AUSTRALIANS are very concerned with backyards.
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It'd probably take you just a brief scan of the papers before you found the cross-class calling card of the modern Australian
"Not in my backyard."
Developments decried and discredited not for any lack of utility; their fatal flaw is primarily their proximity.
Greater good, be damned! My backyard is at stake.
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Conversely, some backyards are found to be wanting.
"My backyard doesn't have as many services or facilities as my neighbour's and there's heaps of bindies here."
The grass might be greener on the other side, but the green-keepers next door probably aren't content with their patch either.
Recently, New England MP Barnaby Joyce has been calling for a fairly monumental change to the backyards looked after by Australian senators.
Mr Joyce has recently called for senators to represent regional areas rather than the states who currently elect them, because he's perceived an over-representation of metro-based people in the upper house.
He said this would be a path to a true "Indigenous Voice from the Heart" when you take into account the greater proportion of Aboriginal people living in regional areas.
However, every one's vote is equal in this country and a look at the numbers reveals the need for Aboriginal representation across the nation, not just rural and remote pockets.
At the last census, there were 35,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in the electorates of New England and Parkes compared with more than 70,000 in the greater Sydney area.
Similarly, in greater Perth there was 31,214 Aboriginal people, compared with the enormous electorate of Durack which had 30,305. Their concerns are our concerns, no matter where you live.
Perhaps it's high time we stopped looking so intently at our backyards and the fences which divide them and think a bit more about the land we share and how we can enrich it together.
