Thread: What is wrong with Oz?

I've yet to travel so the old dustball, so I'm curious.

Anglophobes knock the UK for being cold, crowded, and expensive. It seems that Australia doesn't suffer too much from these issues, so why is it that so many Australians leave, many of whom end up in the UK.

My guesses
- remoteness
- erm....

My best mate spent a month there and only decided not to emigrate because he got stopped for speeding twice. A bizarre reason.

So?

What is wrong with Oz?

The answer is easy.Too many Australians live there for christsakes!

Originally Posted by Smeg

so why is it that so many Australians leave, many of whom end up in the UK.

I would stake my life on the fact that there are many, many more UK immigrants in Aus, than Aus in the UK.

Originally Posted by Lily

I would stake my life on the fact that there are many, many more UK immigrants in Aus, than Aus in the UK.

Thanks for the data, but it doesn't address the topic of the thread, and you especially are in a good position to.

Originally Posted by Smeg

Thanks for the data, but it doesn't address the topic of the thread.

I am unable to answer a question, that I think is based on a factually incorrect assumption.

In every country there a people from other countries for a great variety of different reasons.'

many good things about Oz - many not so good.

Good,
weather, food, space, outdoors, lack of class system (comparitvely speaking), cheaper than UK. Australians, football, cricket rugby

Bad
Political correctness, cost of living going up, australians, remoteness, parochial, southern states get bloody cold, tax

Smeg i think you'll find many young aussies move to brit for the an extended holiday! i dont know that many who would leave forever to stay in blightly

Can only speak for myself really.

Australia is a pristine country with natural beauty to suit almost any taste. Even if you haven't been there, you will have seen the imagery. And those images are not doctored for the postcards. What you see is what you get. At to that, of course, the climate.

Socially, it has: low crime; an excellent health system; high social security protection; a debt-free government; very low accidental death rates; low pollution; low unemployment; a strong legal system; low inflation; low infant mortality; high age expectancy, and; despite the media coverage, few ethic problems.

The problem is, with it's lack of history (aborigines notwithstanding) and isolation, it is a very insulated society.

In short...it can get fuckin' boring.

Too safe. Too insulated. Too isolated. Too introspective. Too politically correct.

So I travel and choose to live elsewhere...where road rules barely apply, where PC is non-existant, where electrical cables hang down, where buying a friggin' light bulb can become both a challenge and adventure, where you feel alive.

But I am bloody glad to be Australian. I have an enormous peace of mind knowing I can return there at any time should things go sour here or with my health. I am very pleased to know that I can retire there in comfort.

Originally Posted by Torbek

In short...it can get fuckin' boring.

Too safe. Too insulated. Too isolated. Too introspective. Too politically correct.

So I travel and choose to live elsewhere...where road rules barely apply, where PC is non-existant, where electrical cables hang down, where buying a friggin' light bulb can become both a challenge and adventure, where you feel alive.

But I am bloody glad to be Australian. I have an enormous peace of mind knowing I can return there at any time should things go sour here or with my health. I am very pleased to know that I can retire there in comfort.

Yep, the safety net is important.

This side of human nature always makes me smile. Nations and governments spend decades and billions improving infrastructure, public services, laws, safety etc, and then people call it boring

I imagine that life is far more comfortable there than it would have been 200 years ago

Originally Posted by Smeg

Smeg : Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 1,433

At last...after 1432 posts Smeg finally makes a positive, intelligent and interesting post...well done that man...now you're getting the idea of a forum

Something I should have added, with extends on what Baldrick said...

Contemporary Australia looks like it has been fabricated. Like a theme park...

Every middle-class suburb now has a restaurant precinct with al fresco dining and European coffee shops and everyone swans around as though we are all natural Mediterraneans or Parisans who just got misplaced.

Yet it is all a constructed facade. It barely existed 10 years ago. And it's all so fuckin' nice and clean.

Even the old genuine ethnic precincts...Little Italys, Chinatowns, etc. have all been completely refurbished and reconstructed so they now look like something from a Conde Nast article.

And they all go out of the evenings, sipping lattes and eating Vietnamese fushion patting each other on the back for how cosmopolitan they have become...yet most have never been out of the country, and the vast majority of those who have "did Europe in four weeks" or something similar.

The country has all the style of whatever they are trying to replicate...but none of the character...

Originally Posted by Smeg

This side of human nature always makes me smile. Nations and governments spend decades and billions improving infrastructure, public services, laws, safety etc, and then people call it boring

Maybe when you are brought up in an environment of "no risk", life begins to feel like it is missing something. The rewards for "no risk" are similarly minimal.

Isn't Australian society becoming chav infested as well?

It looked like it when all those race riots were going on. Hardly Ramsey St.........

I liked Melbourne a lot - the river, the parks, the free trams, the beaches, the casino (only went there once) by the river, the grid lay-out making it easy to get around...

I especially liked the water jets near the casino, with all the kids running around getting soaked and the huge gas burners outside the casino shooting giant flames up into the sky.

Didn't think much of the - mostly Greek? - taxi drivers, though, but I loved the way you have to pull over to the left at some traffic lights in order to turn right. That's really cool!

Originally Posted by RDN

but I loved the way you have to pull over to the left at some traffic lights in order to turn right. That's really cool!

Do you?

with all due respect RDN most of that is touristy things to do

eg:.... catching those trams to work sux.... they are slow, late, noisy, crowded, non-heated/cooled depedning on season fuck up the traffic....

river and parks good.

taxi - very expensive (compartivite to Asia) and very difficult to hire, eg sat morning could be a wait of 1-2 hours to get home.

Originally Posted by klongmaster

Originally Posted by Smeg

Smeg : Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 1,433

At last...after 1432 posts Smeg finally makes a positive, intelligent and interesting post...well done that man...now you're getting the idea of a forum

I guess that means it's your turn klongy!!

What's wrong with Aus, eh?

1) Too many 'Okkers', people who are proud to be seen as stupid.
Think of Barry McKenzie, Ozzie the ostrich, Shane Warne, Ferret the list goes on. The 'VB vs XXXX' mentality.

2) As a relatively new country it has a lack of 'soul' and culture.
It is as if the social scientists used suburban australia as a laboratory experiment. It is sterile, unfriendly..go into a suburban street after 8 o'clock at night and it is empty. Everyone drives, even if it's only a kilometre. people are scared so they stay in their 'castle'.
The 'sons of Anzacs' are some of the most racist people in the white world.
They despise culture. Anyone who shows class or breeding is a poof.
Go back to the 60's witness the treatment of the migrant community.

3) Flies.
You've never seen so many flies in your life. 10 minutes outside with a couple of sausages and you're in the company of about a thousand flies.

4) The stupid, 'Kissing of mother England's Arse'
Yet foolishly believing the patriotic bullshit of the national anthem (which over 90% of Australians don't know the words of) that Australia is the best country on the planet.
Because of the scenery? Fark didn't Lord of the Rings prove that Kiwiland would be paradise if not for the Kiwis?

5) Sydney has the world's largest 'gay mardi gras'!
364 days a year the scumbags are chasing gays down and giving them a good kicking, one day a year and we're one united community.

6) The outback.
Sorry Mockers, but it's a wasteland, a nuclear test site, a Martian landscape, dry, full of flies, people who talk so fucking slow and think even slower, it's like zombie land. Oh and fucking hot, really fucking hot. people die out there. aborigines don't though

Ah, there's more..pages in fact.

Originally Posted by Professorfart

Isn't Australian society becoming chav infested as well?

It looked like it when all those race riots were going on. Hardly Ramsey St.........

Not really. An isolated incident blown well out proportion by media. Hell, Paris' problems last year were a 100 fold worse yet seemed to gain no more attention that Australia's.

Poolie...

There are big differences depending on the suburb. Most inner- and near- city middle-class suburbs in Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane are trying to shake off "ockerism". Unfortunately, it has only been replaced with a pseudo intellectualism and faux culturalism. Gay-bashing (even verbally) is virtually non-existent. But it has been replaced with very high level of PC...Sydney more so than Melbourne or Brisbane.

What you say is quite true of the outer suburbs, though...ockerism thrives, everyone stays inside, it's shut by 8-00 pm... But for all that, I'm not sure it is any worse than the outer suburban areas of any other western country.

Originally Posted by Torbek

Poolie...

There are big differences depending on the suburb. Most inner- and near- city middle-class suburbs in Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane are trying to shake off "ockerism". Unfortunately, it has only been replaced with a pseudo intellectualism and faux culturalism. Gay-bashing (even verbally) is virtually non-existent. But it has been replaced with very high level of PC...Sydney more so than Melbourne or Brisbane.

What you say is quite true of the outer suburbs, though...ockerism thrives, everyone stays inside, it's shut by 8-00 pm... But for all that, I'm not sure it is any worse than the outer suburban areas of any other western country.

Thanks for providing an apt example.
People try to distance themselves from 'Paul Hogan' and they get tagged as pseudo-intellectual.
Do they still hang people who don't like 'Footy' in Victoria?

Originally Posted by poolcleaner

6) The outback.
Sorry Mockers, but it's a wasteland, a nuclear test site, a Martian landscape, dry, full of flies, people who talk so fucking slow and think even slower, it's like zombie land. Oh and fucking hot, really fucking hot. people die out there. aborigines don't though
.

Cmon pooly - you've seen photos of my backyard over at ajarn and some on here. Does it look like a wasteland or a nuclear test site?

No.

Yes it does get hot but thats what air cons are for.

Originally Posted by MeMock

Cmon pooly - you've seen photos of my backyard over at ajarn and some on here. Does it look like a wasteland or a nuclear test site?

No.

Yes it does get hot but thats what air cons are for.

Erm, yes!

I've been there (not your neck of the rockpile mind, but the outback).
It's fucking awful.
Crap trees, sand, rocks, flies, heat.