The Birth of an Australian Tradition

Thursday, 30 January 2003 (Day 48)

(Part 3 of the increasingly irrelevant Tugboat History of Australia. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here).

One of the enduring legends of Australian history is the tradition of mateship. According to the orthodox account, mateship originated with the first settlers, especially the convict members of the population and their natural antipathy to the officers and men of the New South Wales Corps. So it is disappointing that Manning Clark (admittedly a dubious source) does not provide confirmation of this view. It's sad to read Clark's accounts of how so many members of the then convict mainstream of Australian society, faced with either the lash or the gallows, were so eager to lag on their mates in the mistaken belief that this might buy them clemency. On the other hand, the frequency with which offenders faced punishment remarking that it "was a fair cop guv' and ain't I a mug for falling in with the wrong lot" shows that the tradition of copping it sweet does originate with the convicts.

One Australian tradition we can confidently say traces back to the early days is the tradition of the rort. The first rort originated with Grose's well-intended grants of land and trade rights to the officers of the New South Wales Corps which was extended by Paterson, Grose's temporary successor. It established the pattern for its many successors, such as the rorter's insistence that the primary purpose of the rort was the public good rather than private gain. So, in the matter of trade, the public good was served by the restraint of the officers in setting mark-ups on the price of rum at between 150% and 1900% rather than at the more extortionate levels that would be charged by ship's masters whose rapacity was not restrained by a gentleman's code of honour.

...