Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home Opinion Guest Writers

Living in the lucky country is a blessing for Australians

byGuest Contributor
22 February 2016
Reading Time: 2 mins read
AA
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
Lucky country: "Whatever it is, the result is clear - in Australia there is always a back up plan, someone there to catch you."
Lucky country: “Whatever it is, the result is clear – in Australia there is always a back up plan, someone there to catch you.”

MY parents always told me that we were lucky to be born in Australia.

To a degree, I understood what they meant, but I figured that it just had something to do with the great weather, the beaches, or religious freedoms.

It didn’t truly hit me until I left its safe, free, prosperous shores in pursuit of love.

I’ve since spent the last twelve months abroad in Asia with another twelve months ahead of me.

What I have witnessed in this time has been rather confronting and culturally shocking.

It began when I caught my first bus.

As I got on, I gave the driver the usual warm smile and a hello but all I got was a stony face in return.

When I stepped off the bus at the end of my journey, I called out a ‘thank you’ to the driver.

The response was hostility from the passengers around me as though I were insane.

My husband (boyfriend at the time) pulled me aside afterwards and awkwardly said, “Michaela, we don’t do that here.”

Related Stories

Sunnybank priest says celebrating different cultures is being pro-life

Nigerian priest details his honest experiences of Brisbane parishes in first memoir

Brisbane shows face of Australian Church is changing

I delved deeper into this foreign land and found labourers on $6000 a year salaries, a small homeless family unable to find financial assistance or emergency housing because they are unmarried, and husbands and wives working twelve hour days, five or more days a week, visiting their children who are being looked after by their grandparents or the family maid.

The lack of respect for human life, the limits of access to welfare, and the general nonexistence of compassion has left me disillusioned and frankly, quite angry.

Even the churches and charities are unable to help – whether it’s because there is a lack of volunteers because everyone is working such long, hard hours, desperately trying to stay afloat themselves, or because there are legal structures in place to prevent them from helping, I cannot be sure.

Australia on the other hand, has so much welfare available that people rely on the system, it has office norms of leaving at 5pm and being paid for overtime, it has families – albeit many that are broken – that raise their children and actually spend quality time with them instead of ferrying them from tutor to tutor.

What I have come to realise is that with Australia, there is always an option.

Perhaps it’s a result of the “everyone is a winner” generation of schooling, or the abundance of personal space, or access to fresh produce.

Whatever it is, the result is clear – in Australia there is always a back up plan, someone there to catch you.

In many countries overseas, don’t expect anyone to be there to catch you when you fall – it’s do or die.

By Michaela Hillam

ShareTweet
Previous Post

Closing the Gap

Next Post

How a Rwandan man is transforming the lives of refugees

Guest Contributor

Related Posts

Sunnybank Multicultural Mass group photo

Sunnybank priest says celebrating different cultures is being pro-life

14 July 2021
Fr Emmanuel Aguiyi
News

Nigerian priest details his honest experiences of Brisbane parishes in first memoir

2 March 2018 - Updated on 1 April 2021
Cultures unite in cathedral
News

Brisbane shows face of Australian Church is changing

2 September 2015 - Updated on 1 April 2021
Next Post
Protais Muhirwa

How a Rwandan man is transforming the lives of refugees

How to enjoy being single

Write for Australia's best Catholic newspaper

Popular News

  • Here are the stories of 10 new saints being canonised this Sunday

    Here are the stories of 10 new saints being canonised this Sunday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Angel’s Kitchen serves hot meals to the hungry in Southport

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI turned 95 on a ‘very happy’ day

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Parishes unite for Logan deanery family festival this Sunday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Queensland election: The pro-life political parties committed to abortion law reforms

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says
Faith

Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says

by CNS
18 May 2022
0

HOLINESS is possible, and the Catholic Church provides the tools for attaining it. That was the theme...

Church workers have helped more than 1.2 million Ukrainians during the war, Caritas says

Church workers have helped more than 1.2 million Ukrainians during the war, Caritas says

18 May 2022
Minority Catholic woman takes pride in Asia’s overlooked saints

Minority Catholic woman takes pride in Asia’s overlooked saints

18 May 2022
Bishops call out racism, gun violence after U.S. shooting

Bishops call out racism, gun violence after U.S. shooting

17 May 2022
Parishes unite for Logan deanery family festival this Sunday

Parishes unite for Logan deanery family festival this Sunday

17 May 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping