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Politics and the Australian way of life from the viewpoint of generation W
Faultlines
By George Megalogenis, Scribe, 215pp,$30
THAT somewhat unfashionable and apparently overtly male preoccupation with politics is at the core of journalist George Megalogenis's book. A study of the public policy debate in Australia since the ascendancy of the John Howard-led Liberal-National Coalition Government, Faultlines seeks to explore the three Rs -- republicanism, reconciliation and refugees -- from the perspective of what he terms generation W.
Generation W, of which Megalogenis is a member, comprises the children of those who migrated to Australia from war-torn Europe and who have, in the main, become an integral part of the Australian community as well as occupying places in the socio-economic pecking order somewhat higher than their parents.
They were labelled as part of the Wgeneration because they/we were disparaged by their/our contemporaries in the schoolyard as "wogs". Megalogenis outlines this clearly and forthrightly in a language some might find disturbing, even offensive. He goes on to argue that many of these people have moved on to "the third phase of wogdom" in which they become "well-connected" in an Australian society in which they are "happily a part of".
Not everyone gets to this point, he concedes, but the fact that such social progress can occur is important to his view of an Australia that has proven to be accommodating and tolerant (name calling notwithstanding) and that has also benefited from its post- war immigration program.
Megalogenis adds a second W component to his generational typology -- those who have also experienced upward social mobility through the catalyst of the Whitlam government's education...