Australian Bicentenary A new musical "Manning Clark's History of Australia", directed by John Bell, that was loosely based on the life of historian Manning Clark opened in January at Princess Theatre (Melbourne) to coincide with the Bicentenary, but facing poor reviews and concomitant lack of attendance, closed before the end of February. Significant improvements to Australian roads were made through the "Australian Bicentennial Road Development Program". The event triggered debate on Australian national identity, Aboriginal rights, historical interpretation and multiculturalism. The event was widely viewed as controversial. Planning for the event raised issues of national identity and historical interpretation. Some wanted to
Big Country discography UK Album Chart and their subsequent albums "Steeltown" (1984), "The Seer" (1986) and "Peace in Our Time" (1988) all reached the top ten. By the time of the band's fifth album, "No Place Like Home" (1991), their commercial success had begun to wane and they released three more albums between 1993 and 1999 before the suicide of Adamson in 2001 led to the band splitting up. In 2007, Butler, Watson and Brzezicki celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of Big Country by reforming for a UK tour, touring again in 2010, this time with Mike Peters joining the band for vocal duties.