The great depression of the 1890s brought about high unemployment and lowered living standards.It was during this difficult time that a basic minimum wage was established to protect the workers. National identity was a key issue, and the Commonwealth of Australia was formally established in 1901, bringing together the individual colonies into a single federation (Hancock 1995). Soon after this, the “White In the 1960s and 1970s, thousands migrated to Australia to pursue their dreams, culminating, for many, in the “time of excess” of the early 1980s, when the focus was on spending. The economy went into a recession in the late 1980s, and this continued into the early 1990s. The consumer emphasis of the late 1990s was on maintaining personal relationships, obtaining value for money, and getting back to basics, including refocusing on the family and home (McColl-Kennedy 1998).
At the turn of the twenty-first century, Australia experienced more positive growth, but this was tempered with a greater sense of uncertainty, with the tragic events of Bali in October 2002. Despite a hardy, historical pioneering rough-and-ready bush image, modern Australia is an urban community with a social structure centered in the cities, particularly on the east coast.
