Australian Citizenship and National Identity: Challenges in 2026

Prologue

What is citizenship?

Why is examination of Australian citizenship a matter to be considered in 2026?

On 9 May 2026 we recognised the 125^th anniversary of the first sitting of the Australian Parliament, so perhaps it is a good time to examine citizenship in Australia given the laws made by the Australian Parliament define citizenship in a legal sense.

But beyond this significant anniversary, consideration of citizenship today is highly relevant because of the disarray that Australia’s citizens find themselves in. Citizenship is more, much more, than a definition in law. Citizenship is what people ‘feel’ about the country they call home. How they connect with its culture and history.

In 2026, the idea of Australia, the sense of what Australian citizenship is and how it should be valued, is contested. It is being contested from within – by citizens and non-citizens who live in Australia. It is also being contested by people and nations that are hostile to Australia.

Australian citizenship

The course of Australian domestic politics, and hence the course of Australia’s society and the economy since the 1950s, culminates in the anti-citizen events we see in Australia today.

In 2026, we find that the concept of Australian citizenship has become so confused and undervalued by many that we, as individuals in a society, are befuddled as to Australia’s history, what Australia is today, what our citizenship stands for, and our personal own part in Australia. If you do have a view which happens not to align with ‘progressive’ view that prevails in many Australian governments and their supporting bureaucracies and subscribers, you may feel inhibited to voice your views publicly for fear of being ostracised, de-platformed, even harmed, by the law, fellow citizens and their affiliate non-citizens.

This discord, this disarray, is inflicting harmful consequences. Events and trends suggest that the harms will grow worse and the destination is clear.

All citizens have a stake in seeing the situation clearly and working for a solution. All citizens have a responsibility to act to restore the integrity and value of Australian citizenship. But what do Australian citizens have a stake in?

In this article, I will explore the concept of citizenship in Australia and consider how citizens might act to redress Australia’s current malaise and bolster future national security and prosperity.

But before we explore, I believe that we should discuss what citizenship is.

What does history tell us about citizenship?

The foundational concept of citizenship is traced back to the ancient Greeks, rooted in Athens from about 500 BCE. In Greek history, citizenship meant being a member of a polis (city-state), with rights such as voting and duties such as military service.

From 500 BCE onwards, for almost one thousand years, ancient Rome was ascendent over the Greeks.

The Romans adopted much from the ancient Greeks, holding their language, philosophy, art, military prowess, and politics in high esteem. The Roman interpretation of the Greek polis was citizenship as a legal status that bestowed protections, political rights (for select groups), and identity upon a person. Citizenship was a goal to aspire to and a privilege to have. As Rome expanded from a city-state to an empire of perhaps 60 million people, the attainment of Roman citizenship, available to any ethno-religious grouping in the empire, was available as both reward and recognition that bound a person tightly to Rome. This concept and approach of entwining a person to Rome provided a common human connection to the greatness of Rome and to the sophistication of the ancient Greeks.

Citizenship, in the period approximately 500 BCE to 400 CE, was tied to political groupings. Today, we view citizenship as a person being tied to a nation state. This connection is relatively new. The concept of nation states is a confection created in Europe, stemming from the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Generally tied to a monarchy or autocracy in the 17^th century, citizenship generally bestowed benefits to the ruling class and duties to the lower levels of society. The key purpose of a nation state, once assembled, is to protect its lands, resources and people from others who would take or harm them. People receive a measure of protection, as members of a nation, by acting collectively to defend it.

The concept of citizenship as we know it today developed in the 18^th and 19th centuries, and was often symbiotic with nationalism, such as in the American War of Independence and subsequent foundation of the United States, and arising in France from the French Revolution.

From the beginning of the 20^th century, we witnessed the awesome power of nation states as they waged war against one another 1914-18 and 1939-45 along with other lesser wars. These nation states sought economic advantage and the propagation of cultural and religious chauvinism. The word ‘chauvinism’ originates from the late 19th century and is assigned to Nicolas Chauvin, a Napoleonic French army veteran noted for his extreme patriotism.

In the latter part of the 20^th century, the trend towards identification with ‘the group’ and associated focus on the empowerment of the individual became significant features in the societies of nation states. The trend to move from a homogenised view of national society and citizenship to a dynamic mosaic of ever-smaller parts (groups) was propelled by the erosion of trust in national institutions that hitherto had provided imperfect but reliable ballast in peoples’ lives. From the 1960s, leaders in politics, finance, religion, community groups, consumer goods, and more were increasingly seen to betray the trust that people had been disposed to invest in them.

In modern Australia, citizenship and ethnicity are not the same thing. A migrant may retain cultural, religious, or ethnic ties to their heritage while becoming fully Australian in legal and civic terms. The challenge for Australia is whether citizenship alone is enough to maintain social cohesion and national purpose in an increasingly diverse society.

My recounting of citizenship, above, provides a centrist (that is, neither left nor right of the political spectrum) historical context to assist exploration of Australian citizenship.

Australian citizenship in disarray

I contend that the idea of Australian citizenship is in disarray.

We are not alone in this predicament. Our kindred Western democratic citizens in the United States and the United Kingdom, and much of Western Europe, also find their citizenry in disarray.

Why are citizens of Western democracies in such disarray?

My assessment is that World War II unleashed social, political, economic and ideological drivers that, in combination, unleashed a catharsis that has no true parallel in history. There is no parallel because the 20^th century combination of two world wars, weakened establishments, distrusted polity, leftist ideology, historically high penetration and levels of secondary and tertiary education, wealth creation, globalised trade, and almost magical technology have never existed in human history.

The greatest manifestation of these drivers was the rivalry between Russia and the United States (and its democratic allies) in the form of the Cold War.

The Cold War touched perhaps every nation, economy, and every person globally from August 1949, when Russia detonated its first nuclear weapon, to 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent dissolution if the USSR in December 1991. In the wake of the Cold War the world moved from bipolar to an ever-increasing fluid geopolitical structure embodied in globalisation of markets, trade, immigration, liberties, and ideas.

The confluence of these events, at the human level, is perhaps best marked by the arrival of the first iPhone in 2007. The technology embodied in the iPhone and the data it could harness via the internet greatly empowered the individual, or groups of individuals, to contest the functional boundaries of the democratic nation state.

Autocratic states, such as Russia and China, did not allow their citizens quite the same liberties which, as it turns out, has given autocracies an advantage.

Peak individualism?

I see 2025-26 as the apogee of a movement, seeded in the early part of the 20^th century and fruiting in the 1960s across the Western democracies, of people identifying with ever-expanding numbers of atomising ideological ‘groups’ as their primary identification of self-focus and validation. Almost all of these groups have opposed the status quo. This freedom to express dissent and identify has come at the expense of identifying primarily with the nation of their birth or migration, disconnecting with the nation that affords them a home. Connection with nation means there is a sense of allegiance and responsibility to uphold the history and traditions of those generations who had gone before, who had created the legacy that new citizens enjoy, and should defend and build upon.

This ‘group’ identification often leads to political affiliation and activity which weakens the society that spawned and nourished it. Group identification has always existed in various forms such as tribes, regions, religions, guilds, or mainstream political parties over the last 200 years. But in the 21^st century, the Western democracies have transcended functional civil interaction amongst groups to what is now a nadir of fractured societies rife with mistrust, dysfunction, hatred and even violence between groups. Democracies have encouraged liberties and rights without inculcating an expectation of the duties that are part of the bargain that is citizenship.

The post-World War II civil compact – that citizens will be law-abiding, work hard, pay taxes and defend their nation in return for the state protecting them, delivering health and education services, providing law and order, and enabling economic prosperity has given over to what Canadian psychologist Gad Saad (a refugee from Lebanon whose family migrated to Canada) has labelled ‘suicidal empathy’.

Suicidal empathy is described by Saad as a phenomenon in which excessive, misdirected and pathological forms of empathy are claimed to be destructive for the party that exhibits it. This is often claimed to happen through prioritising compassion, understanding and empathy over logic and long-term consequences.

This type of thinking, this approach to interacting with the world, has taken root since the 1960s due to socialist post-colonial thinking that penetrated Western democratic institutions and has held sway in the politics and social movements of many Western democracies over the last 60 years.

It can be argued that the left has won! All the passions of the leftist elites that inhabit left-of-center political parties, civil services, universities and schools, unions, and environmental groups display Saad’s ‘suicidal empathy’.

The elites’ self-righteousness seeks to stifle any countervailing views by citizens who are conservative: some may be opposed to any change, but most are likely to be supportive of incremental change based on what is best for the citizens who have made and are maintaining the nation.

Those conservative citizens are inclined to support the wellbeing of the nation. They do not support ideology that works to dismantle the history and essence of the nation and its culture. They do not appreciate being labelled in some way for not embracing ideologies such as to suicidal empathy, net-zero, or unbridled migration. The do not want their taxes spent on ideological frolics to the detriment of delivery of the basics of education, health, support for the disadvantaged, national security, and economic wellbeing.

Fact check – why did Australian federation, and hence citizenship, happen?

Federation in 1901 established a nation, and hence created Australian citizenship. Australian citizenship was created both in law and as an ideal.

A fundamental driver that moved six self-governing British colonies to vote for federation was threat. In the late 19^th century these colonies were part of the British empire which was in geopolitical and economic competition with France, Germany, Russia, and the United States. As a marker of the concern of seaborne attack, note that in the 1890s coastal artillery batteries were built in a number of Australian colonies.

The 1889 report by a British army general highlighted that the small colonial armies were unable to defend the vast Australian continent effectively against increasing anti-British foreign interest in the Pacific. Germany and France were the prime concerns, driving the construction of those coastal artillery batteries. There was a need for a national army and a navy.

In addition to defence, there would be other benefits for people in the colonies choosing to federate, choosing to become Australia. These benefits can be categorised as:

Economic Interests and Free Trade: Colonies were separated by borders and tariffs, which meant goods travelling between them were taxed, increasing prices. Federation meant removing these internal trade barriers to create a single, unified market.
Immigration Control: A major motivator was the desire for a unified national immigration policy. Most colonists wanted to restrict non-white immigration, often referred to as the “White Australia” policy, which was difficult to manage with separate colonial regulations.
Growing Nationalism and Identity: By the 1890s, a strong sense of Australian ‘identity’ was emerging. A majority of the population was born in Australia, leading to a desire to be united as one nation while retaining ties to Britain. This sense of shared identity was often described as a “thread of kinship”.
Improved Infrastructure: Individual colonies operated separate railway systems with different track gauges, requiring passengers and cargo to change trains at borders. A federal government was seen as necessary to harmonise transport and communication.

Citizenship today

Since federation I believe these five drivers have remained intact as the major benefits delivered by federation, and hence are the benefits that Australian citizens in 2026 will want. That said, these drivers have morphed over time, as to be expected, but the core remains the same.

The driver that has followed the most tortured route is immigration control. The “White Australia” policy was formally extinguished in 1966 by the Holt Coalition Government, though in practice was diluted by waves of post-war immigration from Europe to Australia from the late 1940s. The Whitlam Labor Government established a policy of multiculturalism in 1973, a policy continued by the Fraser Coalition Government in 1978. The influx of migrants from the 1950s to 2026 changed Australian society, and hence changed the ideal of Australian citizenship.

As for the other drivers, we citizens still need military forces to protect us and the nation from threats, we still want a liberal and efficient economy, we still want controlled immigration, we demand functional and additional critical infrastructure. However, the driver of nationalism and identity – of citizenship is contested, is in disarray.

For a nation, a sovereign state, that is a problem. A very big problem.

Australian citizenship in 2026

The Australian Government’s Immigration and Citizenship website describes citizenship as the legal status of being a recognised member of a specific country, creating a bond between an individual and the state. It grants rights such as voting, working, and protection while requiring responsibilities (or duties) like obeying laws. Citizenship signifies belonging and, often, a commitment to shared values.

The Immigration and Citizenship website goes on to list the following rights and privileges for Australian citizens:

Voting: Mandatory in federal, state, and territory elections.
Passport: Right to hold an Australian passport.
Government Jobs: Eligible for jobs in defence, law enforcement, and government.
Assistance: Ability to seek consular help when overseas.
Protection: Cannot be deported.

I think this listing is disingenuous. The list of rights and privileges is, both in practice and in law, considerably more extensive than this meagre list suggests. I would add to the list:

functioning rule of law
no capital punishment
free press
no history of civil or ethno-religious war or widespread violence
pluralistic society
freedom of religious worship
economic freedom
universal health care
state-sponsored childcare, primary and secondary education
no compulsory military services
a functioning polity
government social safety nets in health, aged care, disability, and more
property rights
freedom of movement between jurisdictions (save for the COVID period)
promotion and legislation of multi-cultural, religious, and personal ‘rights’.

The list could go on, but I do not want to labour the point. Clearly, the grant of Australian citizenship bestows a cornucopia of financial, health, education, and personal security benefits.

Since the year 2000, we citizens have seen successive Australian commonwealth and state / territory governments barter more and more taxpayer-funded benefits for citizens (and also for over three million non-citizen arrivals in that time) in return for short-term votes and securing medium term voting intentions. The consequences of this flagrant and serial misuse of taxpayer money to prop up politicians and their rent-seeking supporters are long-term structural budget deficits, higher taxes, the hollowing out of defence and industrial capability, declining education outcomes, overwhelmed health services, and decaying social cohesion.

On the matter of non-citizens, the Australian Bureau of Statistics advises that as of mid-2025, approximately 8.8 million people in Australia were born overseas and are non-citizens or permanent residents , representing about 32% of the population. This number represents a record high for foreign-born residents. Non-citizens can access Medicare in Australia if they hold specific permanent visas, have applied for permanent residency (with work rights), or are New Zealand citizens. Temporary residents and visitors are generally not covered by Medicare, though some are eligible via reciprocal agreements with their home countries.

Having looked at rights and privileges, what are the balancing responsibilities of citizens?

The Immigration and Citizenship website cites the responsibilities embodied in citizenship as:

obeying Australian laws
voting in elections
serving on a jury if required
defending Australia if needed.

That is a very short list of responsibilities.

But what is a responsibility? A definition of responsibility is the state of being accountable, liable, or duty-bound for actions, decisions, and their consequences. It involves owning outcomes (e.g., “accepting responsibility for a mistake”) and fulfilling obligations, such as tasks or caretaking. Key synonyms for ‘responsibility’ include accountability, duty, obligation, liability, and culpability.

Any analysis of rights (or benefits) versus responsibilities shows that Australian citizenship is quite a prize acquired by birth or awarded through migration. But also for many non-citizens, not something they need to even bother with to gain the benefits, knowing they will never be called upon to defend Australia in terms of armed forces service.

Privileged citizen versus responsible citizen

In 2026 Australia it appears that identify, either with a grouping or as an individual, with is loudly supplanting the obligations of as entity citizenship. At least our media coverage shows this. Perhaps Australian citizenship has become a commodity that is traded, a ticket to relative riches for millions coming from poorer, violent, less tolerant countries. Making this observation is not xenophobic, it is stating empirical facts. Migrants to Australia gain much, perhaps more than for any other destination across the world.

Australia is one of about 120 nations – 49 percent of all nations – that allow dual citizenship. How can a dual citizen not be conflicted about their responsibilities as an Australian citizen?

In observing the behaviour of Australian politicians and Australian citizenry (which must include the non-citizens as there are so many of them and there is no way to visibly distinguish them), it appears to me there are many that are energised to exercise their privileges with very few either aware of, or willing to, act in accordance with their responsibilities. Granted, there may be a ‘silent majority’ amongst the citizenry that contradicts this observation, but as we are not hearing forcefully from them or seeing them in the public domain in numbers and ways that counterbalance the noisy self-righteous people identifying with a group, the ‘silent majority’ may as well not exist.

Today the zeitgeist is seemingly almost all about people who are focused on their ‘rights’, be those rights real or imagined, who want change and also want something from the nation, normally money from the taxpayer, as the salve to rebalance claimed ‘wrongs’. I call them the ‘me, me, me’ cluster. Lots of disparate groups linked by disaffection for Australian history and institutions all of whom are demanding some form of recompense – they cluster together. For example, we have seen the antisemitic protests in Australia since 2023 attract a great variety of protestors, many of whom when interviewed did not have a deep conviction or for some even a cursory understanding. They had just come out to protest against the issue de jour.

The gradual change of anti- Australian citizenship has been propagated through that most powerful of change agents, that power of ideas.

In the wake of World War II, the Cold War pitted the ideas of liberal capitalist democracies against the illiberal socialist autocracies. The socialists had within their armoury the ideas of Marxism which explain society, hence politics, through the lens of class struggle. This strain of socialism is communism. It lodged in the polity of most countries of the world, including the democratic West.

The Marxist, socialist, post-colonial, post-modernist leftist movements appear to have won! They have, from the 1960s, successfully colonised academia, media public education, public services, unions, and politicians to undermine Australia as a federation of common interest, seeking to cater to increasingly divisive groups of self-interest.

Australian governments across all jurisdictions spend unconsciable amounts of taxpayers’ money on the rights of the few, often the very few, at the expanse of the many, often the very many.

Our multicultural fetishism, our post-colonial deconstruction, our complicity in deplatforming, the curbing of true free speech, the entrenched ‘white’ supplication to Aboriginal Australians for ‘forgiveness’ and, by extension, the narrative that we need to give something of Australia to any non-Caucasian or non-Judaeo-Christian here because the ideal of Australia is founded on the reprehensible 18^th century act of colonisation, which was a normal and acceptable behaviour by the norms of that time, that dispossessed Aborigines.

I have always found it odd that the ‘me, me, me’ citizens self-righteously want ‘justice’ but they also want money and power. And they want retribution, often for historical events. They are, at best, just another political group out to get what they can. To assert their self-righteous moral superiority over someone else. To tell the rest of us what to think, rather than allowing for free thought. But I sense they are more like the pigs in Orwell’s book Animal Farm, except they can’t even mouth the pretence that ‘all pigs are equal’. They see themselves as morally superior pigs. That’s it.

And so we have a significant number of citizens, with a supporting cast of non-citizens, that gleefully take their privileges but repudiate any sense of responsibility for their actions or to their nation. Many, either born here or migrated here, have never been educated as to what their civic responsibilities are. The great peace Australia has enjoyed since 1945 has served to weaken rather than steel our people. We are no longer the people who landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915. Nor should we aspire to be. Let’s not confuse nostalgia with the realities of 2026.

There are of course very large numbers of citizens who do have a sense of responsibility to Australia and act accordingly, but we do not see nor hear enough from them. Their counterbalancing force to the ‘me, me, me’ cluster is barely evident.

Rediscovering meaningful citizenship

The 2026 threats to Australia as a sovereign nation, as a cohesive society, and as an economy are the most potent in Australia’s federal history.

A sense of and belief in citizenship, and all that stems from it, is an essential weapon in Australia’s armoury to meet the national security threats that Australia faces today and into the foreseeable future.

The post-World War II geopolitical arrangements most of us knew, or unwittingly enjoyed, have changed in recent years. They will never return. The change has not been cataclysmic, though there have been some events that might be described that way, but rather the change has been gradual since the 1950s.

I believe the ethos Australian citizens need today is best expressed by President John F. Kennedy in his inauguration speech in 1961, in which he declared, “ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country“. This phrase urged Americans to prioritise public service and civic duty over individual demands. That is the ideal we need today.

Kennedy’s next line in that speech is less celebrated but I believe has a special resonance for Australia today. Kennedy said, “My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.” For Australian citizens today the translation would be, I believe: Can Australia, a nation of migrants, be more than a place of refuge and resources, but be a model of a successful society, economy, and sovereignty?

We can look back nostalgically at World War I and World War II and see clearly that Australian citizens of those eras ‘did’ for their country, both on the battlefield and on the home front. Nostalgia records facts that can inform our decisions today, but nostalgia should never be confused with reality and what is possible today. The circumstances of today are very different. Those people no longer exist. The drivers that shaped them as individuals are now myth.

Australian citizenship today needs to be reinvigorated. However, harking back to the past, observing traditions, mouthing platitudes, and pandering to the ‘me, me, me’ cluster does not truly inform the action we need to take, action that might steel our population, might stoke the ideal of Australian citizenship, might lift our collective society up so that all might benefit, rather than us succumbing to the ever diminishing Australia ravaged by rent seekers and self-righteous Orwellian ‘pigs’ that draw us all to an ever-diminishing level of mediocracy.

Geopolitical and domestic events of 2026 are just as compelling, but even more dangerous than in the 1890s when the creation of Australia, of Australian citizenship and citizenry, became the best way to protect and maintain this place, this continent, named Australia and protect the people who live upon it.

Actions speak louder than words

My prescription for invigorating meaningful Australian citizenship in 2026 includes doses of the following:

Observe Australia as one country. It has one citizenship (no dual citizens) and one national flag that signals a unified citizenry and national purpose.
Treat every Australian equally. Citizenship has universal rights and obligations.
Understand Australia’s place in the world. Reintroduce the teaching of civics into school curriculum. Citizens should acquaint themselves with world events with a view to understanding the threats, risks and drivers upon Australia.
Understand that the government’s role is not to provide support in every facet of a citizen’s life. Self-reliance is key to the individual’s life. Do as much as you can for yourself and be prepared to assist others. This breeds national resilience.
Critically evaluate Australia as a society, but refrain from attacking it, from seeking to dismantle it. Work with others to affect change you believe in, and compromise when necessary.
Australians should not be classified into groups based on race, religion, sex, ethnicity, disability, age, family composition, or any other ‘me, me, me’ grouping. We recognise that some people need varying degrees of government support and, as a wealthy country we should take pride in the fact we can provide that, but we should not have policies rewarding people for being ‘different’ – we should accept them for who they are: Australian citizens.
Migrants should arrive in Australia to live by Australia’s established laws, customs and pluralistic society. They should not import their prejudices and beliefs, especially sectarian beliefs, into a country that was established upon and thrived under Judeo-Christian beliefs and Westminster democratic traditions. On that basis, the road to citizenship should be long with any grant based on years of acceptable behaviour, and any benefit-of-the-doubt leaning towards Australia, not the migrant: they choose their behaviour and hence must be responsible for their behaviour.
Commit to Australia. Commit to making it better for all, rather than carving out a piece of Australia for your ‘me, me, me’ group. Lift your gaze from your ‘issue’ to what might be best for the majority of Australian citizens. Be inspired by Kennedy’s words.
Take what is offered only if you need it, or leave it for a fellow citizen who is in more need.

Critical infrastructure and other workplaces

The workforces that keep Australia’s critical infrastructure entities operating are composed mostly of citizens, plus some non-citizens that have been granted work rights. Therefore, all of the issues canvased in this article are highly relevant to them. For employers, they need to appreciate that the secure operation and of their enterprise requires them to understand the drivers impacting their workforce so they might assist people being affected by these stressors and also be alert to risks that can come from people – citizens and non-citizens – who are subject to these drivers. Employers would be wise to act to understand their workforce and contribute to the nourishing of Australian citizenship as a workplace and societal good.

Conclusion

Australia is fragile.

Australia as a nation state, as a society, and as an economy is very vulnerable to geopolitical and domestic threats. Moreso in 2026 than during World War II, or in the 18th century when British colonisation was in its infancy.

What are we Australian citizens willing to do to defend Australia and build Australia up? Why should they do anything?

The Roman statesman Cicero warned more than 2,000 years ago that a state that abandons its duty to its own people, to its citizens, invites disorder and eventual collapse from within. It is the elites that fail the citizens. This was to be the fate of Rome and the Roman Empire some 500 years later. The signs are clear that Australia, and other Western democracies, are well along the path to creating their own downfall from within. This is due to their political leaders and institutional elites having broken, over decades, faith with their citizens. They have allowed or encourages global leftist ideology to obscure and shield the erosion of all that citizens should rightly hold dear and defend for themselves and future generations.

How much latitude are you going to allow your fellow citizens and non-citizens to embitter and weaken Australia, rendering it ever more vulnerable and unrecognisable?

What actions will you take to arrest the trend of an ever-diminishing Australia?