National governments have usually had first claim on the right to form national identities. In seeking votes or public support for their policies, political leaders have commonly made reference to national identity, as it was thought to be or as it could become. For example, in April 1993, newly elected Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating (1993e) argued that ‘Australia will be taken more seriously as a player in regional affairs if we are clear about our identity and demonstrate that we really mean to stand on our own feet practically and psychologically’. The first Australian prime minister to advocate a republic, he related his position to those demographic changes producing an Australia ‘where a growing proportion of the population has few if any ties with the United Kingdom; where our future increasingly lies within our own region; and where our identity as a nation is no longer derivative but our own’ (Keating 1993e). This eminently rational approach does, however, beg the question of whether governments can develop a clear and coherent identity in a society with many origins, and whether indeed they ought to do so.

Australian governments have typically sought to shape and reshape national identity by two means. First, they have set restrictions and conditions upon foreign immigration into the country. Second, they have set criteria for granting citizenship and have framed domestic policies around such principles as integration or assimilation by which it was hoped to achieve social harmony, or even social justice.