Fair dinkum Aussie traits now accepted

Once upon a time Australianisms were frowned upon, remembers Ian Cole

WHEN my generation was young, we were inculcated with songs from England and Scotland, as well as their stories and their poems.

We learnt by heart songs like The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond and Over the Sea to Skye, having no idea where Loch Lomond was or that Skye was a place.

We recited poems from people with strange sounding names like Walter de la Mare. We accepted it as normal.

I was older before I knew of the works of Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson.

As a teacher in the 1980s, it was great to witness the school visits of Leonard Teale — star of TV’s Homicide in the 1960s and 1970s — reciting with his distinctive Australian voice, the works of Australian poets and thereby creating an interest in Australian writers to a new generation.

But still it has taken time for our humour and our accent to be publicly acceptable.

Encapsulating Australian humour has always been difficult, but it has always been there in workplaces, in crowds at the footy, in queues and in sports changerooms.

The humour was hard to translate to television so in the early days of TV we imported humour. From the US came Sgt. Bilko and McHale’s Navy, while from the UK came Tony Hancock and Steptoe and Son.

We expected cultured voices to read our news while Robert Menzies and Malcolm Fraser reinforced an expected cultured accent from our leaders. Even cricket commentators such as Michael Charlton continued our acceptance of a BBC voice.

Changes were gradual. Inroads to the acceptance of Australian humour on TV came in the form of the Mavis Brampston Show in the 1960s.

Here Australian humour and speech were at the forefront even if at the time it was seen as a little rude.

It was probably Paul Hogan who, in the 1970s and 1980s, got us to laugh at ourselves and who made the Australian accent acceptable on TV. Since then it has been quite a journey from Paul Hogan to Kath and Kim.

As our humour became more public and customary so did our accent. Prime Minister Bob Hawke, with a broad Australian accent, gave increased authenticity to our speech at home and overseas. Let’s face it, a Rhodes Scholar with a law degree, a university beerdrinking record and a strong Aussie accent ticked quite a few Australian boxes.

Increasingly, cultured accents are not as necessary for news readers. Cricket commentators use Australian slang and many federal MPs have broad Australian accents. Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie has shown that a strong Australian accent is not a disadvantage and could be seen by some as a bonus.

On top of this is the Aussie knack of being spontaneous with comments and our acceptance of this as normal. But blurting out a statement on the spur of the moment has seen many Australians in deep water with many a headline.

“Run over the bastards” was allegedly said by NSW Premier Robert Askin with US President Lyndon Johnson in 1968 as anti-Vietnam protesters threw themselves in front of their car.

“Can’t bowl, can’t throw” is the alleged comment of Joe the cameraman about cricketer Scott Muller in 1999.

“My God, she’s won it!” said Australian athletics commentator Tony Charlton when he was surprised by Betty Cuthbert winning the 400m at the Tokyo Olympics. He got into trouble back in 1964 for blaspheming!

Bill Woodfull, the normally conservative Australian cricket captain in the Bodyline series in the 1930s, was reported to have expostulated: “There’s two teams out on the field, but only one is playing cricket!”

There is also an Australian trait to dish out insults and we tend to regard this as normal. Insults can range from lighthearted to deadly serious and can be found in workplaces, meetings and in sport changerooms. Most famously was Gough Whitlam in 1975 after his dismissal as PM referring to Malcolm Fraser as “Kerr’s Cur”. Hawke had his turn when he defined any Australian boss who sacked a worker for not attending work after Australia had won the America’s Cup as a “bum”. But the master was probably Paul Keating whose jibes included, when being told Andrew Peacock may make another tilt at the Liberal leadership: “A souffle doesn’t rise twice!”

A great Australian reaction.