Australia...What are the worst things about it?

[MikeSid]

You only get two armies for it in RISK.

[Langers]

It's not as good a place to live as people think it is. Speaking for Sydney and the surrounding area.

* Traffic congestion on key arterial roads getting worse every day. Still have tons of old unairconditioned buses, and of the new ones we have they appear to have been designed for people up to 6' tall only. Beyond that you need to undergo amputation

* Sydney (and other Australian cities) consistently rate towards the most expensive in the world for real estate prices and rents, and total cost of living. Depending on which survey you believe it’s more expensive than London and New York. Working for a global firm, I have colleagues from Luxembourg, London and New York who all consistently state that Sydney is unbelievably expensive.

* We’re a long way from anything of interest, e.g. a flight to Europe will either be $10k in business class or you spend 20 hours in cattle class

* Quality of roads and traffic infrastructure is woeful for a 1st world country, right from the major freeways down to local roads. The main road between Sydney and Brisbane is still a single undivided carriageway in many places.

* Summer is HOT, and it’s not a dry heat, it’s a horrible, humid heat that saps all your energy and makes you hate life. I cannot even fathom what it would be like in Brisbane

* Extreme weather patterns in the outback fluctuating from drought to flood.

* Perhaps most importantly for people on this board, cars are astronomically expensive. Easy to do a few comparisons – pick out a 911 here vs the US, same for an M5, same for an S class. Insane given the local car industry (what’s left of it) isn’t even competing in the same space

* Significant number of speed cameras and relatively stringent speed limit enforcement regime – e.g. design regulations for cars say the speedo can be out 10% but cops will book you for being 3% over.

* Taxes are high. If you are on a reasonable wage (and you need to be to live in Sydney) you will be paying nearly 50% tax incl. Medicare levy for each incremental dollar you earn. High taxes are fine (witness Sweden etc) but here you don’t get much in return.

* In spite of the high taxes, the social security net should things go pear shaped for your personally isn’t brilliant either. The base payment isn’t enough to make ends meet, and falls well short of other 1st world countries such as Switzerland and the Scandanavian nations.

* Professionals work some of the longest hours per week in the developed world (one example, take it with a grain of salt: Aussie bludger a myth: we work the longest hours)

So to sum up, you pay a ton of money to live in a hot stinky place and don’t get to spend any time outside of work, and you can’t afford to fly to somewhere cooler because all your money’s gone on rent or your mortgage.


Now for the good points:
* Health care is reasonable for a first world country but could be done better. Universal healthcare (through Medicare) is anecdotally better than the US.

* There are some fantastic parts of the country – Tasmania for one. I could go and live there with a 911, drink wine and eat cheese all day and live happily ever after. Sadly, employment opportunities aren’t brilliant

* Multiculturalism has brought a great mix of available foods and produce BUT brings some serious social tensions with it as well, particularly in certain parts of Sydney

* The economy is doing better than most in the world but is showing some wobbles at present

* We had some great pub rock bands in the 80s and some of them are still doing the rounds (cf high cost of living)

* Public schooling is reasonably good. Not brilliant, not terrible - but again we make the kids sit in classrooms without airconditioning. It’s illegal to treat livestock in that way but we do it to out kids. Go figure.

If, and only if, you have a ton of money (say net worth > $20mm) it would be a great place to live. Call it the Vancouver of the southern hemisphere.

[dewolf]

Some of these 'Aussies' are sounding like pussies. "oh the heat...oh the flies.....oh the traffic', Jesus H Christ......harden the fuch up!!!

[sc_rufctr]

Would you want to live anywhere else?

[sc_rufctr]

Originally Posted by 944Larry

On the serious side didn't I read somewhere that they took up all the guns down there?

A few years ago something horrible happened in Tasmania that lead to the tightening of gun laws.

Basically we can't have semi automatic rifles or shotguns.
Bolt action rifles and double barrel shotguns are OK but as always we have strict licensing requirements.

Pistols are different because the process of getting one is very restricted.
You HAVE to be a member of a pistol club for at least 12 months before you can buy your own.
After that there are also a list of restrictions on how it's secured at home and how you transport it.

[JohnJL]

...sniff...intensely homesick....

[mph911]

This is 3 hrs south of Sydney last weekend...




Remember...watch out for the drop-bears!!!!

[sc_rufctr]

and hoop snakes... Those things are unbelievable. You simply can not out run them.

[JohnJL]

Originally Posted by dewolf

Some of these 'Aussies' are sounding like pussies. "oh the heat...oh the flies.....oh the traffic', Jesus H Christ......harden the fuch up!!!

Nothing a squirt of TUC spray wont fix...

[JohnJL]

Dont forget Mr Coight...

‪Russell Coight's All Aussie Adventures Part I‬‏ - YouTube




...time to hit the road...

[scottmandue]

How bad is the box jellyfish thing... saw a documentary where they said It will kill you in a few hours.

Really bummed me out because one of my dreams is to snorkel the great barrier reef.

[mph911]

Box Jellyfish are indeed deadly, even more deadly are the Irukandji Jellyfish. Both Jellyfish are only a problem in the Australian summer and being wet season (tropics), it is not the ideal time to travel to the reef areas.
Winter is the time to go.

[Flieger]

I went down under during California's summer while on vacation from school which is of course Australian winter. It seemed to accentuate the beauty of the rainforest in New Zealand since the rain had made everything more green and the rivers (jet boat ride) were a bit wilder. Much like the California winter. We had more sun in Oz, and the Great Barrier Reef was amazingly beautiful. You could see down 20 feet. People in kyaks looked to be floating in the air the water was so clear, and perfect temperature as well.

I think the most fun thing was the sort of go-kart luge thing at Rotorura New Zealand. Spent most of my money going down that hill for as long as we were allowed.

The Jet boat ride was also fun. New Zealand seemed to have more geologic sites. A sort of crater lake and a Yellowstone-esque volcanic park.

The Three Sisters were very pretty in Australia (the Blue Ridge Mountains ) and we got to see part of Mount Panorama racetrack but it was in a bus and then it started to hail out of a blue sky.

I never got to see Uluru or the west coast or Cape York Pennisula. Would have been good to see Tasmania (from what I see of the Targa) and Frasier Island in the north.

I also wanted to see the New Zealand Alps but the tour was planned by others and had cultural aspects in mind.