School drop-off parking cops, cricket fun police: It’s Australia’s punishment culture

When a kindly-looking elderly woman asked if she could share my table at a cafe not so long ago, I happily shifted seats, moved my computer and gave her the lion’s share of the space. Then, after sitting down, she scolded me for using a laptop in a laptop-free zone. In true British fashion, I apologised excessively. In true Australian fashion, she applied the rules excessively, pointing disapprovingly at the sign partially hidden by the espresso machine that had escaped my gaze.

One of the surprises of coming to live here was the realisation that the story Australia tells itself about being a land of rule-breakers and anti-authoritarians is fallacious. Ned Kelly, and all that, is a myth. Meek are most Australians in obeying a sometimes bewildering number of rules. Rigid are the authorities in applying them.

A traffic warden on patrol at SCEGGS, Darlinghurst.Credit: Edwina Pickles

Take school drop-off, which often becomes a game of cat and mouse with the squadron of council parking inspectors dispatched like SWAT teams to ensure harried parents park for only five minutes rather than six. Do they really need to levy such heavy fines? Do they need to show such zero tolerance? Do they need to hunt in packs? These public servants are only doing their jobs, of course. My beef is not with them. But are they truly serving the public?

To those who learnt to drive in Britain or America, being ordered to park in the direction of the traffic flow is a novelty. Rear-to-kerb parking is also unusually prescriptive. And don’t get me started on the cryptic parking signage and its messy hieroglyphics. Sometimes, it takes so long to decipher that it is already time to drive away.

Even when Australians are supposed to be having fun, they are met with the long arm of the fun police.

At my first Ashes series on Australian soil, I was shocked to see how fans bouncing weightless beach balls were met with such heavy-handed policing. Cameras were trained on the crowd with a rewind capability to identify miscreants who had started Mexican waves. Patrons were asked to remove their sunglasses before ordering a round of drinks to ensure they were not inebriated. There’s a rationale behind these rules and regulations, but also an overactive streak of joylessness.

Police patrol at the SCG as gates open for an Australia v India Test in January 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Crowd members who did not wear a mask faced a $1000 fine.Credit: Getty Images

Initially, I found it jolting to see black riot squad police cars outside sports stadiums in which I have never witnessed crowd trouble. On the Sydney Harbour foreshore on New Year’s Eve, I was taken aback by the number of police officers enforcing alcohol bans. Now, though, I realise this is de rigueur.

It came as little surprise to read this month, for example, that Australia leads the world in arresting climate and environment protesters. The rate of such arrests was the highest among 14 countries studied, researchers at the University of Bristol found.

That is the Australian way. This is, after all, the only liberal democracy in the world without a national human rights act or charter of rights.

The wit and raconteur Peter Ustinov once conjectured that a key to unlocking modern-day Australia was to understand that the country came to be populated not only by the descendants of convicts but the offspring of jailers. To North America, the British Pilgrim Fathers brought a stern morality. In Australia, the British invaders were more penal than puritanical.

Maybe the history of settler Australia as a convict colony also goes some way to explain why small infringements are met with such heavy fines. Miscreants were transported to the Southern Land for the most minor crimes, such as cutting down a tree in an orchard or stealing items, such as loaves of bread, valued at less than a shilling. As Robert Hughes reminds us in his masterpiece, The Fatal Shore, less than 4 per cent of convicts were shipped to Australia for “offences against the person”, including assault, manslaughter and murder.

Maybe the punishment of petty crimes bred a bureaucratic petty-mindedness. But even if Australia’s punishment culture is a legacy of colonialism, contemporary Australia continues to sprint with that ball. Small wonder a stern former police officer stands a reasonable chance of becoming prime minister.

Clearly, rule abidance has its upsides. This is a well-ordered society. I can see the civic virtue of alcohol bans at the beach. Double demerits have been shown to reduce car-crash casualties by 30 per cent. And please, this summer, swim between the flags.

A reason Australia fared so well during the first year of the pandemic was it had a government used to imposing restrictions and a populace used to obeying them. The outward travel ban, a cornerstone of the Fortress Australia policy, surely would have encountered fiercer resistance in other Western countries with less rules-based mindsets.

Having a ball … even two beach balls. An attempt at fun during an Ashes Test at the MCG. Credit: Justin McManus

Having lived in America for most of the past decade, I have also observed the dangers when libertarianism is allowed to run amok – when behavioural norms are cast aside, when democratic guardrails are wrenched from their moorings and when lawlessness becomes a political selling point. In the aftermath of the Port Arthur massacre, the kind of firearms restrictions that would have provoked armed rebellion in the red states of America were met with admirable compliance from Australian gun owners.

Always, though, it is a question of balance. Often, the level of enforcement seems disproportionate to the level of offence, whether it is fines levied just minutes after a parking ticket expires, or the inability to differentiate between a retiree enjoying an open-air glass of chardy and a twenty-something tucking into whatever concoctions twenty-somethings tuck into these days. Australia’s punishment culture can be too officious and unbending. While this country remains the lifestyle superpower of the world, its officialdom could be a little bit more laid back.

Nick Bryant, a former BBC Sydney correspondent, is the author of The Rise and Fall of Australia: How a Great Nation Lost its Way.