The Aussies like their sports, and why not - the weather's generally pretty good out here, and the TV's pretty bad, so spending time outside is the better option. However, they don't appear to be the laid back race I'd been led to believe by the Fosters and Castlemaine XXXX ads. Every Monday the news is full of football (AFL) and rugby players who are waiting for the sports judiciary to decide their fates following violence during the weekend matches. Two weekends ago an Aussie Rules footy match descended into an all-out scrap! I know this happens in the UK sometimes too, and our soccer players certainly aren't the most placid chaps, but this is every week, and there are usually a good four or five players in trouble. We've seen numerous eye-gouging incidents, plenty of "collisions" with the ref, and a whole host of punches, kicks and pushes. (I've not heard much about fan violence here, so perhaps the fights are kept on the pitches, unlike in the UK.)
And it't not just in sport that the Aussies could do with demonstrating some anger management techniques - they're very aggressive drivers too. They use their horns a lot, and reports of road rage incidents are common. There was a report recently of a man barging a woman off the road, dragging her out of her car, beating her and raping her. Blimey - no need for that! Hardly the "no worries" attitude to life I was expecting.
I put this to a taxi driver when I was on a trip for work. He said that the Aussies used to be laid back, but because of immigration since WW2 nearly half the population were only second generation Aussies or newer, and that has changed the make up of the population. I don't have the information to check his figures, but that would be a very large proportion of recent immigrants. I wonder if he's right. He did say that things are more relaxed outside the big cities, which I suppose is inevitable.
Still doesn't justify the racism that is rife in a country where the vast majority of the population are themselves immigrants.
Violent crime is fairly common, though I can't say whether it's more common than elsewhere. What is amusing though is they call a mugging a "bashing" as in "an old lady was bashed today as she walked home from the shops." An unpleasant meaning, but trust the Aussies to give it a funny name.