“Trashed” was the only way to describe Bronte beach after Christmas celebrations last month.
For many young travellers heading to Australia during the Christmas period, it has become an annual tradition to gather at Bronte beach, in the Sydney Waverley Council region, for a Christmas Day party. Locals have dubbed the event an ‘Orphan’s Christmas’, the name referring to the large majority of international tourists and backpackers celebrating the holidays away from home.
2024 saw record numbers with more than 15,000 people, dressed in red, celebrating on the beach.
Unfortunately, the following day, Bronte beach was left covered in a sea of rubbish.
Many locals were rightfully frustrated at the state of their normally pristine beach haven. Eddie, a local to Bronte beach, describes what he saw that day:
“I live right on the beachfront, so I was watching the whole party from my balcony. It was crazy. It is most years, but I guess the international media was more interested this year, so everyone is talking about it. The idea is nice I think, and everyone likes a Christmas party but the number of people going is increasing every year so it’s getting really crazy now…. The next day the beach, all the way from the shoreline, up to the road was left totally totally trashed. I must say it was disgusting, and I didn’t even want to jump in the sea for my daily swim.”
Council workers, rangers, and a host of local volunteers were forced to clean up the mess, picking up everything from cans, broken glass bottles and clothes, to rotting food waste.
Waverley Mayor, Will Nemesh, says he did plan for the day- “we had an additional 250 bins installed, additional police control, and rangers”, however, these measures had seemingly no effect. He continues, “the scale of the party over the last sort of three years has become too large, and too large for Waverley council to manage”.
In previous years, Waverley council has considered the idea to restrict the area, creating a ticketing system to reduce numbers. However, given the large size of the beach forefront area, as well as multiple access points, a ticketing system has been deemed too difficult and costly to implement.
Local and federal governments are now considering how to reduce crowd numbers and minimise environmental damage to Bronte beach in future years. The most drastic of these measures could include deportation.
Already in recent years, Australia’s Immigration Minister, Alex Hawke, warned travellers, that anyone caught breaching local rules and laws could face deportation. Despite no offical police arrests being made during last month’s celebrations, the Immigration Department is now reviewing temporary visa conditions, with sources, including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, suggesting that participation in events causing environmental damage could become grounds for visa suspension.
In addition, the Department of Home Affairs has stated that evidence gathered through social media videos and surveillance footage could be used to identify individuals who contributed to this environmental damage.
For the thousands of tourists currently holding temporary visas in Australia, as well as those planning to attend the event at the end of this year, these developments have created considerable anxiety.
As of now, nothing official has been put in place by authorities, but the message is clear: in the future ‘Orphan’s Christmas’ celebrations will face much stricter rules and surveillance, with tourists risking their right to stay in Australia if they damage the local environment.
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