This book originated with the ABC television series 100 Years – The Australian Story, a series conceived in a collaboration between Kelly and award-winning ABC producer, Sue Spencer. Coinciding with the centenary of Australia’s nationhood the TV series based on primary and secondary sources sought to capture the Australian experience over the century.
The National Council for the Centenary of Federation led by Tony Eggleton and Rodney Cavalier provided substantial funding that made the series possible. The distinguished historian, Professor Geoffrey Bolton, served as historical consultant. The project was neither a three cheers nor a black armband view of our history. But it saw Australian nationhood as an event of world significance in in both the way it was achieved and the potential it offered as a New World experiment.
The book and the television series depicted Australia from 1901 as an experiment in democracy, egalitarianism, racist nationalism and economic progress. Never before had such small communities divided by huge distances voluntarily decided to create a new nation. The Australian idea lay in the fusion of grass roots nationalism and Empire loyalty with the most able of our early prime ministers, Alfred Deakin, calling himself an “independent Australian Briton.”
A series of interviews with prime ministers – Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating and Howard – was conducted to investigate their concept of the nation. The five themes that defined the programs were: the transition from Empire to independence; the rise and fall of White Australia; the quest for wage justice and the fair go; the unfinished task of reconciliation following the destruction of Aboriginal society occasioned by European settlement; and the challenge for Australia to accept responsibility for its own fate in the world beyond the age of great and powerful friends.
The book fell into two sections – Kelly’s narrative account of the Australian story through the five themes identified and the full transcripts of the prime ministerial interviews.
