No, it's not hypocritical at all. It's an historical matter. Australia was settled by convicts from Britain and people who worked very hard to establish a life in this country. Their spirit was still very much alive a few generations later when we arrived as migrants in 1949. In the fifties when the english migrants began to arrive, being 'on the dole' was out of the question for an able-bodied Australian. The population was just on 7 million at the time.
The europeans were housed in migrant camps and shortly after arrival, more often than not within a matter of weeks, fanned out across the country to take up their two year work contracts for the government. They assimilated quickly.
I am not sure why so many Brits remained in the camps for several years, but they did. Perhaps being British they were not required to sign a government contract. It was from these camps the early complaints originated. The culture of 'the government should provide' showed itself in complaints about the living conditions, the amount of welfare received, and of course, the complete lack of government housing.
Government Housing? There never was any. Whatever gave the Brits that idea? The europeans, in the small town where we ended up, built themselves shacks out of scrap timber and waterproof packaging. Our family were lucky enough to find a small house to rent without plumbing that cost half of our weekly income...my father, a professional, dug irrigation ditches for eight years!
The 'whinging poms' earned their name because their expectations were not met. Perhaps they simply came because they were sick of english weather? I've often thought they 'whinged' because they did have something to go back to. Most european migrants didn't.
Thanks for the reply. Your family history sounds fascinating and I have always wanted to visit Australia (relatives who have travelled there loved it).
You raised some very interesting points about Brit emigration in the 1950s. Would you agree though that part of the Aussie ‘Pom-bashing’ culture originated from Australia’s own desire for a national identity? By that, I mean that the Aussie Pom-bashing originated from a desire to grow away from the Empire and an indentity of a British possession to a true sense of nationhood.