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What are the symbols that define us as Australians? Symbols are often used to represent a distinctive national identity, but we all have our own ideas about what they are. Moreover, national symbols change over time as attitudes and values shift.

Here at the National Museum of Australia we have identified eight symbols which we think many Australians will connect with.

Poster featuring a woman holding a wattle bouquet and boarding a train. The title reads ' Wattle Time at ...' and lists destinations with further text that reads 'TRAVEL BY TRAIN'. - click to view larger image

Wattle time poster, 1923–28
A gouache painting on paper. The design features four kangaroos of various sizes, facing left. Each kangaroo is multicoloured with red, blue, olive green, yellow ochre and brown in an X-ray style that is outlined in beige. There are several black handprints, each within dark ochre 'smudge'. In the lower left corner is a transparency of text taped on that reads 'in dreamtime journeys kangaroo spirit ancestors travelled ...'. The text 'Balarinji' is handwritten in pencil on the lower right hand corner of the art work. - click to view larger image

Kangaroo Journeys 1, 1998
Panorama view of the landscape with Uluru in the distance. - click to view larger image

Uluru, 2019
Cathy Freeman on the race track draped in the Australian and Aboriginal flags. - click to view larger image

Cathy Freeman with Australian and Aboriginal flags, Sydney Olympics, 2000
Panorama of the Sydney Opera House. - click to view larger image

Sydney Opera House, 2010
A brown suitcase featuring a wooden handle attached to the top by metal clips, leather corner protectors and metal clasps a a pair of brown and black leather and metal suitcase straps. - click to view larger image

Suitcase that belonged to Italian migrant Carmelo Mirabelli, 1950s
A portrait of a man wearing a possum pelt over a blue suit. - click to view larger image

Ken Wyatt wearing his booka soon after his re-election, 2019
Fire trucks and firefighters surveying a raging bushfire on farmland. - click to view larger image

Firefighters working to contain a blaze near Canberra Airport, 2020

The newly completed Defining Symbols of Australia project presents these symbols to our audiences in a panel exhibition, available to any organisation to display. We see this new exhibition as an opportunity to provoke discussions, and to generate ideas from all Australians on what objects they think represent us.

The exhibition builds on a previous display, Symbols of Australia, which the Museum created over 10 years ago. In reviewing the symbols chosen then – kangaroo, wattle, billy, Holden car, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Vegemite, flag, Southern Cross, Uluru and boomerang – we realised that Australia has changed in the intervening years. And so have our symbols.

Our new selection reflects changes in society and in our communities. We have retained icons like Uluru, the flag(s), kangaroo and wattle, and added the Sydney Opera House, booka, suitcase and fire truck.

The Museum hopes that each time Defining Symbols of Australia is displayed in a new location, new ideas will be generated and different symbols discussed and debated. We don’t have the final say on what symbols matter to Australians, and we look forward to participating in a national conversation.

In our collection

KangarooA screen print and gouache painting on paper. The design features a kangaroo on a black rectangle with a blue border and another black and blue border around the outer edge. The text underneath the black rectangle reads 'kangaroo / Balarinji Australia'. A yellow post-it note adhered to the back reads '3032'.

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Moreton Bay Defining Symbols of Australia
Sydney Opera House
Holden launch
Postwar immigration drive
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