Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. in social decline, run-down, dirty; poss. turned into a tramp; finished, defeated.

1919		Aussie (France) 10 Jan. 10/1: There wasn’t ’ardly a day went by but somebody got a crack, / And talk about the mob’s morale! – it had gone to the bloomin’ pack.
1927		C. Drew ‘Grafter and Goose’ in Bulletin (Sydney) 11 Aug. n.p.: Sand Storm [...] shot past the brown horse [...] ‘I’m gone,’the Grafter said [...] I’m gone to the flamin’ pack. I think I’ll slip the painter’.
1929		Knox Collegian (N.Z.) 🌐 All gone to the pack!
1934		T. Wood Cobbers 173: The shop’s gone to the pack.
1938		Press (Canterbury) 2 Apr. 18: He might [...] be told that things had ‘gone to the pack’.
1939		K. Tennant Foveaux 95: Simply gone to the pack. [...] Over-run with wobblies and reds.
1959		G. Slatter Gun in My Hand 206: This section has fallen to bits. Gone to the pack.
1972		G.W. Turner Eng. Lang. in Aus. and N.Z. 107: The list of items valid in both countries is a long one and would include [...] gone to the pack ‘quite deteriorated’.
1986		R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 28: Gone to the pack: Someone who has failed.
1995		S. Kristofferson Forsaken Ch. iii: 🌐 Most things were run down these days. The whole country, if not the world had gone to the pack.
2001		ABC radio (Aus.) 23 Mar. 🌐 I have said since Michael Hodgman left the Liberal Party they have absolutely gone to the pack.

2. drunk.

1919

Aussie (France) 10 Apr. 17/2: He was as good as gone to the pack, but with the aid of a bottle of point blank in each pocket and his hat on the back of his head he was able to balance himself fairly well.

1. (Aus.) to decline socially, economically etc.

1912		Sport (Adelaide) 15 June 6/2: [of a racehorse] Last July Jim hit ’em up a treat with the Koran horse, and you can’t tell me that that neddy has gone to the pack .
1915		F. Garrett diary 1 June 🌐 Am afraid my costly bridging etc., is going to the pack on account of this awful war. I pulled a piece of gold crown off one of the teeth as big as a fingernail.
1919		W.H. Downing Digger Dialects 26: go to the pack — Deteriorate.
1924		(con. WWI) A.G. Pretty Gloss. of Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: go to the pack. Deteriorate.
1926		L. Esson Bride of Gospel Place 103: Delia: She had a pretty bad run at one time [...] I thought she was going to the pack.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 51/2: go to the pack to deteriorate; eg ‘Since his wife left him for his best mate, Reg has gone rapidly to the pack.’.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].
2006		Age (Melbourne) 6 Jan. 🌐 ‘Them’s shearers’ huts round here was going to the pack – that’s for sure.’.

2. (Aus.) to give up.

1968

S. Gore Holy Smoke 52: They go to the pack straight orf.

3. (N.Z.) to fail continually.

1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 51/2: go to the pack [...] to fail persistently.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].