AUSTRALIAN CULTURE

Australia is one of the most urbanised populations in the world with nearly half the population living in either Sydney or Melbourne. However the national identity is strongly linked with farming and the bush. This can be partly attributed to the traditional economic prevalence of primary industries, particularly mining and agriculture.

Australian standards of living are very high by world standards and the population is generally well educated and egalitarian. Even so, Australians pride themselves on being "battlers" who struggle against the odds. This attitude emerges from Australia's relatively recent history of convicts and economic migrants struggling in a new land. It is also influenced by a habitually boom and bust economy and an ingrained sense of inferiority caused by isolation from the rest of the world, specifically the UK, Europe and USA.

This "Aussie battler" sensibility lends many Australians a rough exterior, characterised by straight talking that can at times cause offence. While Australians can come across as confrontational and abrupt, self-promotion is not encouraged. Institutional authority is not automatically respected, an attitude perhaps reflecting the country's origins as a penal colony, as as a predominantly Irish Catholic community living under an English government.