Does Australia deserve its boozy reputation?
The slot on the front page of our website which appears to be reserved for unusual stories from down under was filled the other day by a tale about the Bathurst 1000.
The rev-heads who gather each year for this 1000km race, a kind of antipodean Le Mans, are being faced again with a beer limit: 24 cans a day over the 72 hour motoring carnival.
The story seems to fit and fortify the traditional stereotype of Australian males, as a bunch of beer-swilling boozers. But does it stand up to close scrutiny?
Certainly, much is made of the spectacular booze-up which unfolded after the First Fleet came ashore at Sydney Cove in 1788, and it not only provides one of modern Australia's foundation stories, but has been embroidered into the country's self- and international image. The long accepted view is that Australia likes a drink.
From the heavy sponsorship of professional sport to some of the most entertaining advertisements on Aussie television; from the political power of the booze lobby to the publishing success stories of various wine guides and atlases, alcohol is ubiquitous.
Tales of heroic drinking performances - David Boon or Bob Hawke - are part of the sporting and political folklore.
When people conjure up a mental image of the Australian good life, something chilled is often in the picture. After all, what could be more Australian than blowing the froth off a few cold ones. Booze seems to be not just a social lubricant but a societal adhesive.
So a new book, Under the Influence: A History of Alcohol in Australia, by the historians Ross Fitzgerald and Trevor Jordan, makes confounding reading. It shows that Australia's love affair with the bottle has always been exaggerated, and that it is a mistake to view Australia's history through beer goggles.
For a start, Australia ranks 20th in the global alcohol consumption league. As Fitzgerland and Jordan note, 'barely 50% of Australians are motivated to drink on a daily or weekly basis. One in 10 Australians [has] never drunk a full serve of alcohol, another 7% are ex-drinkers, and a third of the population [enjoys] a drink now and then.'
The figures on Aboriginal drinking habits also defy the stereotype - 15% of Aborigines have never drunk alcohol (the national average is 13%). The book also shows that only 33% of Aborgines are regular drinkers compared with 45% in the population as a whole. But here's the rub: of the regular Aboriginal drinkers, 68% drink at dangerous levels.
That is not to say that alcohol is not a major problem in Australia. Ross Fitzgerland, the co-author of the book, fears that alcohol abuse and misuse is increasing 'exponentially'. Binge-drinking amongst young women alone has increased by 200% since the turn of the century.
New South Wales' chief policeman reckons that Los Angeles has fewer alcohol-related incidents than Sydney or Newcastle, New South Wales.
So over to you. Does Australia still deserve its boozy reputation? Or put another way, who is more representative of the modern-day country? Bob Hawke, who as a student famously sank a yard of ale in world record time, or Kevin Rudd, who claims to have been drunk on only three occasions during his life?
I'm 
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The statistics confirm my experience, Australia is generally not a booze fuelled nation although most Australians I know enjoy the reputation and there is undoubtedly a propensity for binging!
I spend almost equal time between UK, France and Australia - most French people I know regard wine as an essential of life and drink plenty, regularly, but never to excess; most brits I know regard drinking as a minor sin, drink regularly and feel guilty; the Aussies drink ferociously, curse the hangover but crave the next day "coldy"
The most significant change I've noticed is in the attitude of young Australians to booze - a far more mature and restrained approach when cpmpared to my own indulgencies of the sixties and seventies.
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I don't think it does. Well not all of it. I've been to Australia twice and on only one occasion did i manage to get drunk because the problem is a lack of places to go drinking except in Melbourne. Even if Melbourne the pub I was in was fairly quiet.
Trying to find somewhere to drink is always the first problem. I'll never forget visiting Brisbane and wanting to see what XXXX was like in the place it was made and it took forever to find somewhere.
So with a lack of places to drink I think the reputation is unmerited.
Great blog by the way Nick.
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I like to drink a few beers here and there.
I wouldn't say this place is particularly boozey except that pubs don't offer anything except grog, TV and loud or trashy music. In the end there isn't much to do but get drunk ...
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I think it's rather rich for Brits to have this stereotype of Aussies, with town centres overrun with binge drinkers on Saturdays and alcohol consumptions by football supporters watching World Cup matches on a big screen probably matches the Bathurst levels...
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To answer the first question...no, Australia does not deserve its boozy reputation, but did until about 30 years ago. Australia has not been in the 'top 20' for about 10 years
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption
Significant about the list is the proximity of Australian consumption to Italy and Greece, ie Southern Europe, rather than the higher consumption of Northern Europe. Greek and Italian migrants greatly influenced food and alcohol in Australia in the 1970s, which is when alcohol consumption decreased and it has stayed down since
The more abstemious habits of Aboriginal Australians have long been known, unfortunately it's the minority binge drinkers who get the publicity
Binge drinking amongst young people is a problem here as it is in other Western countries
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I agree that the repuration is somewhat unwarranted. Sure, we love a few nice cold frothies on a hot afternoon, and there's no denying that getting drunk is a common occurrence among many Aussies, but not on the level seen in the UK. As a resident of 4 years in Britain, I've seen some pretty horrendous displays of drunkeness; levels of excess far beyond the norm in Australia.
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Well, the statistics may say one thing, but here in Melbourne we have lots of trouble with drunken louts causing mayhem at pubs and clubs... regularly. You only have to spend a few minutes in any liquor outlet to see the shopping trolleys loaded with slabs of VB and pre-mixed drinks wheeled out by the dozen. I suspect that the ones who tilt the statistics are the over-50s. And Australia is the first place where I came across the cops breathalising drivers in a sleepy country town at 11 am on a Sunday morning (and when I passed through there were no fewer than five cars pulled over while their drivers were being booked for drink-driving)...
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Been in Oz nearly 4 years now, and what is noticably different is the attitudes to drink driving. It is socially frowned upon but there seems to be an undercurrent of tasset acceptance. In the U.K to be a drink driver makes you a social outcast, it is socially unacceptable. Many times in conversations we are left to deduce that the person we are talking to about a night out was clearly drunk and drove home. It is not admitted outright, but the game is given away in the queues in the conversation. Driving regs seems to be less punishing too. Regularly we read about people being caught well over the limit in an unregistered car and suspended from driving for a previous incident (and frequently drink driving). The punishments by the courts do not seem to appreciate that extending a ban and fining them again is not the solution as they have just demonstrate complete contempt for judiciary by doing exactly what the legal system told them not to do.
I know I drink significantly less now in Australia than I did back in the U.K. The distances are a hindrance to a pub visit, which probably accounts for the earlier comments on driving under the influence.
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One aspect that is generally different in Australia to the UK for example is the distances that most people need to travel to the nearest pub. I visit Melbourne a lot and stay in the Eastern suburbs and there isn't a pub within several miles. So the only option is to get in the car and you drink less. In the UK I live in an equivalent suburb and because of the smaller distances there are several dozen pubs within easy walking distance.
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Having lived in both the U.K and Australia for a length of time, I can safely say that...
*I have never seen an Australian liquor outlet sell alcohol for a cheaper price than bottled water (as I regularly noted with 2L bottles of "White Lightning" cider at Tesco...and Sainsburys and the local off-licence etc.)
*My paramedic brother in law will probably never see a war zone in Sydney like the regular drunken, violent mess of Oldham at 2AM on a Saturday morning.
In the school of "Greatest Boozy Reputation", Australia may be a high school graduate, but Britain is a university professor.
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Australian's like a drink like everyone, the only problem we have is we are binge drinkers when we do drink - If you go out, you out hard and generally end up in strife from booze-related fights and accidents. I think our drink-driving laws being so tough are a good thing to have.
Seeing the Aussie tourists come over to Europe and booze it up is embarassing, our name is mud in many parts of the world due to stupid acts done by stupid people when stupidly intoxicated.
Aussie like the USA & UK have binge-drinking problems as we hit it hard and sneak around when young to get it, plus alcohol is seen as an icon to have. I think Italy & France have it right by weaning kids onto alcohol in controlled environments but they have it wrong with 16 being the legal drinking age. Though Aussie may have its alcohol problems I think the line we have drawn in the sand suits us right now.
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I have lived in the UK and currently live in Denmark, i worked in a booze shop in australia for 2 years. Being Australian means you automatically have a reputation for boozing. this reputation extends even in countries like these two, which also drink heavily. and i think it to be pretty true. party areas of sydney are drunk and violent on the weekends.
If we rank 20th, and only 50% of Aussies drink, as indicated by the relevant stats, then those people drink a lot individually - and i find this to be true - especially the youngest people. not that i mind too much. its different to denmark, here everyone drinks lots and it is a genuine social adhesive, in the UK you do too.
i think someone got the nail on the head with the generational thing - the people drinking large quantities at the bottle-o were either pensioners or young people.
just to respond to another comment; my alcohol shop often sold cleanskin wines at $1 - far less than water.
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Maybe it's (the successful health response to) the mouthing off that has put Australia in a good position. In Germany for example, alcohol consumption is unhealthily high, around 13 litres a year per person compared to about 8 in Australia (UN figures) - but drinking is not considered a heroic or anti-social activity to be combatted. As a result there is little police interest in drink-drivers, or public health campaigns eg in relation to youth drinking, or information about safe drinking levels, or rules stopping serving drunks, or rules about advertising. Alcohol is also very cheap because it's hardly taxed.
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It's much the same in bonny Scotland.
There is a booze culture tag on all inhabitants, who live north of the Tartan Border.
The Scots themselves revel in this image and work hard at preserving it.
Up here it is the spirits as well as the beer that fuel the inner Scot.
So does Australia deserve it's boozy reputation ? Probably not.
Does Scotland ? I'm afraid it does !
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Many drink in Australia (as I did!), because compared to most other first world nations, there is far less competition, stress and angst, along with the sun and endless beaches. Life is more fun loving and laid back than it ever could be or ever will be elsewhere, escpecially in the US. You can drink because you just want to have fun (Austraila), or you can drink because your life is falling apart and you are supressing the desire to kill a boss or a CEO (the US)
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I don't really give a XXXX.
Cheers cobbers
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I remember seeing a photo serious on 'Alcoholism in Britain' at the World Press Photo awards a few years ago. It had a photo of a banker in a suit lying in the gutter after a night on the tiles - and 'before' and 'after' shots of 'ladies' at the races getting stuck into the champagne. The 'after' shots of the Little Britian ladies showed them wall-eyed with their hats skew wiff and make-up smeared over their faces.
SO: which culture has the biggest problem? Aussies certainly like a drink, but don't go as hard as the Brits in my opinion. In Sydney, the British backpackers have built a name for themselves for brawling around Bondi Junction and Coogee Beach on a Saturday night.
Stereotypes are very self-serving in the end. The British still cling to stereotypes of Australians that make them feel superior to them - when really ... to quote Bruno, the kettle is calling the pot black.
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Australians can enjoy a drink as much as they want, as far as I am concerned! All Australians have a redeeming feature, for which I would forgive them anything! -- Every Aussie citizen has a healthy disrespect for the motives, actions and opinions of their political representatives!
I am a taxpaying UK citizen voter, who is learning to acquire this skill since I started researching the expenses claims of those in the Fraudsters' Parliament in Westminster!
Note to any Aussie citizen!
The term Fraudsters' Parliament is copyright free! Feel free to use it if, sober or not, you feel it would be appropriate for the Australian political scene!
Regards,
John L Bell
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Could it have something to do with the thousands of Irish prisoners shipped off to Australia in the 1800s. Us Irish do love our drink ; )
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I actually hard a hard time getting a good cocktail in Sydney when I visited Australia. The pubs close around midnight and the "after-hours" spots are either few and far between or tourist hell holes. The worst thing was the legal measure that bartenders are forced to use when serving hard alcohol. It's way too small so you really have to spend a lot of money just to get a buzz.
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The comment at no 5 above is the most accurate I have read above. Back in the 1970's, Aussies were prolific drinkers, emulating and perhaps exceeding their UK counterparts. However, cultural changes from southern European immigrants and elsewhere have rubbed off. Aus citizens drink a less beer, drink more wine but in moderation and are much less likely to drink spirits at all. And loutish drunken behavior is more frowned upon.
Of course, I am still trying to maintain the old traditions...
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I have recently moved back from Australia to the UK, and the Brits definitely drink a lot more.
I think it has a lot to do with the standard beer glass size. 'A beer' in Sydney is usually a schooner which is smaller than an imperial pint. In other cities it is an even smaller glass called a 'pot' or a 'middy'. Only Adelaide the pint is pretty much standard, but the word refers to a glass the size of a Sydney schooner.
In fact, Nick, the study of Australian beer glasses (schooners, pots, middies and pints, but also ponies, handles, bobbies, eights, shetlands and butchers) might be worth a blog in itself.
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I think maybe Aussies like the larger than life image 'a boozing nation' affords. Why? Two reasons. On the one hand it could be considered a form of collective self-deprecation. Kind of puts everyone in the same pub, so to speak. And secondly, this self-created, larger than life image is needed as 'therapy' or a self-preservation mechanism, if you will, for a nation that is collectively at odds with its identity. Whatya' reckon?
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Having been in a relationship and lived with an Irish girl, I can garuntee that the Irish at least drink alot more on average than Aussies do (that's probably not a huge surprise to anyone - as they say, you're not an alchoholic till you leave Ireland).
Having spent time in the UK also, I'm definatley of the opinion that the average Brit drinks alot more than the average Aussie, and when they do drink they get stupid, falling-down, starting fights with anyone, making a mess of yourself drunk.
In Sydney at least I think people are maybe a bit more self concious about not coming across as drunken slobs on a regular occaison.
Having said that, these are all generalisations.
There are problems with alchohol in all modern western societies.
To be honest, the stereotype of drunken Aussie louts is about as accurate as the stereotype of Aussies in Acubra hats, hunting crocodiles and living in the desert. There are Aussies who are like that, but they're a very small minority.
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I shake my head when I read a British blog about Australian's and their drinking, and yet most of the comments are centred on one or two capital cities...where most of the Brits settle when they come to Aussie. Most coastal Aussies/imports, and major city dwelling Aussies/imports live within a reasonable distance of a pub, club, or other alcohol outlet. Anyone caught drink driving in those places deserve to be fined/jailed/loose their licence.
But in REAL Australia, where the REAL Aussies live...mile from a pub/town, the story is somewhat different. MOst of those Aussies work off slabs of beer, not glasses. When the missus goes shopping, she will have half a car full of groceries and the other half full of slabs....24 or 36 cans in a box.... In Queensland it is mostly XXXX Gold. These slabs are what the hubby and his mates consume once they get home from work, after having spend the day in town at the sales yards and then at the pub. Or rounding up cattle for sale...travelling miles in helicopters or land vehicles...Or trucking stock feed from one place to another etc.
This is the real Crocodile Dundee country. The coastals would throw up if they consumed half of what a bushy consumed. They are hard, and dangerous, drinkers....but they also live hard and dangerouls lives.
And as to the drunken louts that start brawls around Bondi, and the southern beach areas etc, when arrested the police should find out where they were born, or where their parent's were born...and maybe send them back to where they came from...to learn some manners...and a bit more of Aussie kulture *S*
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The Brits deserve the title far more than the Aussies from my short Australian experience. Sure you go out on a Saturday night in Sydney and there are p*ssed up folks all around, but you have to remember that in NSW its against the law for a bartender to serve an intoxicated person (according to my limited law knowledge). Obviously I haven't seen this happen much and have ordered many a drink while under the influence of one too many schooners, however, my gf manages a bar in the northern suburbs and has asked many punters to leave due to a few too many. You would not experience this in a pub in the suburbs of Glasgow, or anywhere else in the UK for that matter, you would be laughed at! You get booted out when you are falling about / starting fights / closing time rather than "intoxicated".
In relation to a previous poster - There are any number of boozers in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane to get a drink, to the point where you can't decide which one to visit! Almost every corner in the inner city.
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having spent the first 30 years in and around London and the subsequent two in Sydney I would not regard Australia as heavy drinkers.
Yes as in every city you get the after work drinks and Saturday nights out but personally I don't see the excess that I saw in the UK. The biggest reason I think is the weather and outdoor lifestyle.
In England when you met up with friends you went to the pub. Here you go to the beach, the park or have a BBQ and while alcohol is often consumed I don't think it is to the same level as the UK.
The outdoor lifestyle and general skew towards fitness is a big influence here and as a result it is very noticeable with the people I work with the ones that have spent time in the UK. They head to the pub while those that haven't tend not to drink very much at all.....I feel I would also be a bad influence if I hadn't become a dad and now head home on a Friday.
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Nick has raised this *Australian* book as a point of interest, and asked if boozy Australia deserves its reputation, not "are Aussies worse drunken yobs than the Brits?".
What a shame that so many of the discussions in the comments on Nick's blog dissolve into a strident "Brits are worse/better..." or "Aussies are worse/better" slanging match. Isn't it possible to have any intelligent debate on this topic without using the UK as a basis for comparison? Do the contributors only feel Australian culture is worth discussing when put alongside Britain?
Anyway. I was amused by Petesyc's reference to REAL Aussies. More than 75% of Australians live in large cities, so surely they're more representative of the "real" Aussie than the 25% who don't? Only 37% of Aussies describe their ancestry as Aussie as well, so sending the other 63% home would probably result in a collapse in the beer market... ;)
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Jessu Nick, can you PLEASE remember that you are writing for a British Web Site here. It would be nice if you would at least for once blog on something fro our point of view. Australia is NOT seen as a particularly boozy nation here in the UK, yes there is a feeling that Aussies like a lager or two but certainly nothing negative. Compared to our opinion of ourselves, the Irish, French, Dutch, Germans etc, Australians are seen as somewhat of a moderate nation when it comes to drinking in excess. I have no idea if that is the same worldwide or within Australia itself and I don't care.
Far too many of your blogs are just bubble-centred drivel and this is yet another.
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28 = Aren't you confirm my point that most people living in Australia, calling themselves Aussies, are really imports, living in major town, while generational Aussies live in the outback. And as to your numbers I think you'll find there are a higher percentage now living in regional Aussie and out of the big Cities.
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Alcohol consumption is hard to gage. Australians defiantly like a drink having experienced the country for myself. However there are many other factors that come into play when measuring alcohol consumption. I know in Ireland (where I’m from) there is currently a high alcohol consumption rate. This however has as much to do the baby boom of the late 70’s early 80’s as all those babies are now young adults with no ties and money to spend on going out and getting drunk. I would suspect that in the next 10 years a lot of these adults will be settling down and thus our alcohol consumption will go down. Countries also measure spending on alcohol differently. For example when comparisons of alcohol consumption are made, distinction is normally made between spending on alcohol in pubs on the one hand and in off-licences on the other. In most European countries only spending in off-licences is attributed to the category "alcohol" in national statistics, whereas money spent in pubs and restaurants is included in categories such as "recreation" or "entertainment". As a result Ireland has a disproportionately high level of expenditure as 78% of alcohol bought is bought in pubs and restaurants. I hope all this hasn’t board you to much.
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Petesyc, I'm fifth generation Aussie, and my family has never lived in the bush. My great-great-grandparents came out from Galway in the 1860s and my family hasn't strayed far from Sydney since.
Does that mean I'm not a real Aussie, cuz I don't live in the bush?
I'm certain there's alot of other old Australian families just the same too.
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32= "Does that mean I'm not a real Aussie, cuz I don't live in the bush?"
Of course not, but you would have experienced the Australia I was trying to explain, unless you are under 50 years of age. How many of your neighbours are generational Aussies, as we are, and how many are 'paper' imports?
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Australia does not have uniform liquor laws, they are different in every state, so we do get slightly different drinking cultures in different areas.
In Victoria where I live the liquor licence fees are very reasonable and they allow cafes and small bars to easily afford to have one. The law allows for cafes and restaurants to serve someone a drink without serving them a meal. The laws were first ammended in the mid to late 1990's and have helped see an explosion of cafes that sell liquor and small boutique bars, particularly in suburban Melbourne.
NSW is in the process of ammending their laws as they would like to create some of the Melbourne bar and cafe culture in inner Sydney. The Sydney mayor Clover Moore is really pushing this.
My understanding is that at the moment Sydney has many venues which are discribed as 'beer barns' that are large pubs that are designed to pack in the punters and are not a hit with women. The fees are just so high that you can't afford to have a small venue that only has room for say 50 people.
Also restaurants and cafes basically still have to serve somone a meal in order for them to be able to serve someone alcohol. I think this was because of the pub and club (social and sporting) lobby pushing their dominance when the laws were orignally drawn up. The fees were also very expensive in the past, so a mum and dad cafe might have felt that having a liquor was just not affordable.
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Petesyc I am under 50, so I've not experienced the Australia you refer to, so I'm sorry but I can't know what Austrlia you refer to.
From my perspective nothing but good has come from immigrants to this country.
We are all immigrants at some point after all, the only real Australians are the aborigines (even they got here by boat, but about 50,000 years before we did).
My ancestors were Irish for the most part, and took advantage of the opportunity here to start a better life, just like the Southern and Eastern Europeans after WW2, like the Chinese since the Gold Rush, the Vietnamese after the Vientam War, the Lebanese during their civil war, and the African, Asian and Middle Eastern refugees in more recent years (and the kiwis fleeing the terrible burden of being from New Zealand - poor bastards).
Did you know that when the Irish came out in large numbers in the 1800s they were seen as a huge problem for the colony, a wave of immigrants bringing their strange and threatening ways (read Catholicism and anti-British sedition)? They were seen as threatening the Britishness of the colony, just as you see newer immigrants as threatening your Australianness.
Now the Irish are seen as the forefathers of this country probably as much as the English are. Strange how a bit of time can change perspectives.
Whent the Greeks and Italians came out during the 50s, 60s and 70s everyone was terrified of the 'wogs'. Now they are as fundamental a part of Australian society as any other people living here. And they have added so much to our culture, particularly in the big cities. Melbourne in particular owes much of it's heart and soul to the influence of these immigrants, and Sydney too.
So just because it's different, doesn't make it bad mate, if anything it makes life more interesting.
Besides any national culture is just an idea, which varies from person to person. I can already tell jsut from our breif conversation that your idea of what constitutes Australian culture is completely different to mine, but that doesn't make either of us right or wrong.
Since Australian culture is ever changing and different for every group within Australia, no one person can claim to define it, let alone seek to keep it in some kind of stasis.
Besides, for all of Australian history, all of it, the majority of it's people have lived on the coast, for the most part in large, cosmopoliton cities and towns, with much more of an affinity for urban life and the coast, than rural life and the bush.
That's just a fact mate.
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Petesyc - I got my numbers from wikipedia's most recent census info - counted up the inhabitants of the cities bigger than Ballarat (I think?) and what percentage of a total. Maybe you were thinking I was talking about state capitals?
I didn't really want to provoke a debate on what makes an aussie a 'real' aussie; but if there are more people in Australia who don't claim Australian ancestry than people do, can the latter really claim to be 'real' aussies? I'm just being devil's advocate - I don't have an opinion either way - all non-Aboriginals are immigrants, some have been here longer than others, that's all :)
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36 = waterloosydney, may I humbly suggest Australian Government's Bureau of Statistics, in particular our last Census for accurate figures. It has been awhile since I went there, but from memory there is a simple breakdown sheet that gives figures on people living in what areas.
It is where I get my figures.
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After having lived in Oz for close to 10 years, I wonder about the veracity of some of these 'survey statistics'...
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I personally think its wonderful!
But then again im a British uni student so I don't think im the best person to judge these things.
On a more serious note when I visited Sydney it did match the drunkness of a average saturday night out in Britian the main differences was there was a lack of idiots who couldn't handle their drink and either ended up sick in the streets or in a fight. I'll give the aussies their due they know how to have a good night out without ruining it for everyone else by drinking too much.
That and they sung me swing low sweet chariot to make me feel at home!
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