Sport a window on Australia's big issues
I know that some of you think this blog can be a tad sports-obsessed at times. But isn't Australia? I have never lived in a country where the traditional separation between front and back page stories is so very blurred, and often so non-existent.
I have never lived in a country where sport is so frequently the gateway into so many weighty societal discussions. Arguably, sports-related phone-ins and discussion programmes are increasingly becoming the nation's "public square", the forum in which a broad range of moral and behavioural issues are thrashed out and argued over - although rarely resolved.
So the most recent rugby league scandal provides the context for a series of over-lapping debates, from the possible need to redefine what is meant to female "consent" (does a 19-year-old woman have the power to say "no" when confronted by a roomful of rugby players?) to what is implied by "mateship" (why haven't Matthew Johns team-mates, who were in that hotel room in Christchurch, come forward?); from homo-erotism in macho sports (why this fascination with watching team-mates have sex - a "bun", in the parlance of rugby league?) to the role of the media in these kind of controversies (could and should the original ABC Four Corners programme, Code of Silence, have offered a more complete and complicated account of the events in Christchurch?).
In recent times, sport has thrown-up discussions about gambling (with Russell Crowe's attempt to banish poker machines from the South Sydney Rabbitohs club); drinking (with the Manly rugby league club's drunken season-opener party); domestic violence (the prosecution of the rugby league player, Greg Bird, for glassing his girlfriend); and violent assault (the prosecution of the swimmer, Nick D'Arcy, for attacking his fellow swimmer, Simon Cowley).
Racism has been discussed in the context of the Bollyline series and the "monkeys" taunts directed towards the black all-arounder, Andrew Symonds. Discrimination against gays has come up with the suspicion that the diver Matthew Mitcham has not been the beneficiary of the kind of corporate sponsorship deals that an Olympic gold medallist could normally expect. Breast cancer has received an enormous amount of media attention partly because it took the life, tragically, of Jane McGrath, the wife of Glenn McGrath, one of Australia's most likeable sportsmen.
National prestige is often judged by the quadrennial Olympic medal haul. Corporate prestige is often judged by the quality of your sporting sponsorship deals (Qantas, the national carrier, goes for the Wallabies, the national rugby union team, for instance, and the Aussie Olympics squad) and appropriating naming rights on the country's sporting cathedrals (imagine the clash of the corporate titans if the MCG ever offered naming rights to the highest bidder?). When Rupert Murdoch locked antlers with Kerry Packer, it was over the right to broadcast rugby league.
On national days when there hasn't been an obvious sporting component, the sporting codes have eventually muscled in. The ANZAC Day rugby league and Aussie Rules fixtures, which only took their present, blockbuster form in the mid-1990s, are the most obvious examples. The opening of the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra is another. The then Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser cut the ribbon on January 26, 1981 - Australia Day. Admittedly, this works both ways. After his retirement from international cricket, Adam Gilchrist accepted an invitation to chair the National Australia Day Council.
This primacy of sport puts an inordinate amount of pressure on the men and women who run the various codes. Often they owe their positions to being brilliant marketeers, but increasingly they are being forced into the role of moral arbiters and moral enforcers. Sometimes, when alleged crimes are committed, the police and authorities step in. But in instances like the Christchurch sex scandal, where the New Zealand police decided that no crime had been committed, sports administrators and sports broadcasters are increasingly being asked to decide what is right and wrong.
One final observation on the recent controversy, and the search it has sparked for sporting role models. There is near universal agreement over one rugby league player who can comfortably perform that role: the Cantebury Bulldogs player, Hazem El Masri, a non-drinking, non-smoking Muslim, who arrived in Australia with his parents in 1988. Anyone care for a debate about multiculturalism...?
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What choice do Australians have other than to look to our sports men and women as moral leaders? As a nation, we instinctively distrust preaching politicians and political preachers. All we have left are our sports people, business leaders, actors or musicians. So not surprisingly, we choose the better behaved of the group which are sports people.
The problem is that sporting success relies mostly on brawn, not brains, which is fine on the field. Off the field however, brawn mixed with large amounts of money and fame make for a bad combination. It could be argued that as Australia has no less than four professional football codes (Aussie Rules, League, Union and A-League), with thousands of well paid and famous young men, that there is relatively little bad behaviour.
It may be why we are so appalled by the actions of the few who do transgress the implied role of moral leadership they are given in Australian society.
When politicians talk about violence or sexual morals, it is assumed they do it to get elected. When business leaders do the same, it is to sell something. When sports men or women, or sporting administrators talk about any of these issues, it is for the 'good of the game' and that is something we will listen to.
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for sporting role models look to Nathan Hindmarsh before Hazem.
Married, 3 kids, 4 years in a row has won the Provan Summons Medal (most popular player in NRL) and recently just resigned with his club to be a one club man.
inexhaustible charity work and general all round good guy.
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ugh... Nick, you are so right (again). And there are many examples other than the ones you mentioned. It's the reason so many non-sporty Aussies leave the country each year.
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"I know that some of you think this blog can be a tad sports-obsessed at times."
It's just the cricket fascination that bamboozles me and many others sometimes.
Seriously though - in your ABC interview recently, Nick, you spoke about how Australia has a tendency to confound cliche's and pre-conceived notions. I'm surprised that you still believe in the universality of sport culture in this country.
Any time you want to tag along with someone who works in the Australian arts industry, just let me know. There's more to us than this.
I honestly don't think that the make-up of the tabloids, the content of talk back radio, and even the viewing figures of prime time sport (which over 90% of the country doesn't watch) makes an effective case.
Certainly, sport is significant to our country - but it by no means dominates what we're about, and certainly doesn't speak for our wider culture.
Every major country has instances of violence, alcohol and substance abuse, sexual crimes, and indeed - they will be committed at the hands of a high-profile individuals from time to time. But does that say something about the country? I'm not convinced.
But I'm glad you mentioned Matthew Mitchum - a prime role model. But there are many others outside the sporting arena.
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Nick, you could have added that Hazem El Masri is also the "alltime" leading points scorer in the NRL. "High Profile" sport in Australia will be truly multicultural when the first Vietnamese player appears in the AFL -especially if he's playing for Collingwood !!
Whitlamite, I agree there are many role models outside the sporting arena but I doubt any of them are politicians.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Thanks for mentioning Matthew Mitcham.
I have a theory about why he has not attracted the kind of sponsorship his Olympic achievement and post-Olympics publicity would normally have delivered. It probably doesn't explain everything because he does have some sponsorship and he may well have turned down some offers that were too small. I think, however, that we don't really consider discrimination by gays (or closeted gays) against other gays. It never gets a mention anywhere, but is an active part of the way our society functions. What happens is that those who are suggesting who is deserving of sponsorship or making the actual decisions themselves are not comfortable with putting forward names like Matthew's because of what it says about themselves. I don't really think that most genuinely "straight" people would or could find anything at all threatening about Matthew. Of course there are hardline extremists who would not like him, but they're probably not in the majority in any case.
It is a shame that he has not really enjoyed more sponsorship. He is certainly a better role model, especially for younger people in the gay community than just about anyone else I can think of.
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I beg to differ Whitlamite.
Whilst you are clearly an intelligent person who understands Aussie culture outside of sport, you are I suspect, unfortunately in the minority.
What's the adage?
"There's more culture in a tub of yoghurt"?
I know I am generalising here, but Australia is a country with no history it's prepared to admit to and therefore no binding culture:
The historical link with England is seen as, at best, embarrasing. Don't mention the Aboriginal history. There is Gallipoli and there is Kokoda (I know I'm being glib and there are many other brave moments in Aussie history) but military endeavours don't have cross-cultural appeal (excepting ANZAC day).
No, it's sport. That's all Australia has to cross the multinational/multicultural lines and bind the country. Sporting achievements are the only things that Aussies are universally proud of.
Sport IS your culture, like it or not.
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#8
'Glib'...s that a euphemism for stereotyping?
You've failed to grapple with the nature of 'New World' immigrant countries. They tend to have short very intense and often violent foundation histories superimposed on a preexisting indigenous society. They've been part of a European empire and there is history associated with their role in that empire. So there is an invasion history and frontier conflict.
Contrary to what you assert, this history has been explored and acknowledged publicly in Australian society over the last 50 years. It hasn't in the invading power, Britain, but that's for them to do,.. or not, as it seems.
Then there's the long and continuing history of immigration and immigration policy, the creation of an independent polity, nation building with the establishment of commerce - the role of wool and the Gold Rush in colonial Australia have entire libraries of books devoted to the topic if you care to look (have you?)
The struggle to create a federation from 6 self governing colonies, development of a separate foreign policy, Australia's role in wars, particularly 2 World Wars, our most contenmtious war, Vietnam - have you heard of Vietnam?
The vote for women, secret ballot, White Australia, the 1967 referendum, ANZUS, responding to the rise of China...
And that's just for starters
Sport is in there somewhere
I think it's the land itself which unites many Australians. It's a unique country which is paradoxical and challenging. That holds its own attraction
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Excellent points, Wollemi.
Allow me to comment further on what you've said, WWWorker.
I can only summise from your language: "Sport IS your culture, like it or not" that you're not Australian. So allow me to set the record straight from a local perspective.
The old line about there being more culture in a tub of yogurt is a phrase I have heard spring exclusively from the mouths of British people. And I do believe that it stems from an ignorance and a cultural arrogance that can't seem to comprehend a national culture so different from the UK. We place emphasis on certain cultural practices and national institutions in a very different way to Britain. We are 12,000 miles away after all.
You said that you were generalising when you declared that Australia has no history it is prepared to admit to. I am absolutely baffled by that comment. As someone who has both indigenous and non-indigenous heritage I celebrate all 40,000+ years of our history and culture. Having such a long heritage of perfect equilibrium with the land only to be changed inextricably by the arrival of Europeans and many others only to find a different kind of equilibrium many hundreds of years later - that's a fascinating cultural situation to me.
I find it interesting to speak with Britons who have arrived in Australia recently to live and work, almost always their notion that Australia was essentially a transplanted UK (sidere mens eadem mutato) has been totally confounded.
You see, I don't think there's any possible way that we *cannot* have a culture.
In spite of your assertion that Australia doesn't have much of a culture, you talk about Australia's military history and its cross-cultural appeal or lack thereof. I don't quite understand your point, and if you're suggesting that WWI and WWII aren't relevant to all Australians and are remembered only marginally, then you couldn't be more wrong.
You seem to have this idea that 'multiculturalism' means that a country doesn't have a culture. You don't seem to understand the Australian view that multiculturalism and cultural interchange represents a culture in and of itself. Our culture is comprised of the sum of its parts.
Finally, you believe that sport is the only thing that makes Australians proud.
It's a staggering comment, the ignorance associated with it aside - how on earth do you apply that logic to the UK? There's a British republican movement, therefore not all Britons are proud of the monarchy, therefore the monarchy is not part of British culture.
You see where your argument leads? Nowhere.
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I wouldn't have expected a less passionate response from you Whitlamite but I'm still sure you are in the minority (unfortunately).
Thanks for yours and Wollemi's potted history lessons - but you miss my point. It is the very fact that the history that you mention is NOT seen as, universally, moments to be proud of to such a multicultural society that sport has become what it is in Australia.
The average Australian has very little interest in history pre or post invasion. I have never met a Sydneysider who could tell me where the name Woolloomooloo came from - or even cared for that matter... My son and I went on a bush walk with some local indigenous people. This was a well advertised event - we heard of it through my son's scout group - the walk covered aboriginal history, culture and bush experience. Any idea how many people turned up? 2 - me and my son, yet to get there we drove passed the usual plethora of crowded sports fields.
I wander just how many Aussies have read The Fatal Shore? I bet more have read Wisdens!
If you cannot recognise how important sport is to the popular culture of Australia then I can only assume that you spend too much time enjoying the 40,000+ years of alternative Australian culture you speak about (not that there's anything wrong with that).
Perhaps I should have said sport is your COLLECTIVE culture, whether you like it or not.
I have to assume you fall into the not liking it bucket.
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WWWorker,
You seem to have this idea that a culture is something universally agreed upon or embraced. You've invented this special category for Australia. The very fact that I alone don't spend my days being fascinated by sport surely contradicts your argument. Sport isn't universal, not many things are.
Can you name a single feature of British culture to which all Britons universally agree?
Even if a focus on history and the arts in Australia is a minority interest, it doesn't detract from its significance nor indeed its status as 'culture'.
I do recognise how important sport is to Australia, but it's not 'our culture', and it certainly doesn't obliterate the culture of the oldest surviving civilisation in the world. And I do find your description of Australia's indigenous and military history as 'alternative' to be mildly offensive.
Our 'collective culture' is in a constant state of flux, but it incorporates our history, the arts, our traditions - and of course sport is associated with that. But it's not our 'collective culture' in its entirety, it is a part of it.
Again, I can't quite believe this 'more culture in a tub of yogurt' attitude. This is a country whose most prominent landmark is an opera house for goodness sake.
P.S. - I'm from Sydney. The name Woolloomooloo is obviously indigenous but its origins are unclear. It was named after Woolloomooloo House which was built in the now suburb in the late 18th century. Further back, I believe it refers to either a kangaroo or a place of fertile soil. And yes, I have read The Fatal Shore.
I honestly wonder where you've spent your time in this country and the company you have kept to have arrived at your conclusions. I'm sorry that you've experienced such a narrow view of the country. There's so much more out there.
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WWWorker
I don't miss the point at all. You stereotyped - and continue to stereotype with your apparent knowledge of 'average Australian'. There is no 'average Australian', that's the nature of an immigrant New World society which has evolved from pre existing indigenous society.
Australians come from everwhere and have made a society which integrates those experiences of 'everywhere' into the local society. That's how a New World society operates. Greek migrants do not leave their experiences of Greek history and civilisation at the airport. They've infused those elements into Australian society - elements of civilisation which predate a lot of what Britain had to offer
So your estimation of Australia as a place of 'no history it's prepared to adnit to' is false There is a rich local history, warts and all, which is freely discussed and the traditional history of migrants from a plethora of countries,
I would add to something Whilamite said - the yoghurt comment you made is something which comes ONLY from Britons. No one else. No one else displays that level of cultural arrogance.
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#11
I would add that if you consider THe Fatal Shore to be the definitive book on convict transportation and the convict system then that might be part of your problem. Robert Hughes is an art historian, not an authority on Australian history.
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The rugby scandal is an example of a NON sports story.
It may have escaped your notice, but half the country doesn't even follow rugby and two-thirds of Australians DON'T live in Sydney.
Cricket ? It's relegated to the graveyard shift nowadays.
You want sports obsession ? Have a look at The Sun's website.
I knew a woman whop was playing Basketball for a state team (she had to pay to play in Austrlalia), who was offered a $100 000 scholarship to play in a State university in USA.
_That's_ obssession.
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@dazzlingj002
But that's just another wider issue that Australia's sports 'obsession' reveals: the basic lack of gender equality, let alone the blatant misogyny.
When I lived in Melbourne, over the course of a year I did an informal survey of the coverage of woman's sport in the Sunday Herald Sun sports section. Of the average 16 tabloid pages of sports, less than 1/2 a page on average went to woman's sport, some weeks there wasn't any. The only time there was more than a page was for the Aussie Open tennis, when you got full page splashes of Sharapova in her skimpiest outfits.
I have a cousin who also played pro woman's basketball for a few different teams around the country, well pro except for the two part-time jobs she needed to make ends meet...
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#16
Salary for a woman playing top professional basketball in the US is $100,000. For a man in the NBA it's $5 million
So the US sports 'obsession' must also lack 'gender equality' and be 'blatantly misogynist'?
I'm pretty sure I could dig up similar gender differential examples from the UK (women's soccer? women's cricket?)), Canada (ice hockey?)and any European country
Unfortunately it's market forces. It's difficult to think of women's sport anywhere which commands the same prize money and same publicity as men's sport. Tennis has probably gone furthest to achieving equal prize money in the Slams
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Wollemi said: "I would add to something Whilamite said - the yoghurt comment you made is something which comes ONLY from Britons. No one else. No one else displays that level of cultural arrogance."
You've clearly never observed the thousands of Australians living in South London.
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Scrap my previous post. I thought you said cultural ignorance, not arrogance.
Yep, the British are culturally arrogant, almost as much as the French.
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Nick, when the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australian was written, we as a nation saw no reason to specify that there be a separation of sport and state.
Firstly, we have our own code of football, however we are free to practice any code of football we wish, even British football (soccer).
Secondly, even though we have our own code of football, the Commonwealth of Australia does not impose an observance of it on its citizens, however a knowledge of the game is preferable/required when doing business in Melbourne. Also, the Commonwealth of Australia does not require its citizens to have an observance of the Melbourne Cup race, however no customer service should be expected within ten minutes of the starting time, until the race has been completed, and the nation is not required to stay sober from noon onwards.
Thirdly, Australians are free to practice a faith in just one sport of their choosing, however we are actively encouraged to learn how to swing a cricket bat as soon as possible after birth, because playing a game of cricket at a picnic, involving more than twelve people, is mandatory. Also, learning how to swim, preferably at a fast pace, is not a sport, it is a survival requirement. We have crocodiles and sharks that can out-swim us, and we will most likely have ended up in either a pond, dam, river, creek, sea water, or swimming pool, unaccompanied by a parent by the age of three. Even refugees are required to know how to swim, as it is the only way they can be sure to make it here, after their boat has sunk on their way from Indonesia.
Fourthly, under our constitution, a person cannot be required to pass a test on any sport in order to obtain a job in public office, nor can they be denied a position in the public service because of their particular sporting preference(s).
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Nick Bryant,
You forgot to mention that when Our National teams lose, it often does'nt get announced on the News or is given out as the last item on the news!!
The only "said to be sport" that really gets the headlines and total coverage, is Aussie Rules, which is really "All In Wrestling played with an Irish Ball".
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