Surfers Paradise

This was meant to be an exciting article on Surfers Paradise and how far it has come over the years. I would have been enjoying the beaches and the beautiful weather; however thirty minutes into my journey my car broke down leaving me stranded in one of Queensland's most notorious suburbs for bogans. Beenleigh.

So here I sit in the middle of the Beenleigh Marketplace, one of their only shopping centres. It seems like having teeth and wearing shoes are optional here. A fairly pregnant woman comes and sits down next to me. She's wearing a shirt that says "BLOODY PROUD TO BE AN AUSSIE", flip flops, it also wouldn't surprise me if she has a Southern Cross tattoo and her name was Cheryl.

See normally I have a fairly good temper when talking to annoying people, but it's people like Cheryl that irritate me the quickest. What annoys me the most is that Australians are now becoming identified as people like her.

Australians seem to no longer be seen as outgoing, friendly and hard working. Other countries are now seeing us as rednecks or just white trailer trash with a Steve Irwin accent, when in fact they are just the minority in Australia. These 'bogans' are deterring people away from our beautiful country.

I see nothing wrong with showing some Aussie pride here and there but these people act like its Australia Day every single day of the year. They constantly walk around in board shorts and flip flops, even when its 10 degrees outside. Plus they almost always have a Southern Cross tattoo because hey, you're not a true blue Aussie if you don't have one!

And these bogan features aren't restricted to your clothes or your lack of shoes, bumper stickers are another way of expressing your love for our country. "Grown here not flown here!" was my personal favourite.

However there is a more serious side to this topic, statistics show that binge drinking and violence is rampant in this culture. The link between alcohol abuse and violence (whether it be domestic or random) is clearly seen in this subculture.

'Bogans' often have little or no education which is why they get the stereotype of being dumb and racist. The child of an illiterate person has little opportunity to see their way clear of this never ending cycle. And in this case ignorance isn't bliss, ignorance tends to breed ignorance.

For example the Cronulla riots that happened on December 11, 2005, this day saw over 5000 youths take to the streets to "reclaim the beaches" after two middle eastern men attacked Cronulla lifesavers earlier in the week. Many draped themselves with the Australian flag, expressing the idea that being Aussie meant you had to be of Anglo decent and if you didn't love Australia to the absolute maximum you didn't fit the stereotype and you were