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"Good enough for Australia" is a phrase I frequently heard from Aussies. There seems to be this attitude there that they're a frontier country where one improvises (half asses?) everything.

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"Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck." - coined by social critic and journalist Donald Horne in his 1964 book The Lucky Country.

On the subject of flowers, the late Donald was a friend of a family friend who came over one night and after drinking a huge amount of wine decided in a midnight fit of inspiration (when we'd all gone to bed) to rearrange flowers throughout the house. We woke up in the morning to find little bits of flowers everywhere except the vases! Sadly, she passed away recently but it became a running joke in the family. Good sorts.

Pretty much. A lot of the innovations of our nation, come from that. Things like utes, inflatable escape slides on planes, race cameras, are all "hacks".

But considering you can still see the gold mine which caused the foundation of my town, it isn't that surprising. We might not be the battlers we believe we are, but there's still a history of a people all around us.

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