Country & Culture
Changing the way we see ourselves & others
Who are we? It sounds like a simple question. It isn’t. Country and Culture attempts to explore this question.
Australia is one of the most culturally diverse nations on Earth, built by First Nations peoples across 65,000 years, shaped by waves of migration from every corner of the world, and enriched by the languages, traditions, stories, and knowledge that arrived with every person who called this place home.
And yet we have spent much of our short post-colonial history arguing about who belongs here, who counts as Australian, and whose story deserves to be told.
Country & Culture is our answer to that argument. Not a defensive one. Not an angry one. A generous one. Because the question of who we are is only worth asking if we’re genuinely prepared to hear the full answer, the ancient and the new, the uncomfortable and the extraordinary, the story we inherited and the one we’re still writing.
The country and culture pillar of WeRise is about seeing ourselves clearly. And seeing each other honestly. Because you cannot build a fair society on a foundation of selective memory and managed identity
What 'Country and Culture' Actually Mean
The Cost We Don't Talk About
When a society doesn't know its own history, misunderstands its neighbours, and silences its storytellers, it pays. In division, in distrust, in the slow erosion of everything that makes a place worth belonging to.
65,000 Years
The oldest continuous living culture on Earth. Right here. On this land. Still teaching, still singing, still caring for Country. It’s not history, it’s now
30%
The proportion of Australia’s population born overseas. We are already one of the most successfully diverse nations on Earth.
$111 Billion
The contribution of Australia’s art and culture to GDP annually. The stories we tell about ourselves, in film, music, art, literature, and performance, are an important part of how a society grows.
$38 Billion
The estimated annual cost of climate change impacts to the Australian economy by 2030 — in damage to infrastructure, agriculture, health, and productivity.
Source: Deloitte Access Economics 2021
250
The number of languages spoken in Australia prior to colonisation. Only 123 remain. One in 6 first nations people now learn their native language to ensure their survival.
We are not proposing to spend more. We are proposing to spend differently. Earlier. Smarter. On causes rather than consequences.
Prevention is not idealism. It is arithmetic.
The Policies
Immigration & Refugees
43 Million refugees worldwide in 2023
Multiculturalism & Discrimination
Arts & Culture
The Argument We Are Making
Australia’s country and culture policies are among the most contested and consequential on the WeRise platform. They are also among the most misunderstood. Country and culture is not a soft policy area. It is not symbolic. It is the policy domain that determines who belongs, who is recognised, who can come, who can stay, and whose stories get told. Those are foundational questions about the kind of country Australia actually is, as distinct from the kind it claims to be.
WeRise approaches country and culture from two values: Dignity and Respect. Applied here, they mean something specific. Dignity for First Nations peoples means recognition of sovereignty, not symbolism. It means treaty, truth-telling, and genuine self-determination, not closing the gap targets that have remained unmet for two decades. Respect for Australia’s multicultural identity means treating immigration as a strength to be welcomed rather than a threat to be managed. It means arts and culture funding that reflects the full diversity of who Australians are, not a narrow version of who some think they should be.
The four policies in this pillar, First Nations, Immigration, Multiculturalism, and Arts and Culture, are connected by a single thread: they are all about how Australia sees itself, and how it treats the people who make it what it is.
Australia is one of the most successfully multicultural countries on Earth. That is not an accident. It is the result of deliberate policy choices made over decades, choices that WeRise believes are now being eroded by fear, populism, and political short-termism. Country and culture policy at its best builds belonging. At its worst, it builds walls between communities, between generations, between the Australia that exists and the Australia that could.
WeRise believes the evidence is clear on each of these four policy areas. First Nations treaty and truth-telling works — the countries that have done it are more cohesive, not less. Humane immigration policy produces better economic and social outcomes than punitive systems built around deterrence. Multicultural communities are net contributors to every measure of national well-being. And investment in arts and culture pays dividends: economic, social, and generational that far exceed the cost.
The argument we are making in Country and Culture is not complicated. It is this: Australia is richer, stronger, and more resilient when it honours its oldest cultures, welcomes new ones, and tells honest stories about all of them.
These seven policies are the foundation. The other nineteen build on top of them. Because before we can rise together, we all need a solid foundation of dignity to stand on.
We aren’t asking you to take our word for it. The evidence behind Foundations of Dignity comes from the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), the Productivity Commission, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, and the World Health Organization.