Hey,we should care for many reasons...one of which is she's a vital Western ally and we must all stick together.Yes,Australia's sparsely populated but then so is Israel (for example).
To give you an idea of how close our two countries are did you know that our First Marine Division has adopted "Waltzing Matilda" (Australia's unofficial national anthem) as their parade theme? Check it out!
As an Aussie, I can see why he's asking the question. It's a perfectly valid question to ask. I think (and hope) he probably now realises that what happens in Australia does matter more than he though - but he wouldn't have known that if he didn't ask the question in the first place. It is a fair question.
If he wasn't aware of it before, that's hardly his fault. How much attention does Australia get in America's news broadcasts? Not a lot.
Why would I, as an Australian, say that it does matter to American what happens? A few reasons - some of which have been touched on here already, because some of you are aware of them. He wasn't - he is now, because he asked.
First reason - we are an American ally. One of your closest and we have been for nearly a century. And we've been an ally even in those cases where America didn't have many - most notably in Iraq in 2003.
Second reason - because the US does have bases here - Pine Gap being the best known. We also have one of NASA's main communication stations here - the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex also known as Tidbindilla. That famous footage of Neil Armstrong stepping down onto the moon and his "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." You got to see that courtesy of the Honeysuckle Creek and Parkes Radio Telescope, based in Australia. I'm sure NASA could have found another way to do things if they'd had to, but ever since you've been going into space, Australia has been part of those missions (there's a great Australian movie called The Dish that revolves around Australia's role in Apollo XI).
Other reasons it matters - the concept of a 'coalition of the willing' which the US used in Iraq was largely developed as a doctrine in international military law (though not invented) by Australia's military intervention in East Timor in 1999 under a conservative Prime Minister (John Howard). In the recent (current) economic crisis, Australia also remains one of America's trading partners with one of the most robust economies in the world (we stayed out of recession) which matters a lot to American exporters.
There are reasons why what happens in Australia does matter to Americans and I hope JimWayne can see that now. But if he hadn't asked, he wouldn't know and that's not his fault - it reflects what American media does. He asked. It's a valid question. I hope he's got some valid answers to it.