The beach babes were smokin’ but these boys still need to light-up their ciggies on the beach at Coolangatta, Qld. The social and sexual revolution of the late 1960s and early ’70s meant that although health concerns were growing, young people were railing against conservative values such as worrying about financial security and future health. Some took up smoking as a statement of independence and equality. Between 1962 and 2012 the number of Aussie smokes has dropped by more than 75 per cent according to Tobacco Australia. 

These sleek, white Valiants were hot off the production line in the Chrysler Australia factory at Tonsley Park, near Adelaide. Chrysler was one of Australia’s big three car manufacturers during the ’60s, competing with Ford and Holden. Valiants were produced between 1962 and 1968. Mitsubishi eventually took over the Australian side of Chrysler. Because some Valiants featured the proportions that characterised American cars, they are still some of Australia’s most recognisable vintage vehicles. 

Long before news and media made families fearful of child predators, and regular patrols by helicopter mums became the norm, kids were often free to set out for unknown lands on their own. 

In the late-1960s the Opera House was still under construction at Bennelong Point. Based on the 1953 competition-winning design of Danish architect Jorn Utzon, it was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1973. The original costing was for $7 million, but it came in at a bit more than that… in the end it cost $102 million. 

This little man sucks down a carton of pasteurised and homogenised milk at the OAK factory in Newcastle, NSW. In the 1960s, glass-bottled milk was being replaced by cartons. The Hunter Valley-based OAK first launched its milk in 1903, but it make its name as a flavoured milk company from the day it launched its first banana-flavoured milk in 1967. 

Shorter working weeks meant that families often took time out to smell the roses, like these picnickers are doing at Bobbin Head in Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park in New South Wales. 

Church of England Bishop John Moyes drinking with the rest of the punters in 1960. Restrictions placed on the hotel opening hours in WWI required pubs to close at 6pm. In the ’60s the six o’clock swill – where a patron would drink as much as they could just before closing time – was still very much a part of Australian life. The last state to change these laws was South Australia in 1967.  

This is actually a simulated protest for a TV production in Melbourne and the protesters look a tad too clean cut. But, Australia’s support of American forces in Vietnam began for real in 1962. Australia’s capacity was just as advisers until soldiers were deployed in 1965. Aussies held three huge demonstrations against the war during the early 1970s, and the first one saw 200,000 across Australia turn out and our troops were all but out by 1972. 

Commuters hurry across ANZAC Square in 1968 after leaving Central Railway Station in Brisbane. In the background the Shrine of Remembrance contains the continuously lit ‘Eternal Flame of Remembrance’, which still flickers near commuters today from its bronze urn. 

A family queues up with coins in their hands to call out on a PMG dial payphone in the living room. It was probably installed after the shock of receiving a telephone bill. Although phones in homes were becoming a ‘must-have’, many people were unprepared for the costs involved. 

Hardy sugar cane cutters hustle across a field at Ingham in northern Queensland. A hard-working gang of four like this could cut about 100 tons a day. However, in comparison, a mechanical harvester can cut about ten times as much. By the late 1960s, more than 80 per cent of Queensland’s sugar cane crop was mechanically harvested. 

The Strand Arcade in Sydney’s CBD. When it opened in 1892 it was that last arcade of its kind built in Australia. Today, after much restoration, it is the only arcade from the Victorian Era that remains in its original form. 

Surfboard legend Dennis Keogh (left) brandishes one of his Keyo surfboards at his factory in Brookvale on Sydney’s northern beaches, the birth place of the short-board revolution and for a brief, golden moment the hub of Australian surfboard manufacturing. Through the ’60s and early ’70s the ‘big five’ Australian surfboard manufacturers operated from Brookvale. In the early sixties Dennis was making four of five boards a week, but by 1969 he was producing 1700 a year. But, in 1974 his surfboard business gave way to Dennis’ new catamaran building business. Since the ’90s Dennis’ son-in-law runs a small specialised company that manufactures boards under the original name. 

Model Cynthia Bryant sports some of the more flamboyant fashions of the time. In the background is the now rare sight of a Hills Hoist in use.  

Model Barbara Wordworth behind a Speed Graphic camera for a cover shot for Australian Popular Photography in October 1960. Barbara also appeared on the cover of Australasian Post on 23 February 1961, as well as regularly in Mirror newspaper pictures. The Speed Graphic large-format camera, once the bastion of Australian Press photography, was superseded in the early ’60s by the twin-lens reflex Mamiyas, as well as Nikon, Canon and Pentax 35-millimetre cameras that were cheaper to purchase and lighter and more compact to use. 

Europeans from countries where football was almost a religion flocked to Australia after WWII and brought their favourite sport with them. The Australian Soccer Federation was formed in 1961 and four years later Australia entered the World Cup for the first time.