It's Australia day and the Australian flag is everywhere: on handbags, arms, lunch tables, cars, flapoles. It's the new style. People are even wearing it. After doing the shopping at Woolworths and the fruit shops I walked along the beach at Victor Harbor with the dogs. I stayed in a space between the playing crowds and I remembered taking this photo I'd taken a year or so ago.

Gary Sauer-Thompson, sand dunes, Victor Harbor 2004

Australian nationality has gone conservative with its reconnection with the unconscious fear of the Other, distrust of multiculturalism, the celebration of the diggers as the national character, all the talk about our values and Islam versus the West.

I used to be a nationalist . Now I'm not so sure. I find myself thinking more about the fragile ecology of the coastline in the context of global warming. i could not help thinking that what this photo represents may not exist in a decade or so, due to rising sea levels and big storms resulting from global warming caused by greenhouse emissions.

So I decided to work on a visual expression of the landscape I belonged to, and was a part of. This is my country; one that is becoming warmer and generally drier as the westerly storm belts that bring winter rain to the southern parts of the country are going to south and so less effective. We need to start forcing industries and businesses to lower their greenhouse emissions.

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