Hats are starting to come back into fashion in Australia, though nothing like in the article's photos. Hats were seen as old-fashioned, but over the past couple of decades, they've become much more common with schoolkids to protect from the sun. It's pretty common to pass a primary school at lunchtime and see every kid wearing the school cap. My guess is that with more kids growing up used to hats, there's less of a block to wearing them as an adult.
edit: on further thought, hats also used to be seen as something to wear with suits, and as people wore less in the way of suit-like clothing, hats went too. In more recent times, hats are used more and more with other kinds of clothing - if you see someone wearing a fedora in Australia, it's much more likely they're young and wearing casual clothing than someone in business wearing a suit.
Both the State primary schools I went to in the '90s had strict 'No hat, no play' rules. We had to wear a hat to go outside, and I assume other State schools still have the same rules.
The rule didn't exist in high school though, so nearly everybody stopped using them.
You know those signs on the road in Australia that say, "Tired? Tired driving Kills!" --or something like that? You know that law in Queensland where you can't smoke 25 feet from a starbucks? Or the one in WA where if you get two tickets for screeching your tires, they steal your car and crush it? Or the one where you have to spend 30 minutes strapping on a helmet and pads to climb a ladder and fix a roof tile?
Yeah, you guys are really free thinkers. And your kids look great covered in cancer-causing toxic waste wearing stupid ass straw hats.
-1. What's the problem with safety laws, and what do they have to do with free thinking?
It's hard to drive when you're tired.
Not everybody in Australia appreciates cigarette smoke.
Most people here don't like hooning, but "they" won't "steal" your car for it. It might, however, be confiscated.
I don't know of the law at home, but workplace health and safety is taken very seriously here. Not wearing safety gear can get you and your employer in quite a bit of trouble.
Try to be a little more constructive instead of mocking Australians.
Edit: The smoking law really is fantastic by the way, when people obey it. As a kid, I remember having to walk through 20 metres of cigarette smoke to get into a shopping centre. It was putrid. I don't mind people smoking, but the smoke buildup outside shops wasn't good.
Note also that you also have to be pretty obnoxious to get a 'strike'. It's not just 'squealing brakes' as mentioned above, which suggests that an emergency stop will get your car crushed.
Check out the photo next to the section heading. Now imagine this happening late at night in the street outside your house, 2-3 nights a week, every week, sustained for half an hour or more, with collections of aggressive, macho men associated with it. At best it's a public nuisance, and frequently it scares residents. It's not just 'squeaky brakes'.
Right, right. Thanks for confirming my analysis. All I'm saying is that Australia has become one of the most conformist, politically correct nanny states on earth (while still calling your natives all kinds of nasty names and treating them even more like children than you treat your "full white" citizens). Your opinion of all these things as being advancements is dead in line with the overall Australian tendency to bend over twice for America, China or whoever happens to make you feel like embarrassed yobs today, so nothing new there. What's kind of sad is that I came to Oz looking for a place where people thought for themselves, and instead found something like a very arid version of England. Which I hate. So to answer your question about what's wrong with safety laws: They are the last refuge of scoundrels, small minds, and people who are afraid of ladders.
* I should just edit this to say that all the coolest Australians I met in a year of travel were 65 or older, smoked like chimneys, and thought everyone under 30 in their country was an unintelligible fool. They lived in places like Hay, Tenterfield and Dubbo. I'd like to give a tip of the hat to John in Inverell, who bless him is the epitome of what your country was and should be. Other than your old fellas, it's a joke.
True as that may be (I honestly don't know or care much about Australia), it's kind of a dick move to swoop in and make random anti-Australian rants whenever someone mentions the country.
I think that this says more about your character than that of Australians in general. The way you've presented your beliefs makes it pretty clear that you've chosen to view things through a twisted lens.
I'm sorry you had a bad experience travelling here, and there are problems here as everywhere. But just making things up and spitting them out with vitriol doesn't do anyone any favours.
How did you set your self up for this unhappiness? Why did you go to Australia expecting to find something and turn out to find something so different?
edit: on further thought, hats also used to be seen as something to wear with suits, and as people wore less in the way of suit-like clothing, hats went too. In more recent times, hats are used more and more with other kinds of clothing - if you see someone wearing a fedora in Australia, it's much more likely they're young and wearing casual clothing than someone in business wearing a suit.