Residents ridiculed for living on Bogan Place want name changed
Sick and tired of the stereotypical mullet hairstyle and bad reputation, residents in a genteel part of Sydney have launched a campaign to get rid of their most prominent 'bogan'.
The offender isn't a beer-fuelled loudmouth who dresses in singlet and flip flops, as so-called bogans are typically reputed to do in Australia.
It's the name of their street and, to put an end to widespread ridicule, its residents want Bogan Place to be called something else.
'It is not a nice name or one I want to be associated with,' says Jim Patrick, one of the home owners in the street in suburban Wahroonga.
Neighbour Charles Coville is also frustrated. 'When we give our name and address over the phone we are ridiculed.'
Thirteen of the 14 residences in Bogan Place back the campaign, which has been passed by officials at Ku-ring-gai Council to the state's Department of Lands for consideration.
The street was built and named at least two decades before the term 'bogan' acquired the derogatory connotation it has enjoyed since the 1980s.
An Antipodean version of the British 'chav' or America's 'white trash', a stereotypical male bogan drives a utility truck and lives in an outer city suburb or rural town, but is best known for his distinctive mullet; a hairstyle short at the front and sides, long at the back and sometimes permed. Australia's Macquarie Dictionary defines a bogan as 'an uncultured person from a lower socio-economic group'.
But in western New South Wales - home to the village of Bogan Gate, the Bogan River and Bogan Shire - locals take pride in a name with 'noble meaning'.
'There's no connection at all,' Shire Mayor Ray Donald told ABC News. 'I think what's in the Macquarie Dictionary would probably be ripped out if people who put it there knew the calibre and resilience of people who live in Bogan Shire.'
Around Australia there are 31 streets, roads, avenues and places with the name Bogan, including 21 in New South Wales alone.
