Are There 10 Aussie Books To Read Before You Die?

The ABC1 TV programme First Tuesday Book Club is having a vote to pick the "10 Australian books to read before you die". The titles that they have come up with so far make me think that Australia seems to punch a little under its weight in terms of literature. Unlike Brits (but like Americans) Aussies do not enjoy hearing criticisms of their country, even in such trivial spheres as culture and sport. Australia is a wonderful place, with friendly, open, tolerant people; it also has a fantastic overseas reputation and there is no nation in the world that hates Australia (even Kiwis are secret Aussiephiles judging from the number of them who emigrate here every year) but the bitter truth is that Australia has produced very few Earth shattering writers, mainly because, I think, Australians are too busy out enjoying themselves to sit in a dark room and produce great art. 
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When you look at some of the literature nominees over at the First Tuesday Book Club site you'll see what I'm talking about. Clive James's memoirs? The Slap? Bryce Courtenay? Tim Winton? Seriously is that the best you can do, Australia? I wonder how many people have actually read Picnic At Hanging Rock (including the bizarre final chapter?) Compare Australian literature to, say, oh, I don't know, Irish literature, an island that has a quarter of Australia's population and is a hundredth its size you'll see what I'm talking about. Who is the Australian James Joyce? Or Oscar Wilde? Or Samuel Beckett? Or George Bernard Shaw? Is Les Murray really in the same league as Seamus Heaney or WB Yeats? Where indeed is the Aussie Flann O'Brien or Sheridan or Sean O'Casey, Goldsmith or Swift? And if you think its only fair to talk about the twentieth century when Australia became a country, well in that time period Ireland has had 4 Nobel Prize winners in literature (not including Joyce), Australia has had 1. I don't want to go overboard with this; I do like Peter Carey (even though he went to uber snooty Geelong Grammar), Clive James, Eva Hornung, Alexis Wright and David Malouf, but my four favourite Australian books havent even made the ABC list so far. They are Monkey Grip by Helen Garner, about a divorced mother trying to make ends meet in a low rent Bohemian Melbourne; Tracks by Robyn Davidson, an almost unknown travel masterpiece; The Collected Poems of Peter Porter and The Lamb Enters The Dreaming by Robert Kenny, a history of the Christian missions to the Aboriginals in northern Victoria. 
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I'm not trying to upset my Australian friends with this post, as I pointed out Australia is a great place to live and raise a family, and I will say this for Australian literature, at least its better than Aussie pop music.