Such an orgy of moral self-congratulation would be disgraceful unless you intended to help Aborigines, many of whom lead lives of physical and moral degradation. So, in his apology speech, Mr Rudd "laid claim to a future", where "the gap that lies between [white and black Australians] in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity" is closed. Never mind that he has no proposals that make this even a remote possibility. The pledge sufficed for enjoying the moment.

Two months earlier, Mr Rudd had done something else that Mr Howard had refused to do. He had signed the Kyoto treaty on climate change, despite the fact that Australia was already on track to meet its Kyoto emissions target for 2012 and despite evidence that signing Kyoto does not help to reduce a country's emissions growth. The Bruces would have smelled such bullshit from any distance. Contemporary Australians lapped it up.

I suppose I should not be surprised. As America became wealthy and urban, it lost touch with its no-nonsense frontier values. The same was sure to happen in Australia. If you want to see just how far things have progressed, watch the recently released Australia, directed by Baz Luhrmann and starring Nicole Kidman. It will teach you little about the Australia of the 1940s, which it purports to depict, but much about the nation's contemporary taste for kitsch sentimentality.