Why is Australia better than England at sport?

Which opens the broader question of what sport is for and whether the money spent on winning Olympic medals,in Australia or Britain, can be justified when there are many other areas where it could be spent and which might seem more worthwhile than the nebulous idea of boosting 'national pride' or the entirely unproven idea that Olympic success leads to a generally healthier and more active population.

there is a lot of debate about this in Australia. my view is that spending money on elite sport is worthwhile, because it makes people proud and it makes them feel part of a community - people engage with the country in a positive way and feel proud to be Australian. This does have a positive benefit (which is very difficult to measure) in that it people behave better and are more productive when they have a sense that they are part of something (in this case a nation) that is worthwhile and successful. If you feel like your country is achieving something on the world stage it puts you in a positive frame of mind, you're happier and less likely to be antisocial.

Of course, you have to be careful to guard against national triumphalism, and i think we've gone a bit further than is healthy over the last decade or so (egged on by a conservative and very nationalistic PM the aforementioned arsehat John Howard). But generally I think that sport is one of the best ways for a significant chunk of the population to drop their differences and support a common cause.

I was involved in grassroots sport (athletics) in Melbourne for over a decade, and we received a fair bit of government funding, without which we would never have been able to maintain our facilities (which are used by thousands of people every week). I don't know the balance between elite/grassroots funding, but there is a lot of funding for community sport from federal, state and local governments in Australia.