That 70s show
If America was the place to be in the rock "n" roll Fifties and Britain was the fulcrum of the swinging Sixties, was Australia the nation in which to enjoy the Seventies? After the somnolence of the Menzies years, the termination of the White Australia policy and increased recognition granted to indigenous Australians by the 1967 referendum, the country experienced something of a cultural and political awakening.
As if to mark out the break with the past, in 1970 a young Australian feminist by the name of Germaine Greer published The Female Eunuch. In 1972, the Labor Party launched its folkloric "It's time" campaign, which sought to end 23 years of continuous conservative rule and presented the ALP as political dam-busters. In 1973 the Sydney Opera House finally opened its soaring shells to the public, giving Australia a world-class cultural landmark.
The Seventies arguably produced Australia's most improbable prime minister: Gough Whitlam, a classicist who spoke fluent Italian, who was described by his one-time speech writer, Graeme Freudenberg (of "Men and Women of Australia" fame) as not "a man out his time" but "the representative Australian of his time".
The Whitlam years produced by far the country's most gripping political drama, the 1975 Dismissal Crisis, when the prime minister was sacked by the Governor General, Sir John Kerr. It also produced the most intriguing conspiracy theory: that Kerr was not only the representative of the Queen, but a tool of the CIA, which wanted to see the back of Australia's leftist prime minister because there was a risk that he might close US security installations on Australian soil.
It was the decade when Australia became more emphatically Australian, with Whitlam initiating the process through which God Save the Queen was finally ditched in favour of Advance Australia Fair. The British honours system was replaced with the Order of Australia.
The country was also rethinking relations with Asia. It recognised China for a start, and nurtured much closer ties with Japan.
It also saw the birth of modern Australian film, producing Aussie classics like The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, Don's Party, and Wake in Fright. For the "Bazza" sequel, Barry McKenzie Holds His Own, Gough Whitlam even agreed to a walk-on role. Writing in the Spectator Australia, Ben Davis notes: "It's my contention that the period from around 1970 to the early 1980s was a Golden Age in Australian popular culture that has never been equalled by anything that came after."
Sport basked in some golden years, as well. Cricket witnessed the beginning of the Chappell era, and with it the terrorisation of English batsmen courtesy of Mssrs Lillee and Thomson. In tennis, Margaret Court, Evonne Goolagong Cawley, and John Newcombe dominated Wimbledon in 1970 and 1971. True, the Montreal Olympics was a disaster, with Australia failing to win a single gold, but at least the country's soccer team qualified for its first World Cup appearance in Germany two years earlier.
Was there not something irresistible about the Aussie Seventies aesthetic, as well? And what about those moustaches? I rest my case......
UPDATES: As you may have seen, the Australian government has instructed the Australian Federal Police to investigate Google for possible criminal breaches. It relates to the use of Google's Street View cars, and escalates the ongoing battle between the Rudd government and the internet giant.
I'm 
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