Oral History, Memory and the Folklore of Contemporary (Australian) Poverty

Abstract

In this country in the spring of 2004, and on the eve of a Federal Election, it is very clear to many that the long-held 'Australian Dream' a nice (brick) house in the suburbs, on a quarter of an acre block, and with a manageable mortgage steadily and not too painfully reducing, with two children and with a wife who can easily join the work force when this is appropriate - is a possibility slowly slipping out of the grasp of husbands and wives in Middle Australia. In view of this new social reality, it may well be timely to reflect on the passing of an egalitarian Australian society, arguably as achieved for so many in the 1960s and 1970s, before the welfare state concept was deemed to have grown old and tired.