Battler

1900, Henry Lawson, The Shanty-Keeper′s Wife, Over the Sliprails, Gutenberg eBook # 1313, “But look here!” interrupted the Pilgrim, desperately, “we can′t afford to wait! We′re only ‘battlers’, me and my mate, pickin′ up crumbs by the wayside. We′ve got to catch the——”

Dave Rust and Scotty Salmon failed at their Mount Elizabeth venture and are now again at the old love, Karunjie. Good luck to such battlers.

In an earlier era Australia was a nation of battlers, of working people who were hardened by the rigours of economic depression and war, and, if not proud of their penury, certainly not ashamed of it. The Aussie battler became an icon of Australian political folklore, and the image persists into the present even though, as a result of sustained economic growth for the last five decades, the number of people who truly struggle has shrunk to a small proportion of the population. For every genuine battler there are three or four who imagine they fit the description. That is why our political leaders keep alive and exploit the myth of the Aussie battler.