Australia Turning Inwards? Insights from Humanitarian Australians

This article responds to suggestions that Australia is becoming increasingly insular and that Australians should direct their compassionate and humanitarian efforts wholly towards other Australians. This paper briefly reviews arguments for this inward turn, as well as the extant polling evidence about the prevalence of such attitudes, which appear to be reflected in the recent cutting of overseas aid budgets by the Australian government. However, the authors do not agree with even well-meaning exhortations to Australians to direct their altruistic activ- ities to local communities only. To explore the compassionate and humanitarian sensibilities and activities of Australians who are actively supporting distant others, sixteen interviews were conducted with practitioners in non-profit organisations and ventures in Melbourne. We sought to understand how they came to dedicate their lives to working for or founding organisations whose aim is to benefit distant others; how they navigated the potentially overwhelming nature of global problems; and finally the hurdles they faced in continuing their work. Despite the challenges that both these practitioners and the world face, this article concludes with grounded optimism and defends a more expansive scope for our care for others.