Five documentaries for the nation's bicentennial. 3: Changes
Written and presented by columnist Phillip Adams 'We learnt British history, had British heroes; our parents even had British garden gnomes. And we were xenophobic too.'
The Australia of 40 years ago had laws to keep itself lilywhite and, except for the noticeable yeast of Irish
Catholicism, it was a very British place indeed. 'But,' says Phillip Adams , 'there've been some changes since then. Migrants (the "ethnics" as we called them) made us rethink everything - from our diets to our dogmas.
Today, we are as mixed as any country on earth.'
Strange then that the only people to whom the new 'tolerance' still does not extend are the oldest Australians of all: the aborigines. Will it ever? Producer BEN LEWIN
Series producer TIM SLESSOR
* CEEFAX SUBTITLES