matrix, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Muriel’s Wedding, Two Hands, Babe: Pig in the City, Lantana, Dirty Deeds and Superman Returns.
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert follows the journey of three drag queens from glitzy Sydney to South Australia’s opal mining town of Coober Pedy and Kings Canyon in the Northern Territory.
Melbourne in Victoria was the location for The Story of the Kelly Gang, On the Beach, Chopper, Kenny, Ghost Rider and Romper Stomper.
The Man from Snowy River and Ned Kelly were filmed in Victoria’s High Country, where horse and walking trails intersect with snow gums, mountain views and bushranger history.
South Australia’s rugged Flinders Ranges was the setting for The Tracker and the award-winning Rabbit Proof Fence.
Japanese Story, starring Toni Collette as a geologist, was filmed around Perth and the Pilbara region.
Books
Australia’s strong literary tradition began with the stories and songs of Aboriginal Australians and continued with the yarns of the first convicts. Contemporary Australian novelists whose work has a particularly Australian flavour include Patrick White, Peter Carey, Bryce Courtenay, Helen Garner, Kate Grenville, Elizabeth Jolley, Thomas Keneally, Christopher Koch, David Malouf, Colleen McCullough, Christina Stead, Morris West and Tim Winton.
Some of our famous authors:
Patrick White was inspired by Australians’ relationship with the land and examined, often satirically, the conflict between inner consciousness and social existence. He wrote a dozen novels from Happy Valley (1939) to the Miles Franklin Literary Award winner Voss (1957) to Memoirs of Many in One (1986). He won the Nobel Prize for Literature award in 1973.
Thomas Keneally’s 1972 novel The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. In 1982, Keneally won the Man Booker Prize with Schindler’s Ark, a story which Stephen Spielberg made into the film Schindler’s List in 1993.
Christopher Koch’s 1978 book The Year of Living Dangerously was also made into a film, directed by Peter Weir.
Elizabeth Jolley won the 1986 Miles Franklin Award for her novel The Well.
Peter Carey won the Man Booker in 1988 for Oscar and Lucinda and in 2001 for True History of the Kelly Gang.
David Malouf was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize for his 1993 novel Remembering Babylon. His other award-winning novels include Johnno, Fly Away Peter and An Imaginary Life.
Tim Winton won the Miles Franklin Award for Shallows in 1986, Cloudstreet in 1991 and Dirt Music in 2002. Both Dirt Music and his 1995 novel The Riders were short-listed for the Man Booker Prize.
DBC Pierre won the Man Booker Prize for Vernon God Little in 2003.
Former journalist Geraldine Brooks received international acclaim with Nine Parts of Desire in 1994 and Year of Wonders in 2001. Her novel March won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Helen Garner is an award-winning Australian novelist, short story writer, screenwriter and journalist who came to prominence at a time when Australian women writers were relatively few in number. Her books include her debut novel Monkey Grip (1977) and more recent non-fiction works such as The First Stone (1995) Joe Cinque’s Consolation (2004).
Kate Grenville’s 2006 historical novel The Secret River was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize and won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.
Colleen McCullough’s books include her first novel Tim in 1974, the 1977 bestseller The Thorn Birds and the seven-part Masters of Rome series.
Australia’s top selling novelist, Bryce Courtenay wrote his first novel The Power of One at the age of 55. This and Courtenay’s other books – including The Potato Factory, Tommo & Hawk, Jessica, Smoky Joe’s Café and Matthew Flinders’ Cat – have sold around five million copies in Australia alone.
Best-selling author Kathy Lette co-wrote the Australian teenage classic Puberty Blues (1979) and has since made a name for risqué, rollicking novels such as Mad Cows, Girls Night Out and Dead Sexy.
Music
Aboriginal Australians were the continent’s first musicians, passing down their culture through songs accompanied by wind instruments like the didgeridoo. The first non-Indigenous music was rooted strongly in folk, with early bush ballads lamenting the hardship and isolation of a new land. Successive waves of settlers – starting with British, Irish and Scottish convicts – continued to shape this tradition. Country music grew out of this tradition and by the 1930s was a huge part of Australia country life. Jazz emerged during the 1920s and grew strongly in popularity, particularly after the Second World War. Australia is well known for its original rock and popular music, with foundations laid by artists such as Johnny O’Keefe, the Easybeats, AC/DC, INXS, Men at Work, Crowded House, Midnight Oil, John Farnham and Olivia Newton-John. Opera in Australia started in the early 19th century and today Opera Australia is one of the world’s busiest opera companies and has the spectacular Sydney Opera House as its home. Each of Australia’s eight states and territories has a symphony orchestra and the smaller Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and Australian Chamber Orchestra also have world-class status. Australia’s many migrants from around 200 countries continue to enrich Australian music.
Some of our talented musicians:
Frank Coughlan played with the first jazz group to come to Australia in 1924 and Graeme Bell, regarded as the ‘father of Australian jazz’, toured Europe in the late 1940s to great acclaim. Don Burrows, innovative alto saxophonist Bernie McGann and James Morrison are other influential names continuing to make a mark on the scene today.
From the 1930s into the 1950s country music artists like New Zealand-born Tex Morton, Buddy Williams, Smoky Dawson and Slim Dusty had a huge following. Newer Australian country stars include Lee Kernaghan, Gina Jeffreys, James Blundell, Kasey Chambers, Beccy Cole, Troy Cassar-Daley and Keith Urban, who is now a big name in Nashville.
Kazakhstan-born virtuoso guitarist Slava Grigoryan explores the Argentinean tango and Brazilian bossa nova. Violinists Richard Tognetti and Barbara Jane Gilby, pianists Roger Woodward, Geoffrey Tozer, Simon Tedeschi and Duncan Gifford, and conductor and violinist Nicholas Milton have been acclaimed on Australian and world stages.
Conductor Simone Young has established a world-wide reputation as a leading conductor of her generation.
Australia has produced several internationally-renown opera stars, including Dame Nellie Melba, whose 38-year career started in 1887, and Dame Joan Sutherland, one of the world’s greatest operatic sopranos.
The ancient songlines of traditional Indigenous music continues through contemporary artists as diverse as Jimmy Little, Yothu Yindi, Christine Anu, Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter.
Australian rock music first became popular in the 1950s, with artists such as Johnny O’Keefe topping international charts. In the 1960s, groups such as Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, The Easybeats, and The Bee Gees attracted a big following.
Pub rock – defined by simple musical arrangements and the raw energy of live performances – was huge in the 1980s, typified by Mental As Anything, Midnight Oil, The Angels, Cold Chisel and Icehouse. INXS and Men at Work also achieved worldwide fame, with the song Down Under becoming an unofficial Australian anthem.
In the 1990s many indie rock bands began to hit the charts, including Regurgitator, You Am I, Powderfinger, Silverchair and Something for Kate.
Australian hip hop had emerged in the 1980s, with a distinctive local style evident by the 1990s. Groups such as the Hilltop Hoods won international acclaim for their work.
Australia’s most successful pop export Kylie Minogue has released nine albums and sold in excess of 60 million records.
The national government-funded youth radio station, Triple J, actively promotes new Australian talent.
