Has the fact that convicts were the first Europeans to settle Australia influenced our national character?
I think that all immigrants have influenced our national character to some degree or other. Having said that I have to answer your question with a yes. For about the first 50 years of European colonisation, most people were convicts or the children of convicts. They had issues with authority and disapproved of people who tried to get above their station (tall poppy syndrome). There were periods when they were not paid with money for their labour but instead they were paid with rum. So drunkeness was an accepted state of affairs. So it isn’t surprising that many Aussie males feel most comfortable with a tinnie in their hand. Many female convicts were transported for the sole purpose of satisfying men’s sexual needs and producing the next generation of labour. So, many women had many children outside of the legal bonds of marriage. Many of those women raised the children on their own in a very harsh country. It is therefore not surprising that Australian women have a strong sense of just
