What is it about Norfolk Island Pines?

They seem to be an integral status symbol of every coastal town we've visited so far. Obviously they grow well on sand and must be salt and wind tolerant, and one assumes they do not need much water...but why is Australia's southern coastline dotted with these overgrown Christmas Trees? No town is complete without one - on the Yorke Pensinsula there was bugger all native foreshore veg remaining but still enough room for your mandatory row of Norfold Island Pines. Eyre Peninsula yep coastal streets lined with them - perhaps its a South Australian thing we thought. But no....Esperance in WA has some of the biggest we've seen yet. They're like living oblisques - symbols of manhood or the last century - hiding the real identity of each coastal town. Making them all part of some amorphorous coastal precinct.....