Sydneysider appalled to learn so many bogans live in Perth’s eastern suburbs

17 November, 2016. 11:23

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A SHIVER WENT DOWN Amy Henderson’s spine when her indoor cricket captain suggested the team get a drink in the Eastern Suburbs this weekend. For a moment, she wondered why in the hell anybody would want to do that. Then the 19-year-old student remembered she wasn’t home in Perth, she was in Sydney.

Perth’s eastern suburbs have a similar stigma to Western Australians to that of Western Sydney, which has long been a dumping ground for the nation’s most ambitious and destitute. They’re both places where dreams are won and crushed, where you can arrive with nothing and leave with riches beyond your wildest dreams – or end up receiving the pipe in a 7/11 toilet for a pat on the back and wrinkled $20 note.

“I just had to laugh, you know,” said Henderson. “Growing up in Peppermint Grove, you don’t see too many ‘easties’ as we call them. Maybe you see them, or Troy Buswell, leaving prison when you’re out having an edgy breakie in Freo or something like that, but you don’t see them day to day.”

“Not like Sydney.” she said.

The commerce/law student went on to explain to her teammates that the Eastern Suburbs in Perth are very different to the ones in Sydney – a fact that shocked and appalled the Sydney-natives as they walked out of the NSW Cricket Centre in Moore Park.

“I was shocked that the people of Perth would stand for that. Having new arrivals and Muslims in their Eastern Suburbs. The councils and local government around here simply wouldn’t stand it,” said part-time wrist spinner Emma Collins.

Equally horrified was opening batsman and vice-captain, Molly ‘Cranky’ Rochester, who grew up in Sydney’s east.

“The one thing that my friend from Dubbo and I have in common is that we both saw our first Muslim immigrant on a Year 7 geography excursion to Western Sydney to study urban renewal – that and we’re both upper-middle enough to go to a private boarding school.”

“I’ve also heard Perth is full of South Africans. How hard it must be for people like me living over there,” said Rochester.

With additional reporting from The West Australian.