AUSTRALIAN CULTURE—THE NATIONAL OXYMORON?

Anybody who goes to an art gallery is a wanker, right? There are 3.6 million wankers in Australia. Only geeks go to libraries, so this country has 5.4 million geeks. Dance performances are for poofs and fag-hags, and now we know Australia has 1.6 million people like that.

Outside of school projects, you wouldn't go sniffing dust in a museum unless you were a complete dag. Ring up 3.6 million as the national dag total. And anybody who has time to go wafting round a botanic garden needs to get a life—advice you must now offer to 5.4 million of your compatriots.

A survey released by the Bureau of Statistics under the catchy title Attendance at Selected Cultural Venues and Events challenges the conventional wisdom that Australia is a land of jocks and slobs. It turns out Australians are wankier, poofier, geekier and daggier than most of us imagined. Some 296 190 people are employed in 'cultural industries'.

When we go out, these are our favourite cultural activities:

  1. Cinema (65 per cent of Australians go at least once a year)
  2. Sporting events (44 per cent)
  3. Zoos and aquariums (36 per cent)
  4. Libraries (34 per cent)
  5. Botanic gardens (33 per cent)
  6. Popular music concerts (25 per cent)
  7. Art galleries (22.7 per cent)
  8. Museums (22.6 per cent)
  9. Theatre performances (17.0 per cent)
  10. Musicals and operas (16.3 per cent)

The Bureau notes that the most culturally inclined Australians are women over 45: 'Apart from popular music concerts, a higher proportion of females than males attended each venue or event. The difference was most apparent for local, state and national libraries (41 per cent of females compared with 27 per cent of males) and musicals and operas (21 per cent compared with 12 per cent).

When we stay home, here's how we use our leisure time . . .

Watching television: The average adult does it for 21 hours and 48 minutes a week. Most popular series in 2009 were Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities; Packed To The Rafters; NCIS; Masterchef; Talkin' 'bout Your Generation and Seven News.

Listening to the radio: 14 hours and 30 minutes a week. In Sydney, the most popular broadcasters in 2009 were Alan Jones and Ray Hadley on 2GB, and Adam Spencer and Richard Glover on ABC702. Melbourne listened to Neil Mitchell on 3AW and Hamish and Andy on Fox FM. On the internet: 9 hours and 24 minutes a week. The most popular sites were Google Search, with 12 million Australian visitors a month; Ninemsn 8.5 million; Telstra Bigpond 5.8 million; Yahoo!7 4.5 million; Fairfax Digital 4.2 million.

Reading newspapers and magazines (in print rather than online): 5 hours and 12 minutes a week.