Changing values, changing nation - Saint Ignatius' Moodle Community

Resource sheet 2
A view of Australia
in the 1960s and 1970s
Historical background
The 1960s and 1970s brought a period of significant
political and social change to Australia. On the domestic
front, Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies retired after
leading the nation for 16 years (1949–1966) and the
1970s witnessed the tumultuous rise and fall of the
first Labour government since the end of World War II.
Internationally, decolonisation and the decline of the British
Empire saw Australia forging a closer partnership with the
United States of America. Although the 1951 ANZUS Treaty
had formalised defence ties between the two countries,
the bonds grew stronger in the Cold War era with common
concern about the continuing spread of Communism,
especially in Asia. This eventually took Australia into the
quagmire of the Vietnam War and the bitter domestic
debate over conscription.
During the same period, Australians re-examined social
issues in the light of international developments such as
the civil rights movement and a new wave of feminism
in the USA. Changed perceptions and an altered sense of
national priorities focused attention on important issues
such as non-European immigration, the role of women and
the status of Australia’s Indigenous people. It was a time of
uncertainty but also of new directions and fresh challenges.
Some values and norms that had been accepted since
Federation now seemed peculiar anachronisms. Many
Australians were no longer convinced that motherhood and
domestic duties were the only proper roles for women;
that Indigenous people could be denied full citizenship
rights; and that non-Europeans were a threat to social
cohesion and national security. They argued that if Australia
valued a ‘fair go’, then the principle should apply to
everyone regardless of gender or race.
While the 1960s and 1970s saw re-assessment of some
values, many changes that occurred were gradual rather
than revolutionary. A steadfast belief in democracy
remained the norm. The ideological battles of the
Cold War, particularly Australia’s strong opposition
to Communism, brought the rights and privileges of
Australian citizenship into sharper focus and affirmed
important civic values such as fairness, inclusiveness and
the rule of law.
While these decades are sometimes characterised as
an ‘age of dissent’, they were also a period in which
the general understanding of freedom and fairness was
broadened and redefined. While Australians may have
questioned the direction of their nation, they did not
discard the fundamental civic values that lay at its heart.
by Terry Hastings for Curriculum Corporation, 2007
Values for Australian Schooling – Teaching and Learning Units ©Commonwealth of Australia
Later adolescence – Changing values, changing nation
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