Born in 1991

If you were born in 1991, Australia was in the depths of the recession and the political landscape was shifting. Paul Keating challenged Bob Hawke for the Labor leadership in December and won — ending Hawke's eight years as Prime Minister — and the country was about to experience one of the most intellectually formidable and personally abrasive political eras in its history. The recession was real and painful: unemployment over 10 per cent, businesses closing, the long-boom confidence of the eighties a distant memory.

But in the pubs and on the radio, Australian music was flourishing. Nirvana arrived and *Grunge* changed everything, including in Australia — and the Australian alternative scene was ready for it. You Am I, Powderfinger forming, Regurgitator forming — the nineties would be a great era for Australian guitar music.

The Gulf War was on the television news, Australian ships deployed as part of the coalition. The Mabo case was before the High Court. The country was arguing about what it was and what it owed to its First Peoples, an argument that was long overdue and genuinely difficult.

The AFL was now a genuinely national competition, the West Coast Eagles and Brisbane Bears adding new dimensions. The beach was still there, the backyard cricket still happened, and the community knitted itself together in hard times the way it always had.