I've always liked the way Australians tend to think of class distinction as a sort of Pommy hangover which someone else is guilty of. The very fact that one can even ask such questions reveals something about the nature of class in Australia. The motives of people taking this stance are often very complicated and subtle. It is impossible to understand Australia or the lives Australians live without reference to class. It helps explain everything from lifestyles to Aussie accents, from voting patterns to real estate prices, from TV soaps to social climbers to the policies of the Labor Party, from John Howard to Ita Buttrose to Paul Hogan, from the social make-up of Australian cities to the myths and images juggled by the advertising agencies to the most profound conflicts within Australian culture.
Class largely explains why some people are bosses and some people are workers.
It is impossible to live in Australia without coming to realise that the different social classes have different sorts of jobs, live in different suburbs, go to different schools, get different incomes, speak in different ways, experience crucial differences in privilege and inequality, indeed live different lives . I reckon I'm lower-middle class. I've made the move up, which a lot of Australians have. None of these questions, of course, is answerable except in terms of class. Blander terms appeal to the bland and those with bland-ishments to sell.