No topless controversy

Press, 29 January 1982, Page 7

No topless controversy

NZPA Sydney While debate continues in New Zealand as to whether topless bathing will be legal from next month, the main controversy in Australia is over the increase in total nudity at public beaches. Topless bathing is $o common around Sydney and other parts of Australia, and has been for a number of years, that it rarely rates a mention in the local press or any great moral outcry. In most states, topless bathing is usually still technically an offence but one that is not strictly enforced by the law. “The police certainly don’t go out of their way looking for topless bathers,” said a Queensland police spokesman.

“It’s now just part of life,” he said. The famous Bondi beach in the eastern suburbs of Sydney set the trend in Sydney for topless female bathing, with the local council accepting the fait accompli in 1978 and deciding that its beach inspectors should not. bother to supervise dress regulations at the southern end of the beach.

That was 30 years after a beach inspector, Mr Aub Laidlaw, made his name by escorting the first bikini girls firmly from the beach and the outraged onlookers. But the move to topless at Bondi did not come about without a fight. A Sydney priest, the Rev. James O’Reilly, a “reluctant wowser” as tagged by one newspaper, campaigned long and hard to keep Bondi a “family beach.” However, the local body had its way, the woman councillor who proposed allowing the southern end to be topless arguing that it had been going on, or coming off, at the beach for the last 30 years. Now, on any sunny day topless girls, women, and even at times grandmothers bathe unconcernedly topless among the unperturbed families and crowds on most city beaches.

Individually, Sydney beaches have set up their own moral standards.

For instance at Manly on the north side the beach is conservative and swimming costumes are worn, similarly at Maroubra to the south where the local council insists- that bathers cover up. At young people’s Tamarama, topless is more common than not; at Clovelly it is not allowed; at Palm it is topless at the north end, but not so at the south. Balmoral Beach, one of the most popular harbour beaches on the North Shore, has seen the gradual spread of topless bathing over the last few years.

Three years ago topless bathing was only found at the eastern end of this family beach. Today it is anywhere along it. Topless bathing at family beaches such as Balmoral is not without its hazards however, there being at least' one recorded instance of a hungry toddler latching on to a nearby breast for a feed. Unfortunately it was not'his mother’s.

The topless habit has even spread onto the water with bare-breasted surf-sailer girls, while at nearby Chinaman’s Beach recently the motor-boat selling hot-dogs, chips, and ice-cream was manned by a topless salesgirl. While people are unconcerned about topless bathing, nudity oh the beaches still causes debate.

Since 1976 Sydney has had two officially-proclaimed nude or “free” beaches — Reef Beach on the North Shore, made nude in spite of strong local opposition, and Lady Jane on the south side. They are not the betterknown type of Sydney beach, being a mixture of rock outcrops and small sandy areas rather than the more usual long stretches of sand, and are also hard to find and get to, but remain popular. The local tour boats cruising the harbour even bring camera-clicking tourists in

close to Lady Jane for a few pictures. But because of the pressure on these beaches, nude bathing is gradually unofficially spreading around some of the other more secluded -beaches.

The police occasionally still take action, although the vagueness of the law was exemplified late last year when a man found bathing nude on a beach near Wollongong had his conviction quashed. A group from the Country Women’s Association had claimed they could not hold a meeting at the beach because the nude man was on it.

The appeal judge found that while the man’s action could be classed a nuisance and an annoyance, “it was not an affront.”

A N.S.W. police spokesman said that it was still its policy to act on any complaints about nude bathing

and last year it arrested two young women bathing nude at small Thompson's Bay, another of Sydney’s more secluded beaches, where it had become popular. In their defence, the women produced a survey which showed that 37 per cent of people approved nude sunbathing on public beaches while 85.5 per cent approved it on specially set-aside beaches.

Perth, Adelaide (since 1975) and now Melbourne, also have officially-pro-claimed nude beaches, while in Queensland it may not be legal but at the resort area of Noosa Heads on Granite Beach, it has had a mass appeal since at least 1978.

At Surfers Paradise, as at many beaches, topless bathing is allowed outside the flagged bathing area and the local council is fighting to stop topless bathers coming into these family sections.