Australia, Land of the Free (if you don't mind being told what to do)

Australia Land of the Free.... (If you don’t mind being told what to do that is)

That’s the image of Australia that I had. Surfing every lunchtime, a bohemian, free society where the sun dictated the lifestyle, where barbies on the beach were an everyday occurrence and where you didn’t have the hassle from back home. No politicians or news programs scaring you with tales of woe, no silly little regulations like ‘No ball games, no camping or no barbeques’ on perfectly good pieces of grass...ah I couldn’t wait, Australia, here I come....
Okay, let’s get one thing straight. Australia is not sunny all the time. I repeat, not sunny all the time. Not only this but it actually rains and feels cold here! I remember my first ever trip to Bondi beach wearing my hat coat and gloves I looked ridiculous. Not only this but Australia is probably one of the most regulative countries that I’ve ever been to. Now maybe this is a slight misconception because I don’t understand Spanish or German very well so I may have missed a lot of the ‘you can’t do this’ signs everywhere on other trips but hear me out because this is important.
My first contact with those dreaded signs on buildings and at the side of roads was when I was in a camper van travelling along from Cairns to Brisbane. Now the reason I did this was because Australia is expensive and I sure wasn’t going to be paying $40 a night for a dorm bed together with crazily priced bus travel and crazily slow train travel. So I hired a van thinking that it would kill two or three birds in one stone. For instance, I had transport, I had a bed and I didn’t have to live in dorms full of ‘I’m travelling (on Daddy’s credit card)’ British teenagers. Perfect. On the sides of some of these campervans they have pictures saying something like ‘Wake up with a sea view every morning’.... Ah the freedom! That sold me, the idea of parking up at a deserted beach, watching the sunrise before having a nice al fresco bit of Aussie tucker. Yes perfect.....But no. Unfortunately this idea of freedom like so many things is not exactly what happens in real life. I mean I managed it a few times but I can’t think of anywhere where I didn’t see a picture of a tent with a big red line through it. That’s okay I thought, I’m in a camper van not a tent. However, I got woken up at 6am on two separate occasions and asked to move on by an albeit friendly officer in a fluorescent jacket. From then on I admit I started ‘noticing’ these things. I noticed that 'tiredness kills' about every three kilometres but that you can’t really pull up to rest without the threat of the little fluorescent people visiting you in the morning. I noticed that on public transport ‘people on concessionary fares’ had to give up their seat for full fare paying passengers at busy times or risk being fined. I noticed that ID is required EVERYWHERE and if you don’t have any even though you may look 40 years old, you can’t come in. I noticed that if you cause annoyance to any other person on the beach at Byron Bay you can be fined! I heard the radio playing silly little songs about swine flu and why you should ‘wash your hands with soap’ I also noticed why people never crossed the road when the green man wasn’t visible but there were no cars within view, anywhere. It turns out that pedestrians who cause a hazard to vehicles can be fined!!! Excuse me?? I thought pedestrians had a right to walk as well! However this silly jaywalking rule wasn’t the main thing that got my gripe. In a local paper, the equivalent of the metro paper in the UK, (yes I know tabloid) there was on the front page an article that I really couldn’t believe, in fact it spurred me on to write this article....It read ‘Ipeds told to unplug’ (mxbrisbane 27th August, 2009) The article was about how pedestrians who listen to MP3 players while walking ‘near roads and traffic’ should unplug because they cause traffic hazards! They could receive a $2000 fine or even jail!! How can they do this! It also says that most accidents are caused in the CBD by careless pedestrians walking out in front of cars!!! As if the car driver who could be listening to deaf metal, would most likely be confused by the amount of people, buildings and confusing directions in the city centre would have no blame whatsoever! But the lone pedestrian after waiting for what seems like an age for the little green man to appear and finally being able to cross the road, even though traffic still comes round the corner, if he or she is hit by a car and if by any chance they are listening to Coldplay on their iPod they will be to blame!
I know not the reasons for this, I only know that it makes Britain look like a very liberal country. I guess it may still be the regulatory hangover that this country has got from copied British regulations of the 1970’s and 80’s that the UK has hopefully de-toxed itself of. My only hope is that the next generation tries harder to expand the image of Australia that most people have, that of lunchtime surfing, freedom to live life to the full and cricket being able to be played underneath a turquoise sky on any day of the week while eating Kanger Bangers in the shade of a eucalyptus.