Last weekend I had the fortunate opportunity to head west with a true group of friends for the infamous Birdsville Races. I must say this event is an icon of the Australian Outback and a bucket list item that simply must be ticked off.
While on the edge of central Australia and some 1700 kilometres from the closest ocean I began to ponder that possibly we have this all wrong. Now perhaps it was the sound of Fred Brophy’s drum, the thirst quenching hospitality of the Birdsville Hotel or experiencing one of the most epic sunsets my eyes have witnessed but it dawned on me that the luckiest country on earth is being strangled by our nanny state tendencies
Let us observe the comparison of the young hipster’s night out in our supposed epicentre of sophistication, Sydney, verse that of a weekend at Birdsville. Our young friend in downtown Darlinghurst can only buy a quarter strength beer after 10:30pm, cannot; smoke within 2.5km of anywhere, throw a punch at a piñata or gamble on anything but an electric greyhound chasing a tofu stick across a digital screen – wild times.
Compare this to a young lass in the metropolis Birdsville for Australia’s quintessential outback racing weekend. She can fight ‘The Beaver’, sleep under a wing on the tarmac, dance on the tables, take boatrace shots until daylight and streak the famous track in her birthday suit – “now give her a rally!”
On reflection it is strongly evident that those captive to the tyranny of distance and isolated from the mod cons are the truly the free.
Possibly it is our convict heritage that allows us to casually accept the creep of modern totalitarianism but the nanny state culture extends much further than the controls to a night out. It squanders the liberties from many parts of our personal and professional lives. Currently we are debating controls on the extent of freedom in our freedom of speech, who can marry who and the colour of the skin of the purchaser of the Cattle King.
We are tripping over ourselves to restrict free enterprise be it through vegetation laws, council approvals, FIRB or registration certificates Australian business is drowning in the great inland ocean of Red Tape. Modern urbanised Australia does not possess a culture that is fostering start-ups or pushing thought boundaries.
If we truly want to be a globally attractive hub of innovation, a great contributor to a global Pacific focused economy then we need to stop restricting our society. If we spend all our time wrapping everyone in cotton wool, or high-vis for that matter, we will lose the spirt of ‘give it a crack and she’ll be right’ – a spirt that made us the lucky country.
