'G'day Mate' becomes a distant voice
AGC Gossip
SYDNEY (Reuters) - ``G'Day mate'' once echoed around Australia, in outback
hotels, along the shores of its crescent-shaped beaches like Bondi and in
football stadiums on wintry weekends.
It is a colloquial greeting made internationally recognizable by comedians like
Paul Hogan in the film Crocodile Dundee, a quintessentially Australian phrase
that tourists try to twist their tongues around.
But as Australia confronts major social and economic changes ahead of a new
millennium, researchers say ``mateship'' is dying.
Rod Cameron, from the ANOP polling firm, Tuesday said mateship, a social
concept that once united Australians, was vanishing as Australians become more
self-centered in the belief that their world was more vulnerable.
``We are really living in a much more competitive society,'' Cameron said. ``We
have been downsized, outsourced, globalized, deregulated, contracted out and
multi-skilled and the poor old worker just sees competition all around.''
``We are looking after number one. Never before has individualism been so
prominent. In this context mateship is just breaking down,'' Cameron told
reporters.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard says mateship resonates in every
Australian and wants to enshrine it in a new constitutional preamble if
Australia cuts 211-year ties with Britain and becomes a republic in 2001.
But Cameron disagrees with Howard and says that not only does mateship have no
place in a constitution, it is a concept that plays a diminishing role in the
lives of Australians.
``There is something still quintessentially Australian about the concept of
mateship, but it is disappearing fast and I suspect in another couple of
generations we will look upon it as an historical concept,'' he said. ``It
won't be a relevant word.''
Cameron said his social research, around barbecues, in hotels and on the
streets, had found that while the Australian economy was buoyant, Australians
were pessimistic about their future.
``We have this paradox of this drive in consumer spending, which is keeping
growth chugging along nicely, but at the same time the people doing the
spending are not very optimistic about the future,'' Cameron said.
``They are working much harder, they are much more competitive but they are not
earning any more. They can't see where the gain is frankly,'' he said.
``It is a much tougher life, dislocation is much greater and therefore we turn
more inward and look after self and family and we don't bother as much as we
used to about our mates.''