How did Australia get its stereotypes?

Answer 1

Much of what we see as Australia's stereotypes, i.e. skilled bushmen, mates, Aussie battlers and so on, were generated through the writings of poets and authors such as A.B. 'Banjo' Paterson and Henry Lawson. Paterson romanticised the bush life, glorifying the men who worked on the cattle and sheep stations: men who were free to come and go where and when they liked, and to thumb their noses at the law (as in "Waltzing Matilda". Lawson was a dry realist who painted word pictures of hardworking men and women, bowed but not broken, by the harshness of the Australian outback.