As the election hangover fades and a new government packs itself into Parliament House, we have a chance to remake the nation for a new century. In a special post-election series, Crikey asked leading Australian thinkers to sketch a blueprint for a future Australia. Their brief: to spell out how Australia might fully realise its potential.

On Tuesday, renowned social commentator Eva Cox wrote on social justice. Yesterday, author David Lindenmayer from the Fenner School of the Environment & Society at The Australian National University pointed out opportunities for the new Rudd government on the environment.

Today, sociologist John Carroll looks at Australia’s place in the world.

Australia: our place and role in the affairs of the globe

What might Australia aspire towards in terms of its future place in the world? An answer to this question depends on cataloguing the nation’s strengths, and then proceeding to ask whether they might have a broader relevancy, and in what ways.

What we do well

Geoffrey Blainey has nominated two major Australian achievements. The first is national development, including the agricultural productivity that has fed hundreds of millions of people beyond our shores for a century. The second is multicultural assimilation — the nation’s success at taking in millions of people of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds and integrating them harmoniously. He lists the two major negatives of European settlement as the treatment of the indigenous peoples, and the degradation of the land.

I would add a third achievement. Australia is very good at cities. Melbourne rightly keeps getting nominated first or second in the list of the world’s most livable cities. Others feature in the top ten. In world terms, in my view, Australia has developed three great cities — Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. They all provide, in the early years of twenty-first century, a very good life (virtually unmatched in human history), for almost all of their people — as do the nation’s other major cities.

In addition, these three have their own particular quality of urban design and culture, in the way they have evolved within their sites. Each has a logic that works, coming to maturity in the last twenty years. Visually, Perth looks like it belongs perfectly, developed around the broad stretch of the Swan River, complemented by its proximate stretch down a line of ocean beaches to Fremantle. Melbourne orchestrates a river city with cosmopolitan lane culture with close walkable access to generous public gardens, a concentrated arts and performance domain in one direction, sporting arenas in another, all surrounded by inner suburbs with distinctive characters and lifestyles. Sydney is the grand member of the three, with breathtaking vistas, complemented by virtuoso segments of design, led by the sweep from the Opera House and Botanical Gardens, up past the Apollo fountain to the Anzac Memorial.

I would also, in relation to the Blainey list, subsume successful immigration under the broader category of Australian democracy. There is no more stable and corruption-free polity in the world. The institutions are complemented by a broad civic culture of inclusiveness, a fair go, and respect for forms. Public opinion does not like exclusion; it does not like large discriminations by status or wealth; and it does not like any form of fanaticism or extremism — political, religious, or other. The people are, in comparative Western terms, open, friendly, and gregarious.

In sum, the Australian mode of democracy combines institutions with civic conscience. Contra current cynicism in some sections of the intelligentsia, it has generated a strong sense of national identity. It is this popular democracy that has made possible the nation’s extraordinary success of integrating immigrants — equaled only by the United States. It has also contributed to pleasant cities, in which a level of order and efficiency prevails, low levels of violence, and plentiful supplies of good-quality food.

Where are we now?

Consideration of Australia’s place in the world requires examination of two quite different factors. The first is elusive: that of influence by example — this is where the Australian achievements fit. The second is the concrete factor of the specific role played in international affairs — in particular, by the Federal government, but also by NGOs, and individual representatives on international sporting councils, academic committees, and so forth. Let me consider the two in turn.

As far as Australia as an exemplar liberal-democratic society is concerned, there is only one thing worth noting. It needs to work at keeping its own house in order. Advertising a nation’s qualities overseas is both presumptuous and futile. Visiting tourists can experience for themselves the singularity of its multicultural cities. What they learn, and what they take back to their home countries, is in their own hands. Already, European countries fracturing along bicultural lines, by failing to integrate Islamic minorities, are looking to Australia.

Switching to influence on the international stage, it will be very difficult to maintain the level of the Howard Government, never mind expand it. The cardinal rule of Australian diplomacy for all governments since 1942 has been close relations with Washington. Howard’s special friendship with President Bush far surpasses anything previously achieved. It far exceeds the global significance of Australia, in terms of American strategic interests. The same is true of Australia’s second most important relationship today, that with China. Canberra was the second overseas place visited by the current Chinese President.

The proximity of Australia to world power in recent years has had the secondary effect, of Howard gaining high respect in most South-East Asian capitals — including entry into their forums for the first time. Again, this will not be easy to maintain.

… And what that means for the future

We should assume the most specific challenge in the short to medium term will continue to be the war on terror. Again, this will involve continuing the Howard policies: close cooperation with Indonesia, through such bodies as the Australian Federal Police, as with Thailand and the Philippines. And, continue to play some wider role, as in Afghanistan.

Australian is blessed with sensible political elites. Governments will need to continue to ignore “appease Islam” tendencies in sections of the Left. All Western countries are targets for Islamo-fascism, irrespective of their international actions — Madrid was bombed in spite of its anti-American government. The United States has few problems with its own Muslim minorities, in spite of its world role.

We should always remember geo-political first principles. Australia is a Western country with neo-Anglo institutions and customs, with a growing role to play in the increasingly globally significant Asia-Pacific region to which it belongs. It will need to manage its own adaptations. An obvious one is the future development of Darwin into the country’s third big city — an Australian Singapore, housing a much larger Asian component, in population and culture, than in the south.

John Carroll is Professor of Sociology at La Trobe University.