(My original piece has been revised below, as I’ve reconsidered crime numbers in the light of Mark Twain’s famous maxim about lies, damn lies and statistics, and hopefully put them in better perspective. Mea culpa for perhaps misleading you about my lovely fellow Orstralians)
New Year’s Day is the culmination of Festive Season madness after our weird Aussie celebration of the possible birth of the son of God in Jerusalem over two thousand years ago.
Beforehand we go on a huge ‘Christmas’ shopping spree (average adult spend $783), totally at odds with Jesus’ vow of poverty and simplicity. Then we act out an ultra materialistic ‘giving’, in stark contradiction to the original spiritual dimension.
Then we gather with our nuclear (pun intended) families to over-indulge around the dining table, lubricated by large quantities of alcohol. Critically though, we also air dirty family linen and old resentments that have been festering during the year, or indeed for decades. Family psychological stress and conflict are at peak levels.
Last year family meltdowns in NSW produced a tiny excess of domestic violence on Christmas Day, with 129 reported assaults (up 78%* compared to the year’s daily average), so 55 more cases. Although all violence is to be deplored, for a population of 8.2m that seems amazingly low, but of course the numbers are from police records, so unreported assaults would be much higher.
Interestingly, non-domestic assaults were down 20%* on Christmas Day, maybe because we’re busy dealing with family members?
To double down on our buying impulses, which abate for prawns-and-ham day, we then rush out for more shopping therapy in ‘boxing day sales’, but for non-giving this time, as we gather more stuff for ourselves.
On New Year’s eve, we gather with humanity en masse in crowded public spaces and consume lots more alcohol into the early hours. Last year non-domestic violence totalled 128 cases for NSW (up 52% on the year’s daily average), peaking between midnight and 3 a.m. Again, a tiny fraction of the population driven to physical assault.
In Sydney this year a million people flocked harbourside (with 1,000 boats on the water) for some not-so-cheap thrills, with $7.8m literally going up in smoke in 12 minutes (our average attention span?) of fireworks. That’s $650,000 per minute of exploding lights. The very definition of circuses for the masses, but lions aren’t harmed these days, and Christians suffer what they must.
Police only made 36 arrests for a range of offences and one person was stabbed, but overwhelmingly people celebrated closely together in peaceful and tolerant style.
On New Year’s Day emotional stress and expectations can boil over, and domestic violence last year (118%* above the daily year average) was still only 157 cases for NSW. Non-domestic assaults were 224 cases (166%* above the daily year average), highest for the year. But together that makes total 381 cases, still a tiny fraction of the population
So Festive Season Down Under is a very human mash-up of ignoring some ‘Christian’ values, expressing others (of peaceful co-existence), with the odd violent break-out.
(* Drawn from NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research report conclusions)
KOOKYNIE COURIER 