You won't be the first, and you won't be the last....! This would be a major stumbling block at times...cheers

I find the Australian accent a major stumbling block.....I find it hard to listen to at times.

Depends on the sort of Australian you meet, surely? Most I hear are easy to understand.

They are easy enough to understand...it is simply an awful accent.....especially those that squeak at the end of every sentence.

Can we have an example?

No.....just listen to a few.

The rising intonation should be banned or the speakers deported to Norfolk island or somewhere dismal like Perth as punishment

Aha...yes the rising intonation. Seems prominent in the young and female, and perhaps suburban.

Deport them to Perth where they can do battle with Geordie...Brummie....
stand back and light the touch paper...perhaps. Then we will see who is the bestest at being dullest...(or rather barely intelligible!)

Think you hit the nail on the head there. Sometimes known as the sentence ending inflection which kind of sounds like it should be a question but is usually a statement. More often than not found in the white female bogan.

Haha see you guys have got the patter

Actually to be fair, it's in a fair amount of the population...just in varying degrees. At best, it doesn't make the accent hard to hear, or understand, but it might be an irritant.

It is also picked up slightly by migrant Britons (some who will deny they do it), and even, I believe...UK-based yoof who used to watch soaps...and even in the US????????

I find an Australianism of far more note is the guttural adenoidal emphasis - which is prominent, this time, in the male population...

At worst = massive Bogan (and irritant).

At best, can actually sound quite commanding and rich. See some prominent Australian statesman/pollies.

But we digress...

You what, John?!

Well I find a harsh Kiwi accent or an Essex accent more grating on the ears than a standard Aussie bogan accent.

I find many English accents grating due to the glottal stop, extreme accent, or a habit of failing to talk in sentences. At least the Australian drawl is slow. I've never had to ask an Australian to repeat something in a professional environment.

I'd agree. I personally find Australians dull but that's probably because my world and background was so eccentric that the aggressive culture of conformity here grates on me a bit.

Australia isn't a great place to be demonstratively 'different' an awful lot of people here feel threatened by those that they can't place in a neat mental box and who think differently to them.

There's an English guy in my office, an old school toff in his 30's, lovely guy, he's witty, funny, highly literate, camp but a massive ladykiller and alway well dressed in that kind of fey caddish English way (mustard cords and tweed) and frigging smart. He's about as far from 'Australian' as you can get.

Pretty much all the Aussies think he's a knob and say so. His extreme Englishness and individual confidence seems to offend them on a spiritual level. He doesn't care what anyone thinks of him and it shows. He turned up to our christmas party dressed as Pharlap which gives you an idea...

The Brits, Indians, Americans, Europeans and Asians, think he's an absolute legend.

I can't help thinking this say something about Aussies.

I've met some eccentric, literate Australians. But I can see where you are coming from; it might also say something about the people you work with. I think there are plenty of well educated and interesting Australians - you just have to find them. A lot of it is demographic.

I've worn tweed to the office, and I might even be considered eccentric by my mates... (but levelled with a healthy degree of worldiness and down to earth). In Melbourne, there are plenty of dandies.

I remember people in the UK would certainly think you a toff if you so much as did any of the above..

BTW - to add balance - yes I think Australian suburbanites can be conformist and perhaps 'boring' - but I can't be sure they are any worse than their direct UK equivalent.