Originally posted by Keelie
"Australia is becoming a nation of thugs and boors, Prime Minister John Howard said Thursday in a policy speech ahead of the forthcoming general election.
Road rage, random violence and the predatory behaviour of some of the country's top sportmen were among the symptoms of a 'coarsening' of Australian society, he said.
Howard was worried about a growing culture of aggression, particularly among young men.

'We should all refect on what this means for Australian society', he told and audience in Adelaide.
He cited examples, including a string of sex scandals which have recently caused a crisis in Australian rugby league and Australian rules football.
Players have been accused of offences ranging from gang rape to lewd and drunken behaviour."

Originally posted by Megalania
Can't get a decent Saturday arvo fight down the pub anymore.

Originally posted by Keelie
Players have been accused of offences ranging from gang rape to lewd and drunken behaviour."

The no worries society

Tuesday July 6, 2004

Australian racists hate to be told they are racists.

When an Australian recommends the forced eviction of Aborigines from their own land, it is presented as social welfare. When an Australian advocates imprisoning Iraqi and Afghan refugees in secretive detention camps, it is presented as border control.

Australian readers, who are deeply touchy about criticism from expat poms, will be quick to point out that Britons are in no place to preach...Refugees are scapegoated in Britain much as they are in Australia, though for the most part with less damaging effect.

But the important distinction comes in the way the two countries treat the racism in their societies.

In Britain, years of campaigning have resulted in a climate where the political mainstream sees open bigotry as a grave problem that should be tackled; in Australia, such behaviour is still tolerated.

Imagine, for instance, if three Asian restaurants were firebombed in one night in a British regional city, accompanied by swastikas painted on the walls. Imagine if the police force investigating the attacks were already under fire for an incident involving officers dressing as Ku Klux Klan members.

Or imagine if a senior officer on the nation's largest police force - equally under fire for its handling of some of the biggest race riots in the nation's history - were to be caught using similar language to that of Mark Wright, a New South Wales police superintendent who has escaped punishment after describing police operations among rural Aborigines as "chasing coons around the bush".

Stand around a barbie on a midwinter weekend when the mercury stands at 25°C, and it's easy to forget... that you're living in a rich country where a third of Aboriginal children are malnourished, where refugee children are incarcerated for up to five years without trial, and where the government lies to the people to win elections and prosecute adventurist wars.

Scandals that would bring down a Westminster government scarcely rate a tremor on Canberra's political seismometer.

It needs to change.

Australia should be able to build a sense of self-respect without recourse to evasive myths that treat racism as a family secret to be swept under the carpet and ignored. The British may love to scratch away at their sores, but scrutinising your sickness might just give you a chance to cure it.

Pretending it doesn't exist does nothing but give it time to spread.

Originally posted by steandleigh
Doesn't sound much different to the alleged crimes of many of the pampered pussycat english premiership then.