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Update: Australiana is now Fire at Will - your safe space for dangerous conversations.
Australia is changing before our eyes but we cannot see it. Or perhaps we don’t want to? Enter Australiana, the new podcast that will look at the big issues facing Australia through the telescope of the news of the day. Every week host Will Kingston will speak to a newsmaker or news-breaker to understand our politics, our culture and the wars that are being waged to change them.
Australiana is produced by The Spectator, the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. There’s no publication better placed to help you see the changing face of our nation.
Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.
Subscribe to The Spectator Australia here.
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Transcript
Introduction to Spectator Australia
00:00:00
Speaker
The Spectator Australia magazine combines incisive political analysis with books and arts reviews of unrivalled authority. Subscribe today at spectator.com.au forward slash subscription.
Exploring Change Blindness: What Goes Unnoticed?
00:00:28
Speaker
There's a peculiar psychological phenomena known as change blindness. It refers to a situation where a change in visual stimulus is produced and the observer doesn't notice it. That new god of ours, the science, has researched it extensively and thinks it has important implications for areas such as eyewitness testimony and safe driving.
Australia's Identity Crisis: Tradition vs Modernity
00:00:48
Speaker
We know individuals suffer from change blindness, but what about an entire country?
00:00:53
Speaker
What words come to mind if I ask you to describe Australia? I'm sure they're the same old adjectives. Relaxed, irreverent, egalitarian mates, larrikin, suspicious of authority and with no worries, blokes and sheilas, dingoes and babies, shrimps on the barbie, and so forth.
00:01:11
Speaker
Who do you think of when I say Australia? Errol Flynn breaking hearts, the Don breaking records, Russell breaking mobile phones, break him around, telling the Pons to get stuffed, Daryl Kerrigan telling us about the surrender, Hawke telling us about that yard glass, or perhaps Mornie, in a hotel room, fag in hand, wearing those Playboy undies. Now look closer.
00:01:35
Speaker
Relaxed? Tell that to any West Australian who was evil enough to sit on a park bench during COVID, or any Sydney cider who's tried to get into a pub after being in the vicinity of a mid-strength beer. Suspicious of authority, we love it. Victorians were locked up by Daniel Andrews for months on end, and they still rewarded their jailer with another term. Irreverent? Find a funny Aussie comedian who hasn't been cancelled. And for the record, no, Hannah Gadsby is not a funny Aussie comedian.
00:02:02
Speaker
Blokes, toxically masculine. Sheila's, sexist language. And those trims on the barbie, not with those carbon emissions, thank you very much. As for those great Australians, I fear they would not survive long uncancelled in modern Australia. The country is changing before our eyes, but we cannot see it.
Australiana Podcast: A Deep Dive into Australian Issues
00:02:21
Speaker
Perhaps we don't want to.
00:02:23
Speaker
Enter Australiana, the new podcast that will look at the big issues facing Australia through the telescope of the news of the day. Each week I will speak to a newsmaker or news breaker to understand our politics, our culture and the wars that are being waged to change it. Australiana is produced by The Spectator, the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. In fact, we were already 73 when Australia was born. There's no publication better placed to help you see the changing face of our nation.
00:02:54
Speaker
So blokes and sheilas, boys and girls, get ready for Australiana.
How to Engage with Australiana Podcast
00:02:57
Speaker
Follow us wherever you get your podcasts and on Twitter, under the handle, at Spectator Oz. That's Spectator OZ. For now, hooroo.