In this year, the Australian bicentennial, a review of the Australian family is timely. Families — their structure, duration and function — change in response to their environmental context. Aboriginal families were uniquely adapted to their environment, and while first European colonisation was not intended as family settlement, families soon became established. In 1888, the conventional nuclear family was clearly in evidence as a response to an industrialising society. Changes are evident in the family of the 1980s, changes which have implications as this country looks forward to its third cent