'Bringing people together': identity, racism and an Asian-Australian family

In a new book, Labor's Tim Watts takes a political and personal look at Australia's great achievement - 'outgrowing its beginnings'

Tim Watts is the product of six generations of graziers, Anzacs and pilots who could have come from the pages of Russel Ward's The Australian Legend, the 1950s book that distilled the mythical characteristics of the early white nation.

The Labor MP for Gellibrand grew up on the Darling Downs in Queensland where his ancestor John Watts was one of the first colonisers. After managing a section of land on that rich black soil, John became its first MP in the Queensland parliament in 1859.