Faultlines

Faultlines: Race, Work, and the Politics of Changing Australia is a book by journalist George Megalogenis.

George Megalogenis is a senior feature writer for The Australian newspaper. Megalogenis divides Australia up into two sections: old Australia and new Australia. This is where all Australia's cultural problems purportedly lie.

The new part of Australia Megalogenis describes as women who were the daughters of the baby boomers, and who have benefited from the new economy. The majority of Australian workers are now female. Added to this generation of women are the children of post-war immigrants. They, too, are all doing very well. Statistics show that the children of immigrants do considerably better than the children of ‘white’, Australian born citizens.

Old Australia is old white Australia. Their children are not doing that well at school, and they themselves are not doing too well in the new deregulated economy.

These are the faultlines that Megalogenis uses as the title of his book. These two Australias are where Australia is currently experiencing its cultural clashes, between the so-called Hansonites and the so-called inner city, cut-off-from-reality elites. Megalogenis believes that it is the new Australia that is going to shape the future of the country: that will mean a generation that is pro-republic, pro-reconciliation and at least for a softer policy on refugees.