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City aims to shake ‘bogan’ tag

John DobsonWeekend Kwinana Courier

Events like a recent $200-a-head Long Table Lunch have promoted the region's award-winning cuisine and cultural birth to the rest of WA, but the bogan word keeps cropping up.

The City of Rockingham recently surveyed a who's who of planners, developers and investors at a presentation to the Australia Property Institute.

It asked the stakeholders what two words they would use to describe the city.

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The most common responses were "coastal", "beaches", "bogan", "affordable" and "The Swinging Pig".

However, following the forum, the same respondents were surveyed and had changed their tune with "affordable", "potential" and "beach" being the top answers.

Cr Sammels said any attempt to link the word "bogan" to the City of Rockingham was "patronising elitism".

"The modern City is a long way from the sleepy holiday town it once was, and the"bogan" tag is an anachronism that no longer has any currency," he said.

Cr Sammels said the City was "over it".

"The City is now more cosmopolitan and much more sophisticated," he said.

"We are becoming better known for our restaurants and cafes, our beaches and our coastal lifestyle, than we are for an outdated term that simply doesn't apply to our general population."

In 2009, Rockingham was listed in the top 10 bogan towns in Australia by cheeky website The Punch.

The city also was infamously featured on 7mate's Bogan Hunters program.

Bogan and Proud creator Mark Stoner said while the City may not like it, some in the community were proud of its bogan tag.

Mr Stoner said events like the Long Table Lunch were pushing the region away from its bogan heritage.

"If the bogan tag keeps the hoity-toity head-up-their-a**** type of people out of Rockingham, that's OK by me," he said.