Australians have a dirty little secret.

It's very hard to hear, over our habitually raucous national celebration of larrikins. We know what we like, right?

Prime ministers who sink pints and gamble.

Bushrangers. Cricketers who can down 52 tinnies during a single flight. Cultural sacred-cow-tippers.

Soldiers who did things their own way.

Suffragettes who overturned international conventions about who should be allowed to vote.

The indomitable land-rights activists who refused to be written out of the continent's history. And so on.

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The Australian story is a loud and unruly one, full of individuals who looked at the world around them, and decided to break the rules.

Which it's why it's so surprising that when asked to nominate the key element of what it means to be Australian, the most widely agreed-upon response was this: "Respecting our institutions and laws".

Forget larrikins. To be Australian — according to the recipe written by more than 50,000 respondents to the Australia Talks National Survey — the big thing is to follow the rules of the place.

On a scale of one to 10, this attribute scored 8.7 across all respondents.

Respecting laws and institutions was a more important element in the cocktail of Australian-ness than any other traditional or contemporary identifier of national spirit.

Just feel 'the vibe'

For many parts of the globe, nationality is about where you were born.

But to this nation of immigrants, the question of birthplace is near-irrelevant. "Being born in Australia" rated only a 3 on the scale (though a breakdown of respondents showed a spike among One Nation voters at just above 5, tidily offset by Greens voters who care even less than everyone else about the land mass on which you originally entered the world).

"Being white" was the only element deemed less relevant than birthplace, rating only 1.8. And "Living most of your life in Australia" wasn't viewed as especially important either, rating below 5.

In fact, the key to being Australian is — according to Australians themselves — more about your attitude than it is about anything the census would pick up.

It's a prescription that could have come from Working Dog's 1997 film classic, The Castle; "It's the vibe, Your Honour!"

The second-most important way to be Australian is to "Appreciate the natural environment" (a score of 8.3, as codified in The Castle by Daryl Kerrigan's timeless observation: "How's the serenity?")

The third-highest factor in being Australian is simply "Feeling Australian", rating 7.5.

It's pretty clear: To be a real Australian, you need to follow the rules, love the land, and just feel the vibe.

We are insecure about our Australian-ness

But the matter of national identity isn't necessarily an objective one. Just because you personally feel Australian doesn't mean you're confident that others will see you in the same way.

When respondents were asked how Australian they felt, the average response was a patriotic 8.

National spirit was higher among the over-75s — who scored themselves a 9 — as well as among Protestants (8.8) and One Nation voters (8.7).

But across the board, respondents expected others would probably see them as less Australian than they actually felt.

This was true on average across all respondents, who — despite rating themselves an 8 on feeling like an Aussie — expected that others would probably rate themselves a 7.

Immigrants of less than a decade's standing felt more Australian than not (an average 6.5) but expected that others would rate them a 5.4.

Non-white Australians felt nearly as Australian as their white countrymen — 7.3 — but predicted that others would rate them as more like a 6.2.

The recipe for Australian-ness, as discussed above, doesn't call for whiteness or local birth as a significant ingredient.

And when asked whether immigrants to Australia could retain their cultural values without being any less Australian, 80 per cent of respondents agreed. This was a majority view across all voters groups except One Nation voters, only 36 per cent of whom agreed.

When presented with the statement: "Most immigrants these days don't try hard enough to fit into Australian society", however, 33 per cent of respondents agreed (this proportion soared to 78 per cent among One Nation voters).

And men (40 per cent) were more likely to share this view than women (27 per cent).

What's going on here?

If most of us don't care whether immigrants hang on to some cultural beliefs from their places of birth, then why do a third of us entertain the view that immigrants aren't trying hard enough to fit in?

And if our interest in skin colour and place of birth are so irrelevant to grading a person's Australian-ness, then why do non-white Australians and immigrants retain a palpable apprehension that fellow citizens won't wave them through as breezily as the majority like to think we do?

Belonging is a complicated business.

It doesn't follow simple rules, much as we'd like — apparently — to see them uniformly respected.

The Australia Talks National Survey asked 54,000 Australians about their lives and what keeps them up at night. Use our interactive tool to see the results and how their answers compare with yours.

Then, tune in at 8.30pm AEDT on November 18, as the ABC hosts a live TV event with some of Australia's best-loved celebrities exploring the key findings of the Australia Talks National Survey.