The Australian bush is both a real place and one that has taken on aspects of legend: a mysterious, rugged, and intractable frontier. It is a crucial component of Australian identity, and it is ubiquitous in Australian painting, writing, music, and other cultural expressions.
In terms of a straightforward definition, the bush is the rural country of Australia; it is not necessarily the Outback, which is the more inland and arid area of the country. It is removed from the city but can have mining or other agricultural industries. Most of the time, though, it is isolated and wild. The British encountered Australia as early as the 1600s but did not begin to colonize it until the 1770s. Lieutenant James Cook claimed the east coast and named eastern Australia “New South Wales.” About 1300 colonists arrived in 1788, and though there were early difficulties, the colony soon grew. The western part of the country was also claimed for England in the 1790s.
In the 1790s and for the next hundred or so years, European-Australian “bushrangers” headed off into the wilds to live off the land. Many of these figures were lionized because life in the bush was exceedingly rough and difficult; simply to survive was a struggle. European Australians shared the bush with the indigenous people, whom they referred to as aborigines. While racial prejudice often predominated in European views of natives, they admired the aborigines for their knowledge of the land. This did not, of course, preclude them from establishing dominance and subjecting them to European law and custom.
In the 1890s the bush became a prime source of inspiration for writers and artists; denizens of the bush were imbued with the same adventurous and ambitious spirit. This is the time in which Henry Lawson wrote, and his short stories and verses went far towards cementing the reputation of the bush in the minds of Australians and the wider Western world. Lawson's work is distinguished partly by the bleaker picture he paints; he didn't shy away from showing the harshness of life in the bush.
The bush remains a central component of Australian identity, with author and ecologist Tim Flannery stating in 2002 in an “Australia Day” address that the land is “the only thing that we all, uniquely, share in common. It is at once our inheritance, our sustenance, and the only force ubiquitous and powerful enough to craft a truly Australian people.”
