And this isn’t isolated to constellation-inspired ink. In just a few short years the very idea of Australian patriotism has become associated with images of shirtless, beer swilling bogans wearing our national flag like a cape. Suddenly proclaiming your love for this country, or even identifying yourself as an “Aussie”, pigeonholes you as a racist. The fine line between nationalism and patriotism has been blurred and the very meaning of what it is to be Australian has been called into question.

There’s plenty of analysis out there already about the damaging effect this uniquely Caucasian brand of patriotism is having on our national identity and I don’t feel it needs to be repeated here. But there is an important point I want to get out there:
It’s still ok to be a patriot.

There is so much that makes me proud about this country. There is so much I identify with. I reject the idea that we need to decide what a “typical Australian” is as this just leads to alienation and stereotyping. As a nation we’re but a hundred years old and as a European settlement, not that much older. Hell, Scotland and England have been one kingdom for 400 years and they still don’t have a single national identity. But I do believe there is an Australian spirit that permeates our art, our music, our literature, our very culture, which is tangible and uniquely Australian.

The modern Australian spirit is tied to the promise of coming to a new country for new opportunities, the romance of the bush and the chance that each of us feels we have to make a difference.  Our passion for travel, our quest for knowledge, our sustained belief that if we put our mind to it anything can be achieved is all tied into what makes us Australian. Ours is (hopefully) a society where the lowliest of people can rise up, tame the brumby and become a legend.

This is what I’ve never understood about the nationalist political parties or rioting, boozed up youths in our beach suburbs – if you look back far enough almost everyone is from somewhere else. Almost everyone came to Australia for the same reasons. This idea that you can make a better life in a sunburnt country at the bottom of the world gives us all a shared history and is intrinsically bound to the Australian spirit. I feel proud that we are the kind of country that people want to come to to start a new life. We’re far too young to start preaching about exclusion or ownership or even a static cultural identity.

Australia is a lot of things. It’s the frontier captured by the words of Lawson and Patterson. It’s the larrikinism that underpins our society. It’s our willingness to give people a “fair go” but cut them down should they expect too much for too little. It’s where you can come to to get a fresh start, where your neighbour is here for the same reason as you. It’s the idea that we’d rather drown in a billabong than give up our freedom, that we’ll fight for our liberty and the liberty of others.

I know this all sounds like sentimental idealism and I’m not blind to the problems we face as a society. At the very least we owe so much to our indigenous forbearers for our past crimes that I wonder if that’s a debt we’ll ever pay off. And there are and will probably always be an undesirable element in our culture but I refuse to accept that this is part of the mainstream.

I’m not sure we need a day in January to reflect on our identity (although I do like the time off work) and I don’t want us to become like our flag-waving, president-saluting, healthcare-hating American cousins. But with so much media attention focused on the negative aspects of national pride at the moment it’s really easy to forget why we’re here in the first place. And that’s because, despite her flaws, we love this country and we wouldn’t live anywhere else.

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‘There you are,’ I screamed dementedly at him, virtually rubbing his face in the heap of white plastic, ‘now you’ve got choice. Look at all that choice. They may all be shit, but look at the choice!’ – Stephen Fry, The BBC and the Future of Broadcasting

2009 is the beginning of the golden age of Australia television. Where once we were forced to pay through the nose if we wanted more than five and a half television channels, we can now flick for hours armed with little more than a digital set-top box and a HD capable TV. Oh how the mighty Foxtel is no doubt quivering in its boots to think that everything they used to offer for a premium is now streamed free of charge into our living rooms. Oh how spoiled we are to live in this enlightened age of choice, choice and more choice.

Or are we? Because what has digital TV really given us that we didn’t have before? In the grand scheme of things does “more” always have to equate to “better”?

For a long time I have resisted against the pull of pay television for the simple fact that it’s not really very good. Sure, there are definite standouts such as the critically acclaimed Love My Way but considering this is a tiny blip on what is otherwise a sea of repeats and dreadful “reality” television I would really rather not. It just doesn’t appeal to me. But digital television does appeal to me.

Or should I say did appeal to me. Because, in theory, the idea is fantastic. Love the ABC? Imagine a world where there’s not one but 4 different ABCs! Offended by most of the content on Channel 9 but can’t look away? Prepare to be triply offended. So imagine my dismay when I switch over to digital only to find that rather than innovation or even more-of-the-same I find myself watching the tried and tested Pay TV formula of more shit more of the time.

We have a sports channel whose sole purpose seems to be to lock out Pay TV from major sporting events, a “youth” channel that is back to back repeats and two other channels that are pale reflections of their flagships. Even the admirable ABC2 is more repeats of ABC1 than it is anything original. Excuse me if I’m failing to see the quality for all the choice.

I shouldn’t really have been surprised. I’ve been bemoaning the quality of Australian television for years now, it was naive to think that more was automatically going to equal better especially when television comapanies constantly whinge about the cost of producing local content.

I’m not even arguing that digital should be more of what I want – I just think we probably don’t need to see yet another repeat or Frasier, Seinfeld or Malcolm in the Middle. Let’s shake it up a bit. Let’s use the added bandwidth to try something new, take some risks, reinvent the wheel. The way I see it, digital television provides broadcasters two very unique opportunities:

• If you read any top-television-shows-of-the-all-time list I can guarantee to you that the top ten will be littered with the likes of The Sopranos, The West Wing and so on. Yet for some reason Australian TV networks refuse to broadcast these programs at a reasonable time, in their original format or even at all. Sure, devoted fans will always pick up these classics on DVD but why aren’t we allowed to watch them properly the first time around? How many neo-classic shows are Australian’s missing out on at this moment? Why has it taken Entourage so long to get to free-to-air TV, and even then only to be shown on SBS. Three new channels per network is the perfect place for broadcasters to take a chance on the next big thing and not have to worry about whether it will rate well against The Simpsons.

• Given how cheap the technology to make television has become why not give Australian’s the chance to make their own, low budget television. We are already seeing this with SBS Independent but I’d love to see other networks dipping their toe in the pool. Sure, a lot of it will be terrible and a lot of it won’t make it past a few seasons but along the way we just might find the next Chris Lilley or Gina Riley and Jane Turner. There are so many people out there with an idea for a TV show – why not give them a camera and see what happens.

I really do hope that digital television gets better, especially as next year we’ll begin phasing out analogue TV. At the very least I hope the terrible quality of the new channels doesn’t begin to destroy the quality of their flagships further than it already is. If more choice means more of the same then I might just be done with the lot of you and go and read a good book instead. Perhaps a Stephen Fry?

Easily my favourite quote of the saga comes from the usually overly verbose Kevin Rudd when called on to public debate Tony Abbott on climate change mere hours after the ETS failed:

“I’d suggest the Leader of the Opposition calms down, puts in the hard yards and actually develops a policy”

Sometimes simple is best.

Which kind of brings me to the crux of why I am writing. I could easily rehash a lot of what has already been covered by the media and the blogosphere in the last few weeks but what’s the point? You can probably read a far better blow by blow of the events on Crikey or the ABC’s excellent new analysis site The Drum. Instead I thought I’d offer my two cents on Australia’s options for tackling climate change in the very near future.

In my opinion a cap and trade emissions tax, especially one that contains as many concessions as Rudd’s, is fundamentally flawed. All it’s going to do is allow big polluters the ability to buy their way out of reducing emissions while patting themselves on the back for doing such a great job with the environment. To quote NASA climate scientist Dr James Hansen in his interview with Lateline on Monday night: “Basically … it’s like the indulgences of the Middle Ages, when the Catholic Church would sell forgiveness for sins. This was great for the bishops, they collected a lot of moolah, and it was great for the sinners, because they got forgiven and they could still go to heaven or at least they thought they could.”

I’d prefer a more hard-line stance against the big polluters but right now that’s not going to happen. Rudd is too afraid of pissing people off to enforce a carbon tax without a trading scheme or even to pass laws criminalising pollution. So what we get is an ineffectual policy – it’s like if your doctor tells you to change your diet or you’re going to die and you decide switching from regular to diet coke will be enough.

But what’s the alternative? When the election comes what will the opposition bring to the table? At the moment, nothing. The coalition, while making all the right noises, essentially would prefer to deny that climate change is even happening. Sure, Abbott and his Shadows will formulate some sort of climate change policy to counter the government but in the words of Malcolm Turnbell “Any policy that is announced will simply be a con, an environmental figleaf to cover a determination to do nothing”.

So the options are either go with the party that will do nothing or go with the party that will do something which will probably do very little to reduce the impact of climate change. Sheesh.

When faced with a choice like this my decision of who to support comes down to the proverb The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend. If inaction is the enemy of climate change and the ETS is the enemy of the coalition’s policy of inaction then the ETS is my friend.

I may not agree with it. I may not have faith that an ETS can stop the climate change juggernaut but it has my support. Because I’d like to think that when the party that is proposing the ETS sees how ineffectual it is in practice they’ll propose stronger and stronger measures until we get to a point where we’re able to turn the tide. A party that doesn’t have a policy or whose policy is likely to be a metaphorical figleaf can only be worse.

Of course when Abbott announces his policy I will judge it on its merits. I just don’t have faith that it will amount to anything that is remotely near effective enough, even by the diet coke standards of the ETS.

And for those climate skeptics out there I leave you with this: The World Meteorological Organisation has announced that 2009 was Australia’s third hottest year on record with above normal temperatures recorded on all continents. 2010 is tipped to be even hotter. As a result the 00’s are the hottest decade so far. Followed by the 90’s then the 80’s.

Notice a pattern here?