Do you only know bogans draped in the Aussie flag? Have you not ever met an American, or an Italian?
Australia has a long and proud history of taking the piss out of ourselves and for being embarrassed by explicit patriotism. That only began to change with the Howard / Hansen era in which the long boom of toleration, extending from Whitlam through Fraser, Hawke and Keating got violently turned on its head.
I work in finance in HK, the vast vast majority of Aussies I know are certainly not bogans, more from the privately educated sector (almost exclusively actually).
Yes, I know a few Americans & Italians too. Americans these days are more embarrassed & the Italians don't seem unduly bothered by anything!
Did sporting stars at your school really get lopped down? Not at mine (albeit it a fair while ago now).
I think the answer is no, but I'm not sure what "on q and a " means or how I would have been seen on it.
I think Australians have an innate suspicion that the second you start thinking you've got it real good or that your shit doesn't stink, THAT is when it all goes pear shaped - and so to ward against the demise caused by complacency and self-congratulation we swing the pendulum hard in the other direction more often than we need to perhaps.
Never realised we were such a superstitious nation in terms of economic and social development. What you state above at least to me is the equivalent of throwing salt over your shoulder or knocking on wood to ward off bad luck.
That wasn't the flavour I was shooting for. It was more that perhaps it seems to us that when successful people believe they have "made it" and start flashing that success around they take their eye off the ball and disaster follows. Eternal vigilence motivated my playing a mental trick on yourself - if you always have a view that things are tough etc, you won't get complacent and you won't lose what you've worked for.