The national chart of Australia

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There are many charts for various stages in the development of Australia, beginning with Captain Cook's voyage in the 18th century. However, the birth of modern Australia, with its federal system, occurred in 1901, when both the Sun and Saturn were together in the tenacious, goal-orientated, earthy sign of Capricorn.

Although some people might imagine that Australia is represented entirely by Dame Edna and Crocodile Dundee, the tough, enduring, determined quality of this horoscope, enriched by far-ranging, innovative thinking and enormous creative power, suggests an altogether different and more potent entity. The emphasis in Australia's birth chart is in those spheres connected with philosophy and the deeper levels of existence, and this is reflected in the work of the great novelist Patrick White as well as a thriving, sophisticated astrological community and a film industry whose creative versatility often puts Hollywood to shame.

Pluto, moving over the four planets placed in Sagittarius in Australia's chart, is likely to expand and enrich the creative potential of the country, as well as bringing to the boil that ferociously independent spirit which seeks complete freedom from its British past. It is likely that over the next few years Australia will indeed make its own way in the world as a fully independent nation state.

Despite a deep love of material stability and of the land itself, reflected by the nation's Moon in Taurus, Pluto's powerful transits are likely to be reflected in some necessary upheaval and change in political and economic structures as well as in a deep re-evaluation of the relationship Australians have with their native Aboriginal population. The next few years are likely to be exciting, turbulent, productive times which release great creative potential and demand the expression of a new and more potent identity to the outside world.

Liz Greene, 1999

(Data used: 1 January 1901, 1.25 pm GST, Melbourne)