Short fiction up from Down Under

I don't know much about Australian short stories - who does? (probably fellow blogger Charles May) - so it was a pleasure to come across one in the current New Yorker, Art Appreciation (good title), by Fiona McFarlane - of course I didn't know it was Australian when I started, just an urban office setting, in which one of the guys in the insurance co begins a flirtatious relationship with one of the women - didn't quite seem American in tone, and then McF dropped the name Sydney several paragraphs in. OK - not sure what's especially Aussie about this piece, in a way it could have been set anywhere - could it be the fascination with low-stakes gambling as a recreational sport? - obviously many Americans go to the track, but there seemed a casual acceptance of spending weekends at the dog and pony tracks that wouldn't quite ring true if this were a U.S. setting. Also, McF sets the story in 1961 - but there are no particular period details that I was aware of - story could, maybe, have been set today (assuming they still have dog tracks in Sydney?) except that the long courtship without sex would e highly unusual today. The heart of the story: the guy's mother has just won the lottery, and this makes him a much more confident suitor - but also causes him to leave the woman who's probably a much better match - but he goes back to her, or seems to (ending, as is so typical of short fiction) is maddeningly ambiguous. McFarlane does a really good job in portraying the hopes and aspirations of some ordinary "middle class" (there's really no other word for it - they are not exactly working class, but their lives seem to be bound by low aspirations and mundane experiences - thus the importance of the title, the love interest goes to art appreciation classes on Fridays, she has a yearning for and maybe even a pretty good sense of art and beauty and culture, but he is condescendingly tolerant of her interest - but eventually pressures her to drop the class so that they can go out of Fridays, a clear indication of their incompatibility) - these are the kinds of characters that, in most American fiction, would either be subjects for comedy or burlesque (also condescending in a different way) or for existential malaise - many interesting pieces in the U.S. about the alienation of the current business environment - Saunders, Farris, even DFW. McFarlane's nonjudgmental attitude toward her characters is rare and admirable.