Nick Bryant, in a thoughtful farewell to Australia for the BBC:

But the question has essentially remained the same: who gets to define and personify Australia?

My answer, of a country whose population has swelled to 22 million people while I have been here, would be everyone. For this is a land that defies neat encapsulation or lazy caricature...

My point, admittedly, is banal: that Australia is confounding and complex. But it is worth making again, because the rest of the world still has a tendency to regard the "land down under" as uncomplicated and unchanging.