At times like Australia Day and Anzac Day we hear a lot about national character and our distinctive Aussie values. What often gets lost in this conversation is that character and values are matters of choice. They’re not like the weather or the terrain, something that we have to navigate around or adapt to.

Rather, our national character is created by the sum total of all the choices we make collectively. It’s when we reflect on these choices that we get a sense of what our national character is.

“By their deeds shall you know them.” Many white Australians are discovering this truth as they grapple with the legacy of how Indigenous Australians have been treated. The same is also true when our neighbours look towards us to consider what kind of people we are.

All this leads me to reflect on something very troubling in today’s national conversation. Margaret Thatcher is no longer with us, but one part of her legacy looms large in Australian politics today. One of her celebrated methods in browbeating colleagues and constituents alike we’ve inherited is “Tina” – the repeated assertion that “there is no alternative”.

We are constantly told that a government must do this, or that, or the other thing, because there is no alternative. Chipping away at universal health care, turning degrees into expensive commitments, slashing overseas aid, you name it – every unpopular measure, every abandoned promise is justified by the mantra of Tina.

Tina says the sky will fall in if we make transnational companies pay tax in the country where they make their profit. Tina says Medicare will collapse if we don’t impose charges, because it has to provide for people living to 150. Tina says lots of things, and must be obeyed.

But there are three big problems with Tina. First, it is simply not true. There are almost always alternatives. Collectively we do have choices. If government decides to prioritise other spending, that is a choice they are making. When they decide to bestow or perpetuate massive tax concessions to particular sectional interests, that’s also a choice they are making.

Tina’s second problem is that it confuses the relationship between government and community. Our democracy is based on the idea of government that serves the community and obeys the community - not the other way around.

And in that confusion lies the third and most dangerous problem. Ever since John Hewson’s election loss with Fightback! in 1993, oppositions have been fairly reluctant to spell out their intentions honestly, to level with the electorate about what they intend to do and why. Instead they adopt the small-target strategy, lubricated by glib denials of anything radical, and only once in office do they announce their true agenda, all wrapped up in a thick layer of Tina rhetoric.

By invoking the politics of Tina, governments are not treating voters as adults. They are treating us like small children who must have decisions made for them. Except that this is a democracy, we are not children, and government does not always know best.

This will be a critical year for Australia, and I think a critical moment for how this generation’s values and character will be judged and remembered. Big decisions will be made in areas like taxation, education, health care, and Australia’s place in the world. Ultimately it is these decisions that shape the kind of nation we will be and how we will be seen.

It’s all about the choices we make. We can choose to be insular and self-absorbed, or we can engage the world with confidence and generosity. We can choose to further exacerbate inequality and division, or we can opt for cohesion and a sense of the public good.

In 2015 most Australians have a strong sense of common identity and common cause. But it would be naive not to recognise that parts of the social and political fabric have started to fray. Or that a more honest and open weave is needed if the story of Indigenous Australia is to be successfully woven into the weft of our nation.

To achieve this we need to re-focus on the kind of society we want and make our national decisions accordingly. We need participation and genuine debate and conversation, not the politics of fait accompli and executive decree. We need inclusiveness and the common good, not greed and the desperate defence of sectional interests.

Australia’s nationhood remains to me something we should be able to find a source of pride and inspiration which is all the more reason for all of us to get behind proper recognition of Indigenous Australia in our national life. We should be able to celebrate being Australia together not just on one day, but every day of the year. But we can only celebrate if everyone is part of the conversation, part of the ever continuing process of making and remaking our common life together.