John Roughan: Grassroots answer to the yobs

Behaviour at last week's league test made many people cringe. Photo / Getty Images

After his national anthem was booed at Eden Park last Saturday, an Australian rugby league representative said he had never heard that before. My heart shrivelled in shame.

I waited for Martin Snedden, chief organiser of next year's Rugby World Cup, to say something. I waited for the Prime Minister, the mayor of Auckland, anybody.

I waited for them to be asked the question, but the news became the booze and bottle-throwing to the exclusion of the audible disgrace.

Still, I hoped somebody who had heard it on TV would say something or, more tellingly, let their faces say it. We should have seen Snedden, John Key, Len Brown or somebody we look to for leadership, shaking their head in disbelief and gagging on the disgust in their stomach.

But Snedden's comment was one of sympathy for the event's administrators. "These things don't always turn out as you plan them," he said. The mayor was concerned about drunks harassing Mt Eden residents. The Prime Minister was as nice as ever.

Snedden was a little more forthright when he wrote in the Herald on Thursday: "The behaviour of a small but visible minority was completely unacceptable. Clearly alcohol was one influencing factor. Our attitude to Australian teams might well have been another ..." Might well have been?

Park authorities will fix the booze and bottle-throwing with trade restrictions and more ground stewards, much as they are fixing general binge-drinking with legislation introduced to Parliament this week. But tougher ground rules and liquor bills will do nothing to fix this pathetic attitude to Australia.

A few months ago, New Zealand cricket's chief executive Justin Vaughan watched the All Blacks beat the Wallabies in Melbourne and was so embarrassed by the New Zealanders around him that he sent an article to the Herald.

"From what I saw," he wrote, "a portion of the New Zealand contingent at the game were focused on consuming vast quantities of alcohol as rapidly as possible as well as baiting and abusing Australian spectators (or people they suspected of being Australian).

"My Australian hosts were obviously uncomfortable (as was I) with the profanity-laden and alcohol fuelled antics of my countrymen, which created a tense and unfriendly atmosphere.

"It made me relieved to get up and leave when the final whistle blew."

I can see it. Anybody with half an ear to the grim ribbing of Australians in this country can imagine it. Alcohol and a rugby crowd used to produce a good smattering of droll Kiwi wit. Nowadays the drunks are not funny.

It might be expecting too much of one man to suggest Vaughan should have said something, but you never know. It may take just one person to turn to the nearest groups of Australians and say with quiet seriousness, "Sorry about these people."

Chances are, there would be many New Zealanders nearby feeling similarly. Once they realised they were not alone they would find a passive aggressive way to isolate the characters who make us cringe.

This breed needs to realise they are causing more pain to their fellow countrymen than to Australians, who receive their insults much as Aucklanders receive jibes from Christchurch. Australians hear envy of their size and success.

For our sake they used to pretend the jokes were funny, but they tired of the effort a long time ago. Nowadays they ignore them, which has made the jokers more dark.

Popular attitudes can be changed without overt leadership. If no political or media speaker can counter this attitude, you can.

Contempt, when it is deserved, is contagious. A consensus of contempt would be an effective antidote to a few other attitudes that have infested our social culture in recent times, especially immature drinking.

Legislation really has no answer to that. Thursday was a sad day for our social growth. Parliament gave its first reading to a bill that buries the late 20th century theory that ready access to alcohol would make us more sophisticated.

"Legislation alone won't turn around our binge drinking culture but it can help," said Justice Minister Simon Power. We'll see.

Smoking will be next. Brands will be removed from cigarette packets and shop displays. The anti-smoking campaign thinks this could deter many, maybe all, the diehards. Maybe they won't find the plain packs?

Social pressure can not always call on legal reinforcement. No law can enforce common decencies to people from a neighbouring country, or respect for their national emblems and anthems, or good sportsmanship on the sidelines.

The ugly undertone at Eden Park last weekend could be audible to international visitors and television viewers next year. If our leaders are not going to express our embarrassment at this stuff, we must. A collective Kiwi shudder in a rugby crowd could go a long way.