Born in 1984

If you were born in 1984, the Hawke government was in full swing and the feeling was of a country modernising without losing itself. The dollar was floated, foreign banks were being let in, the economic architecture was being rebuilt — dry economics reported in the newspapers while the rest of life went on. INXS released *The Swing* and were moving from being a local phenomenon to an international one.

Kylie Minogue was still on *The Sullivans* and nobody knew what was coming. *Countdown* was still the Sunday night ritual, Molly in his hat making enthusiastic pronouncements. The Holden Commodore was the family car, reliable and unpretentious, and the V8 ute was the working man's chariot.

VFL football was approaching the grand transformation that would make it the AFL, but for now it was still eight Melbourne teams and a few interlopers. Rugby league in Sydney was approaching its own transformation — the Parramatta Eels were the powerhouse of the early eighties. The beach at Christmas was exactly what it had always been, and the barbie, and the backyard, and the smell of sunscreen and cut grass.

Housing prices were beginning to move. The country felt energised and slightly impatient with itself — ready to go somewhere, not entirely sure where.