Does Australia deserve its boozy reputation?
The slot on the front page of our website which appears to be reserved for unusual stories from down under was filled the other day by.
The rev-heads who gather each year for this 1000km race, a kind of antipodean Le Mans, are being faced again with a beer limit: 24 cans a day over the 72 hour motoring carnival.
The story seems to fit and fortify the traditional stereotype of Australian males, as a bunch of beer-swilling boozers. But does it stand up to close scrutiny?
Certainly, much is made of the spectacular booze-up which unfolded after the First Fleet came ashore at Sydney Cove in 1788, and it not only provides one of modern Australia's foundation stories, but has been embroidered into the country's self- and international image. The long accepted view is that Australia likes a drink.
From the heavy sponsorship of professional sport to some of the most entertaining advertisements on Aussie television; from the political power of the booze lobby to the publishing success stories of various wine guides and atlases, alcohol is ubiquitous.
Tales of heroic drinking performances - David Boon or Bob Hawke - are part of the sporting and political folklore.
When people conjure up a mental image of the Australian good life, something chilled is often in the picture. After all, what could be more Australian than blowing the froth off a few cold ones. Booze seems to be not just a social lubricant but a societal adhesive.
So a new book, Under the Influence: A History of Alcohol in Australia, by the historians Ross Fitzgerald and Trevor Jordan, makes confounding reading. It shows that Australia's love affair with the bottle has always been exaggerated, and that it is a mistake to view Australia's history through beer goggles.
For a start, Australia ranks 20th in the global alcohol consumption league. As Fitzgerland and Jordan note, 'barely 50% of Australians are motivated to drink on a daily or weekly basis. One in 10 Australians [has] never drunk a full serve of alcohol, another 7% are ex-drinkers, and a third of the population [enjoys] a drink now and then.'
The figures on Aboriginal drinking habits also defy the stereotype - 15% of Aborigines have never drunk alcohol (the national average is 13%). The book also shows that only 33% of Aborgines are regular drinkers compared with 45% in the population as a whole. But here's the rub: of the regular Aboriginal drinkers, 68% drink at dangerous levels.
That is not to say that alcohol is not a major problem in Australia. Ross Fitzgerland, the co-author of the book, fears that alcohol abuse and misuse is increasing 'exponentially'. Binge-drinking amongst young women alone has increased by 200% since the turn of the century.
New South Wales' chief policeman reckons that Los Angeles has fewer alcohol-related incidents than Sydney or Newcastle, New South Wales.
So over to you. Does Australia still deserve its boozy reputation? Or put another way, who is more representative of the modern-day country? Bob Hawke, who as a student famously sank a yard of ale in world record time, or Kevin Rudd, who claims to have been drunk on only three occasions during his life?
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