Shiney
I guess my (recently expired) passport says the same as yours. Tilly - but without the bit about Europe. See, I only have a Brit passport at the moment. I only became an Australian citizen about 3 years ago (yikes, after having lived here since November 1966), and, having no means to travel overseas, have not bothered to apply for an Aussie passport yet.

Tilly
Do any of you have any thoughts that you would be willing to share with me about your own national identity and how well it fits you?

I was just a little kid when we came to Australia, but was old enough to have developed a sense of my Englishness, I think. For several years, I hated living here. I missed my grandparents and knew I would probably never see them again (at it turned out, I did get to see my grandads again, after about 16 years, but my nanas had died by then).

As a migrant, I suppose I was teased occasionally - not much, really. After all, there were loads of us Pommies coming to Oz back in the 60's - the Oz government was desperate to increase the population, and it cost us 20 quid to come here as *assisted passage* migrants. My English wasn't terribly different from the locals - it's not as though I was a *real* foreigner or anything <giggle>...

Anyway - as I said, I desperately wanted to return to England for several years. I was a teenager before I could say that I was no longer homesick, or harbouring a secret desire to move back to my homeland.

I hung off being naturalised, though, for several reasons:

•  World Travel is easier on a British passport than an Aussie one,apparently - and ha ha, you all know what a jet-setter I am, right?

• Everyone else in my immediate family was being naturalised, so it was a protest - my brother Mick joined the RAAF, so he HAD to become an Aussie; mymother embraced Australian culture far too wholeheartedly for my liking, hee hee, and I felt it was a *betrayal* of sorts; my dad and youngest bro went to live in NZ, and became KIWIs, of all things <giggle> - and I felt it waskind of cool that in a family of 5, we had 3 nationalities between us.

• I probably had some kind of subconscious need to keep the door open.

So - I'm officially an Aussie - but what does that mean to me? I still don't feel christmassy at christmas, because the weather just isn't right. I'm more comfortable here than I would be in England, I think, because I know the lay of the land better here - I mean, I grew up here!

There are things about the Aussie identity that I don't like, though - the tall-poppy syndrome, for a start - we just love to cut high-achievers down to size here, and that shits me. I love the Australian irreverance, (no sacred cow too sacred here!) but it seems we can't have one without the other. Australian *cultural cringe* gets up my nose too - this idea that somehow we're not as good as the rest of the world, and that anything Australian must be inferior in some way. I get annoyed when I see Australians slavishly following US trends in everything, because what  we already have in this country is wonderful.

Having said all that, though, I don't think much about national identity - truly! I guess I like the idea that we're all passengers on Starship Earth.