Rockingham's Rep: Seaside Suburb or Juvenille Playground?

For The Love of Writing.

This was a piece I wrote for an assignment last November. Interview with Barry Sammels took place in November 2010.


I live in Rockingham.

I already know what you’re thinking. I must have a baby, and spend my whole weekends at Liquid Nightclub with juveniles who’s idea of dressing up is buttoning up their flannelette shirts, or throwing on a top for clubbing thinking it suffices for a dress. I must spend my free time cruising the isles of Kmart barefoot, eat chips and gravy on a daily basis and drive a Commodore.

It's not the case.

By day, Rockingham is an up and coming seaside city that boasts family maritime fun and a chic café culture, and by night it is a seedy playground of juvenile delinquents and rowdy bogans. Western Australian media has educated us all of the type of person that lives in Rockingham: hoon drivers, binge drinkers, people that slit innocent people’s throats in the Reject Shop, and we all know you won’t fit in if you don’t conceive a baby before the age of 16.

The images of stereotypical bogan characters have been splashed across Facebook pages, chatted about with friends and discussed within the media. Rockingham has become a poster town for cashed up bogans, young single parents and Perth’s finest felons.

Starting uni and meeting more people who live much closer to Perth, I learned that I live in a suburb that challenges people’s abilities to hold back a grimace upon announcement of where I live; they have to fight it to remain unseen, but it doesn’t work. It never happens. It rushes out onto that person’s face, showering me with their pity. You think I live in a shit hole.

Perhaps I agree.

I didn’t move here by choice. A navy brat since birth, my family have been shipped, quite literally – around the world and HMAS Stirling was dad’s drafting in 2004. On first impressions, Rockingham’s seaside city was much more appealing than they tiny Victorian town we’d spent our last few months in, and the fierce heat of January’s summer was the Perth-ect time to arrive. The beach had sand and glistening clear waters, very unlike the pebble ridden and freezing beaches of England’s North East.

I began high school and settled in to the quieter way of Western Australian life. As the years have rolled by, and I began uni, it was brought even further to my attention how our surrounding suburb neighbours perceive the town, and its residents that provide its legacy.

Since I've lived here, I've learnt of slang words, and the characters behind the words such as “bogan,” “juvie” and the quintessential teenage mum. I've been to the town's two nightclubs, Liquids (Liquos), and Vibe, which generally hosts at least one fight per evening and requests finger print scanners before accepting entry for extra safety precautions. I've also witnessed fights, and to use a euphemism: "interactions" to which have left a ghastly imprint upon my mind.

I've learned to avoid the "fully sick" pimped up cars on the road that will weave in and out of lanes, and nearly crash into you before spurting across another section of traffic while their subs blast a doof doof beat. I've even had 'tude on the road from a gang of boys on Mopeds - not motorbikes, but you can ride at 14 little motors that they seemed to believe were Harleys as they dodged in front of me and other cars and mistook their hoodies for leather jackets, and their idiocy for bikie confidence.

It’s more so the culture of Rockingham, or rather, the mentality of the suburb that causes news headlines. I've met amazing people in this town, who work hard, pay their taxes, are clever, respectable and decent people, but I've also met people who seem to accept the notion that, if they're from here, they may as well accept the laid back bogan mentality that is so deeply nestled within Rockingham's culture, and live "down" to such media representations.

I'm not advocating that if you're a "bogan" you're a social nuisance, but if you use that image to double up with causing trouble, committing crime and being an idiot you are responsible for why many people believe the whole of Rockingham's residents live by the same values.

It may look better these days; the shopping centre has undergone a $160 million redevelopment, the foreshore is being taken over by swanky penthouse apartments and the café strip has had a makeover of glitzy cocktail bars and restaurants. However this impressive backdrop does not throw a blanket over the news reports of crime associated with the suburb, and the general reputation of this crime and juvenile poster town amongst Western Australians.

Rockingham’s Mayor, Barry Sammels highlights that issues regarding hoon driving, graffiti and antisocial behaviour don’t just stem from one suburb, but are affecting towns all over Australia. He believes Rockingham to not have a tainted reputation and a great place to live, but rather that he can’t control what the media says about the suburb.

“Our council is working with the police, the City Safe committee and security safety patrols to protect the residents of Rockingham,” he explains.

“Graffiti teams have been employed along with CCTV cameras to alleviate some of the city’s problems.”

While it may be the brunt of your jokes and an easy target for suburb haters (and I'll note myself under this title too), it has still been an interesting place to spend the last 7 years of my life, to which I will always carry with me.

Perhaps it's the endless narrative that one spoils it for the rest, but hey, at least where I live gets talked about.