Something happened when I was in New York recently that would never happen in Australia.
I was at the Lincoln Centre for the opening night gala for the New York Philharmonic's new artistic year.
A voice came over the PA: "Ladies and Gentlemen, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra." But no ordinary voice. It was one of my fellow New York Phil board members, Alec Baldwin, who has become famous for his impersonations of the President.
And then, on the fall of the conductor's baton, the first notes were not those of the much-anticipated Mahler 5. They were the opening bars of The Star-Spangled Banner. And 1800 people leapt to their feet.
Not easy to do given the average age of the New York Phil audience is 80 plus.
And with right hand over the heart, the entire audience sang in full voice, ending with the rousing final line "the land of the free and the home of the brave".
It made me think of the strength of America as it rebuilds its economy yet again. Now with a growth rate of over 3 per cent, and ours is still hobbling around 2 per cent, this is a people who believe in their place in the world. For more than a century, this 5 per cent of the world's population has generated 25 per cent of the world's wealth.
This sense of self-belief was on my mind last weekend, as I re-read former prime minister Paul Keating's great speech following the success of the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
Keating expressed his confidence that our great multicultural community had a new century to look forward to as one great nation - despite Pauline Hanson hijacking and distorting the term.
About a year ago I commissioned research into the attitudes of Australians and Indonesians towards each other and I wasn't surprised to find that Indonesians think more highly of us than we think of them, and of ourselves.
This is not just sad and elitist. It shows ignorance of the fact that our 250 million-strong next-door neighbour will soon be the world's fourth biggest economy.
Forty-seven per cent of Australians hold unfavourable attitudes towards Indonesians while only 10 per cent of Indonesians have unfavourable views about Australia.
Tellingly, 60 per cent of Indonesians want to learn more about Australia while only 40 per cent of us want to know more about our booming neighbour.
The vast majority of Indonesians regard us as "friendly, progressive, well-educated and democratic".
Fear of foreigners
They think unbelievably well of us and of course they are right.
But have we been able to convince ourselves that's what we are?
We are too inclined to default to a self-satisfied and defensive position that has been fuelled over the past couple of decades by politicians wanting us to fear foreigners.
This undermines our self-belief and our capacity to take on the world and win like my advertising company did and like we did as a nation with the Sydney Olympics.
I will never forget the remarkable opening and closing ceremonies of the Games that recognised the Aboriginal heritage and the ongoing vibrancy of the world's oldest continuing culture alongside the chant of Men at Work's "I come from a land Down Under".
You could feel the spirit rising in your chest. And as one of the classics of my old game used to say, "matter of fact I've got it now".
Keating said the only things that really matter in the end is our ingenuity, dexterity, cleverness and goodwill towards others.
So, who are we? We are certainly not a people who leap to our feet with hand on heart every time our national anthem is played. And I'm OK with that so long as we are committed to making the future better than the circumstances of today.
The truth is that we are a never fixed identity on the surface. As Charlie says, we are always changing, but our foundation is that of an informal and democracy-valuing mob who don't care for the old world elitist class systems that we, our parents and our parent's parents escaped from.
The 97 per cent of us who have our ancestral roots overseas owe our existence to the risks our forebears took to strike out for better futures.
And the 3 per cent, the Aboriginal population, is not just a minority to ignore or feel sorry for. It's a system of cultures that can teach us a lot about our place.
I think our challenge is to move beyond thinking of ourselves as pioneers looking for a "fair go" for ourselves. We need to trust our egalitarian intuitions more fully and work harder for a "fair go" for and with everyone, especially Indigenous Australians and our neighbours.
And, as Keating said, we should do this with cleverness and goodwill towards others and if we do that we will be able to really say, "Australians all let us rejoice".
