This is CBSI in the world. I'm John Batchett with Gregory Coppley, editor and publisher

of Defense and Foreign Affairs. He's here to help me understand the success of Orcas,

meeting what Gregory observes as a cultural strength except. The short version is this.

Australians, when they describe themselves to Gregory in the 21st century, emphasize

mate ship. That is getting along and my experience with Australians, such as Gregory and his colleagues,

many Australians, cheerful, wonderful, friendly, bros. Very good natured, always happy to see you,

you're always happy to see them. But Gregory, I can't find a negative in mate ship. However,

there is one when it comes to sovereignty and strength into 2050. Please help me understand.

Well, one of the things about Australians is their unwillingness to rock the boat. They tend to

go along with things. They are essentially strong on mate ship. We did a survey when a

Rodec study in 2007 called Australia 2050 looking at Australia and its future to the mid-century.

And I asked Australians to describe what they felt were Australians, the characteristics of Australians

and to describe the country and where they wanted to be. The only thing they could talk about was

well, our ethos is mate ship. We look after our mates and we're loyal. Loyalty is very

important to Australians. They are loyal to a fault to the point where they will defer to

their chosen leader. And for many years the chosen ally was the United Kingdom, from which Australia

and its modern iteration derives. And so it was literally up until the fall of Singapore

in 1941-1942 that Australia clung to its dependency on Britain or its

deference to Britain. After that they turned to the United States and that's been the case

literally ever since. Australia with the population that it has, it's just small populations

less than 30 million at the moment. But its GDP is very strong. It could have been playing the role

of an independent sovereign leader within the region. And yet it's always backed away from that.

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