Skip to main content

Four Corners: Home sweet home: the 'Australian Dream', 1968

Posted 
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.
Old photo of girl sitting at dining table
Four Corners: Home sweet home: the 'Australian Dream', 1968

SUBJECTS:  History

YEARS:  9–10


Would you rather live in a freestanding house on a large block in an outer suburb or in an apartment with the convenience of being closer to the city centre?

This clip from a 1968 Four Corners program explores the 'Australian Dream' of home ownership and attempts to discover why it became so important to the post-World War II generation.


Things to think about

  1. 1.Why has home ownership become so important to Australians? From the 1890s, most working class Australians rented cramped housing in inner city suburbs, close to where they worked. During the 1920s the Australian Dream of a house and garden in the more distant suburbs became popular. It was delayed by the Great Depression and World War II but became reality for most Australians in the more prosperous 1950s and 60s.
  2. 2.What kinds of images accompany the song 'Beaut Country'? Why were so many Australians spending many Sundays inspecting project home villages? What reasons do the interviewed women and men give for wanting to own their own homes? Why do you think the reporter says 'Our national monument might well be a suburban cottage on a quarter-acre block'?
  3. 3.The reporter refers to 'the monotony of suburban architecture'. Do you think that this criticism was justified and that there was an affordable alternative? Discuss: a) the advantages and disadvantages for families of living in a new housing development like Sherwood Hills; b) the problems that arise from suburban sprawl.
  4. 4.In contrast with Australia, in large European and Asian cities most people live in flats and apartments. This helps to avoid the suburban sprawl that has characterised Australia's big cities. Use the internet to find out why there has recently been a move towards higher density housing in Australian cities. What do you think this change shows about changing values?



Date of broadcast: 1968


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Posted