True. Another seemingly odd custom here is for people to take their holidays abroad during the height of the UK summer to crowded places. Surely it's better to go away over Easter to the mediterranean where the crowds havent yet flocked there and the prices aren't yet inflated. But hey, I'm not complaining ...this habit thing stops people thinking outside of the box and is actually a lifesaver for those of us who do

Yes, Australia has a mostly Chinese culture, though some say its just Asian.

Unless you go to an Asian place I wouldn't say it was particularly so - but there are more Asians (SE) than in Europe...

There are a large number of Chinese here but do not think that their culture or any other Asian plays much part outside in the mainstream.
In fact Australians do not in the main have much understanding or indeed interest in the near north besides cheap holidays in Bali and Phuket along with the Thai or Chinese takeaway or resturant.
One would image this will change in the coming years as Australia further acknowledges it's place in the world..

Probably but London has a large Chinese population of some 200,000 along with a large ChinaTown in Soho.....other large populations are found in Paris(13th a metro Place D'Italie where a long street is full of buzzing Viet/Chinese
shops,cafes and people.Amsterdam is another city with a large although a little sanitised ChinaTown and is located just beside Central Station.

Can I throw this in to the pot.

Recall that "best job in the world" to be caretaker up in the barrier reef ?

Long before the job got taken I told most anyone who was interested that the job would go to a Brit. It was so damn obvious to me.

Reason being - the Qld govt knew full well the coverage they would get back in blighty....free advertising for Qld to a huge number of people who they have been enticing downunder for yonks.

Not silly are they!

But....did they oversell the job, place, country ???


Don't think it was oversold to me - I just didn't do enough research.

Enjoyed my time there but eventually needed something "more" which I realised I was not going to get in Oz.

"More" to me is more than wonderful beaches and scenery.....a decent TV show, decent choice of a wide variety of restaurants, decent intellectual people to talk to, a culture of wanting to "do a good job" and get on with it
rather than wait 'til "she'll be right"......a job that would stretch me every day until I retire....

Not everyone wants this sort of thing...we are all different. Certainly my cousins could not understand why would I want to work hard....how about 'cos I enjoy it !....we are not all so lucky as to enjoy our work I know. My opinion here is you are only alive once, so while you are here and you have to work, then do something you enjoy. In this regard, I could not understand my cousins - they purely worked for the dollar and watched the clock to when they could scarper home. Why carry on doing something you hate ?

Did Kiama harbour take 50 odd years to build ?

Australia is certainly cultureless and full of brits who read the sun and earn a crap load more money than they would back home so why wouldn't they want to be in Aus.

Another thing to all the "brits" who aren't coming out here are part of the slack 32% Government employees who earn a wage that would could never live of in Aus and are happy to take your 1 year maternity leave?

The Salaries in Australia are much higher and the career opportunities are better. thats why no one applys for the HSMP these days lol

You can get The Sun here? Why?

That is absolute rubbish.

Are you being ironic?

Well, I reckon that a lot of people (certainly not all - I moved for personal reasons) make the move over here because:

a) Housing - very hard to compare. But I would argue that housing in Australia is far cheaper than in UK, comparing like for like.
b) Unemployment is far higher in the UK. 7.2% compared to 5.7% in Australia.
c) Weather is far better in Aus.
d) In Aus there is less of a focus on obtaining fulfillment/acheivement from "owning" material goods, going "shopping", etc etc.
e) wages- In Feb 2009, the average weekly earnings for full-time adults was $1,183 in Australia. At 2.10 exchange rate, thats just under GBP30,000. The UK has no reliable average earnings figures, so you can decide for yourself whether Australia really has a low income level or not, in comparison to UK.

It seems to me that your original post has got a lot of dud info in it....

Australia was a very materialistic country long before Britain became a money and material obsessive society somewhere in the early eighties.
In the seventies a lot of young Aussies doing the London thing often voiced the conformity and material traits of Aussies as what they preferred about the difference of living in London to being back home.
Funny isn't it how the same society can be viewed differently?

I would say a large dose of irony is at play here.

At the end of the day, it's very subjective. It really depends on the kind of life a person leads, and the people they have around them. I could quite happily be sitting in the pub talking to you about how Australia is great because people are interested more in the simple things...whereas you might disagree.

I could quite happily be sitting in the pub, full stop.

I guess something of a convergence has occurred over time, you know you may well laugh, but there was a time and not that long ago, that i would have said about Londoners what you say about Aussies.
One could converse on many issues with little material concerns..natter about anything from world events to music and anyone could join in never really come close to finding such relaxed people or places that harbour similar here..