How Australia became the world’s most regulated ‘laid-back’ country

For all the headlines about water pistols, Barcelona is really a city of smoke.

Smoke from the cigarette dangling from the maître d’s lips, the smoky curl of octopus tentacles charring on a beach grill as a leathered octogenarian in Speedos openly adjusts himself, the pungent smoke of crackers that kids fire at will (and each other) each evening.

Then you head south, along the coast towards Andalucía, where the afternoon heat lays people out like cats on cobblestones and the only thing more abundant than a heady menu is a sort of devil-may-care permissiveness. Helmets on scooters? Optional. Beers on the street? Practically encouraged. Here dogs roam leashless as toddlers are fed anchovies past 10pm and bureaucratic interference seems charmingly lacking.

It’s chaos — glorious, sensual, carefree chaos.

And it’s here, somewhere between another glass of vermut and a bullring that’s now a shopping mall, that the thought hits me: in Australia, a good time requires a QR code, three permits and a compliance officer with a clipboard and grim sense of purpose.

Read the first edition of ROAM by The Nightly here.

We’re the nation of “no worries”, except that is, we’ve become specialists in concern. Our beaches bristle with signs — “no glass”, “no dogs”, “no fires”, “no fun”.

Order a third Negroni at lunch in Sydney and there’s a questioning cock of the collective eyebrow. Meanwhile in Seville, a waiter will simply nod approvingly and bring a plate of jamón to keep things level.

Perhaps the real question isn’t whether Australians are still laid-back. It’s whether we’ve become too obedient to notice we’re not.

The contrast is comical. And a little tragic. Australians, allegedly the world’s most laid-back people, have let the bureaucracy throttle our reputational birthright. Overseas, we were once seen as bronzed, barefoot libertines who surfed at dawn and drank at dusk. Today? We’re the clipboard people who export regulations and import rules.

Of course, regulation is dressed up in the language of safety. Of responsibility. Of protecting us from ourselves. And sure, we can be savage drinkers who can’t locate the off switch and some of us have an inability to at times properly “adult”.

But there’s a quiet, unspoken trade-off happening here. Because when does protection move to infantilisation? Every recent trip to Europe and Asia has prompted thought about where we’re headed regarding our growing adherence to an increasing (encroaching) regulation.

And I now hold frequent conversations with overseas family and friends about this overreach and what is anecdotally, a layer of tarnish daubed over Australia’s otherwise powerful global appeal.

Standing in an historic Spanish plaza at 1am, surrounded by chain-smoking grandmothers, scooter-riding teenagers and parents sharing a few bottles of Trepat across an incongruous set of glassware, you wonder if we’ve lost sight of what freedom looks like.

Perhaps the real question isn’t whether Australians are still laid-back. It’s whether we’ve become too obedient to notice we’re not. And what’s this doing to our international reputation?