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'Towns are significant in the Australian nation-building process because they mark a new attitude toward the land, and hence a new way of life. If the early convicts are visitors who have no other choice, the immigrants who build the towns in the outback are willing settlers in this new land. Instead of regarding the land as a disorienting and disappointing “hell” they happen to be thrown into, the immigrants tend to look on the bush, the pasture and the farm as a place with new hope and new opportunities. Though they still carry old aesthetic expectations and occasionally lament the strangeness and barrenness of “the outback”, they are far more ready to adapt and of course, to re-create. In this sense, towns are the beginning of really positive and constructive interactions between Australians and their land. ' (77)
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Last amended 18 Sep 2015 06:47:52
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"The Outback", "River Towns" and a New Nation
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