What if you lived in Australia?

[Baudalino]

Haroldeye.
Let me get this straight: the government hires experts to learn how best to celebrate ANZAC day. And this upsets you?

What the so called experts come up with is beside the point. Every government today hires experts.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by kananga

...What i found particularly interesting was our cost of living figures in comparison to other places. Odd things like the paying in excess of Au$800 for the same iPhone that Americans can buy for U.S.$600...

Australia is expensive, that's a fact. It almost makes Norway look cheap

But you don't have to buy iPhones in Australia. Just order them from wherever's cheapest. Same with books - order from a postage-free English source for the best deals

... and we're supposed to have a strong dollar. Thanks in no small part to taxes on our mining industry.

It's because of the minerals, not the taxes

[haroldeye]

Baudalino - When I first started work in the Personnel and Training Dept of a major British employer I was inundated with adverts from Consultants. I asked my boss why we didn't use them and his reply was. 'That's what we pay managers for. If a manager can't manage we sack him and employ someone who can.'

I'm not an Aussie but I find it interesting that the Government feels it has to spend this amount of cash asking consultants about what must be one of Australia's more important anniversaries.

Is there no one in either the Government or the Australian civil service with the wit or intelligence to work out such matters for themselves.

[Baudalino]

Originally Posted by palo5

Australia is expensive, that's a fact. It almost makes Norway look cheap

But you don't have to buy iPhones in Australia. Just order them from wherever's cheapest. Same with books - order from a postage-free English source for the best deals



It's because of the minerals, not the taxes

Taxes play their small part.

There are so many arguments regarding the rich and taxation. Usually they end in favor of the rich because results are bought.

It has always been thus. Just read Roman history.

I have no answers.

[Baudalino]

Australia is weird. Did you know, aside from the indigenous music of the Kurri people, we have no music of our own? Australia as a nation is in time with the history of the recording studio. So American cultural music has been the main influence. Brazil had it's samba. We had nothing other than folk music brought from places like Ireland and England. So it is no surprize sport is the major cultural drive. Aussie Pub Rock is a watered down version of American soul.

Australia is very young and has no idea what it is. This results in the notion, cultural cringe.

[Estreeter]

Originally Posted by kananga

The above headline has been in the news a lot recently, as our population was expected to surpass 23m. sometime last night.

I heard a report on the radio a few days back that was gonna happen, then I thought 23 million is small for a nation settled over 200 years ago and massive in land size..... Then I was thinking again, we don't fuck enough too preoccupied with football etc...

[effCup]

Originally Posted by kananga

the fastest growing Western civilisation

1) A cliché:
more haste makes waste, &:
2) the last word (above) just brings to mind Kath & Kim (or Fast Forward, for those with memories).
Speaking of which, where's that button gone...?

[palo5]

It must be 4/25/2013 in Australia now, so Happy Anzac Day, comrades!

[effCup]

Originally Posted by Baudalino

Australia is very young and has no idea what it is. This results in the notion, cultural cringe.

Maybe (re. CC). But I think most nations don't know what they are, regardless of age--i.e. every country invents its traditions, creates stories about itself, etc., which is both a process of self-discovery and self-delusion. The past is never static, it is continually being re-used and re-imagined through the process of narrative (stories we tell ourselves) and historiography (the reading & writing of history).

As a (somewhat pertinent) example: look at the current fetishisation of ANZAC celebrations/concepts & the "invention" of Australian & NZ national identities that supposedly resulted. Such ideas are repeated so often people begin to believe them as true, yet recent historical research has begun to show those are fallacies--e.g. Ron Palenski's latest book. (NB, sorry, I don't mean to take this thread off topic, just using RP's work as an example. I don't know, but presumably there's similar such work being done in Aussie?)

[rotobott]

The changing face of the average Aussie

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22213218