We seem to believe in self reliance only for the other fellow. We are anything but clear about what we mean by equality, equity and justice, even though we rightly believe that they are ideals that go to the heart of the mutual understandings that enable us to live peaceably and prosperously. Only when understood as all embracing principles can they unite. Without that understanding, they serve the culture of complaint of one Australian against another. Future external threats may be avoided in a better world dominated by strong and honourable alliances.
History is, however, a catalogue of disasters following wishful thinking.
Most Australians claim that they are prepared to pay for a defence force that makes us too prickly for most aggressors to attack but not, it seems, if that means taking funds from middle class welfare or the Olympic games. It beggars belief that the men who bore arms for their country in war should not wish to risk something to defend it in peace. It would be the saddest of betrayals if another generation were to plunder its economy and to neglect its civil institutions making Australia both less defendable and less worth defending.