Straya Cash:Is this the solution to our $5 note dilemma?Aaron Tyler
As an instinctive republican,that is how I always saw things playing out. But in the wake of the pandemic,I wonder whether we have a sense of our communal identity which is strong enough to make the case for an Australian head of state. Do we trust each other enough to choose an Australian head of state?
Until the pandemic hit,despite the occasional scrap over what exactly our values were,Australians had a reasonably clear view of who we were as a people. Our sense of ourselves as easygoing,friendly,multicultural and open has weathered the vilest of culture wars unscathed. Our welcoming nature – “throw another shrimp on the barbie” – was reinforced by overseas perceptions.
In 2016,it seems our greatest identity crisis was an ugly new five dollar bill. Back then,artist Aaron Tyler made “Straya Cash” featuring designs that he hoped would start a conversation about who we are. Looking at the designs now,including Kath and Kim,Shane Warne,meat pies and thongs,fills me with nostalgia for the Australia I thought I grew up in.
COVID has since revealed a side of us that is quite different.
The spicy cough divided us into Karens and granny-killers,or “cookers” as the Karens now like to call anyone from lockdown-and-vaccine-mandate-opponents through to 5G-chip-implant,gene-manipulation conspiracy theorists. According to the Killers,the Karens are quaking cowards – hypochondriacs but also hypocrites – for whom mask-wearing has become more about signalling moral superiority than keeping “us”,or even themselves,safe.
Anti-vaccine mandate protests outside Parliament House in Canberra in February.James Brickwood
According to the Karens,the Killers are cooked – that is,they’re people whose brains don’t work quite right – or who are so venal or selfish that they’re willing to see people die rather than make personal sacrifices for the common good.
And that was just the qualitative experience. Quantitatively,through polling,we discovered that our national identity was an international fraud.
Far from being easygoing,we locked down hard,embracing severe and sometimes unscientific restrictions on our civil liberties. Far from being friendly,we dobbed in our neighbours’ transgressions and made excuses for Premiers who violated human dignity by denying urgent cross-border medical care or locking families with children up in tiny apartments. Far from being open,we denied entry to Australian citizens stranded abroad.
In 2020, that our international border should remain closed, that they “should have come home earlier”.
Mandating face-masks became a point of difference in Australia during the pandemic.Scott McNaughton
In May 2021,73 per cent of Australians still supported border closures and,though a vaccine had become available,believed travel bans should stay in place until mid-2022.
During that time,India suffered a devastating wave of COVID,but Australians in India were actively prevented from coming home,something the polls suggest most Australians tacitly supported. Turns out we are self-righteous,safety-loving,insular and into law and order. The Karens never trusted the Killers and now the Killers have learnt to fear the Karens.
The world noticed and has recast our national persona.Time Magazine “Who is Australian?“;New York Times readers the question,had “COVID cost Australia its love of freedom”?
It seems Clive James was on the money when he told the world that “The problem with Australians is not that so many of them are descended from convicts,but that so many of them are descended from prison officers”.
No longer on the money,at least when the current fivers wear out,is QEII. Nor,if the republican movement gets its way,will the jug-eared mug of our replacement monarch be. The Australian Republican Movement has declared that it will kick off its post-Betty operation by campaigning to put an Australian on the polymer prawn.
The discussion over whose face should be on the smallest note will inevitably lead us back to that question of identity and that issue of trust. Tyler,the Straya Cash creator,is backing Steve Irwin,because “Steve Irwin is Australia”. “It’s not even about his achievements,” Tyler says,“It’s about who he was. His passion,his energy,and his kindness to others. Even without meeting him,most people on the planet had the distinct feeling that they were already his mate.”
I love this,and I would like to be able to subscribe to this understanding of Australian identity again. It’s an idea of an Australia that’s mature enough to make a successful republic.
Personally,I’m tickled by another of Tyler’s designs,featuring Ned Kelly. A bank-robber on a bank note – in nostalgia-Australia,we’re all chuckling at the irony. But the clear overall winner for me is Dame Edna Everage,who embodies that wonderful Australian quality that once defined us of being able to laugh at ourselves with clear eyes to each other’s faults but also a deep generosity. Dame Edna,like Clive James,realised that Australians have a good side and a bad side and that self-deprecation helps us exorcise our demons.
Will a post-trust Australia still be able to relate to these heroes? It’s a question that’s core to whether an Australian republic would become a US-style nightmare. If not,we’re better off keeping a tricked-up foreigner as head of state. At least we can laugh at him if our own instincts have proven too dark for humour.
Parnell Palme McGuinness is managing director strategy and policy at strategic communications firm Agenda C. The company was engaged to work for a Liberal Party MP during the federal election. She has also worked for the German Greens.
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