This article was first published in The Telegraph, 17 May, 2026, by Zachary Gorman

Australia’s democracy turned 125 on Saturday. You might not have noticed.

In sharp contrast to the grand Trumpian celebrations that are planned for the 250th anniversary of America’s Declaration of Independence on July 4th, the 125th anniversary of the opening of the Commonwealth Parliament hardly made an impression on the Albanese Government.

This demonstrates that for all the talk of a new ‘progressive patriotism’, Labor still finds it difficult to be proud of the Australian accomplishment. After years of shaming our past, they have finally been trying to take off their black-armbands to meet the demands of a changing political climate. But they have been wearing them for so long that the tan-lines still show.

This is a real tragedy. Because at a time of fraying social cohesion, rampant antisemitism, and a cost of living crisis threatening the Australian dream, it would be most helpful to look back for inspiration on all the obstacles that our nation has overcome in five-quarters of a century.

When Robert Menzies oversaw the Jubilee of Federation in 1951, he had to admit that with two World Wars and a Great Depression, our first 50 years had been pretty rough. But this was not cause for dismay, it was precisely what made the celebrations so special. As he told the schoolchildren of Australia, it was the ‘courage and determination’ of their mothers and fathers that had ‘helped us to win through’.

Menzies was truly ‘progressive’, in the sense that he more than anyone else ensured that Australia’s next 50 years were much better than what had come before. By the time he retired in 1966, the phrase ‘the Lucky Country’ had been coined, reflecting one of history’s most remarkable turnarounds.

But Menzies didn’t succeed by denigrating his forebears. He understood, as the old saying goes, that we are perched on the shoulders of giants. We may see further than ever before, but only because we have the achievements of previous generations to build upon.

You won’t hear the government talk about that form of ‘intergenerational inequality’ amongst all their budget rhetoric justifying broken promises. Because they deliberately hopped off the giants’ shoulders and thought that the lessons that the past provided about the dangers of inflationary spending could simply be ignored.

Our children may well not have better lives than us, or even lives equal to our own. That is because we have taken everything that Menzies’s generation, let alone the founding fathers of Federation, did for granted. We have squandered much of their accomplishment, and inevitably find ourselves playing catch-up as a consequence.

While this lack of gratitude has gotten worse in recent decades, it has always been baked into Labor’s DNA. It is why they have been responsible for the vast majority of referendums trying to tinker with our successful constitution over the years.

As far back as 1942, Labor icon Doc Evatt was openly attacking our founding document, which had been painstakingly crafted by elected federal conventions and then given direct democratic endorsement by the Australian people. He called it a ‘horse and buggy’ constitution that was already outdated and needed replacing. 84 years later it is still going strong, having survived Albanese’s latest attempt to undermine its fundamental principles with the Voice.

We are now one of the world’s oldest and most resilient democracies. If giving votes to women is considered essential to the definition, we are actually an older democracy than the United States itself.

We should be celebrating that, embracing our history, and using its lessons to build a brighter future. Or even just to preserve a future at all. Because if the doomsayers are correct, there may well be another war or depression on the horizon.

If that happens, there will be little room for the window dressing of ‘progressive patriotism’. We will need the good old fashion variety to keep us united as it has in the past. Ultimately, it will be up to us, the mothers and fathers of a new generation, to help Australia win through once again.