sme

But doesn't that work both ways, ie; unhappy people in Oz justifying their desire to return home by catastrophising Australia as an ice gripped, bogan existance in every suburb ?


Disclaimer - I am not saying that all homesick people wanting to return to the UK think like this.

bcworld

That's a fair point but I think the difference is that those people have lived in both countries and are in a position to make that judgement - even if they clearly dont always make that judgement fairly or objectively.

But when people in the UK - many of whom havent even been to Oz on holiday, use criteria as justification for making the move to Oz where those problems / issues are just the same / worse than in the UK...then people here may point that out to them and say think again.

I'd never piss on someone's parade because they said they wanted to experience life in a new country or they thought it was something they always wanted to do.

Exile

I don't think it does. Most people wanting to return are under no illusions about that. They just realize that crime rates in Australia are not significantly lower than in the UK, and in some cases they seem to be higher. Perception of crime seems to be lower in Australia though, for some reason.

Maybe it's because in the UK the crimes of 60mn people are perceived as local. Maybe it's because many immigrants get a one-time boost in status in Australia using the equity in their UK homes, making it easier to avoid the more crime-affected areas.

In Perth's case, the population must be fairly close to that of the Bournemouth and Poole conurbation. If all the crime of Perth happened there, how would that seem?

Justifying a move away from home and family on the basis of crime in the UK is the problem here. For that it would have to be significantly better. And it doesn't seem to be.

jad n rich

OK i stand corrected, I said cant think of any kids/teens shot, so I googled in teenager shot in sydney, loads come up, 19 yo shot in 2002, 15 year old shot in 2003, 15 yo girl shot with bow and arrow..... so it does happen but they look like quite small news articles and I think that is a point , the media here plays things down far more than the UK media.

bcworld

These are stats from the last United Nations International Crime Survey. If you believe the numbers you've basically the same chance of getting murdered in Aus....although a higher chance of someone trying to kill you. You'd be more likely to get beaten up in the UK but far more likely to be sexually assaulted in Aus. You'd have a higher chance of seeing an armed robbery occur in the UK but you're more likely to be a victim of theft / burglary yourself in Aus.

Not making any judgements here on the quality of the stats.

Australia UK
Murder 1.57 1.61
Attempted Murder 2.04 1.34
Assault 735 851
Rape 81 16
Robbery 121 180
Theft 3515 3257
Car Theft 724 640
Burglary 2275 1579

*per 100,000 population

kez81

i agree, the uk media are very upfront with the problems in the uk and i do think it gets played down a lot here, something can happen one day here you hear of it then it disapears but in the uk the story will run for ages.

kez81

thats intresting, not really that much difference just proves crime is everywhere.

Nu-Shooz

Daft isn't it!!! lets drag every single crime in UK down, explain thats why we are leaving the place....only to find it happens here too. Now what will they have to say

Amazulu

Too true.

MartinLuther

You're comparing apples and pears. 8 is the number of youth shootings in the UK so far this year. I'd imagine the Brisbane copper was not a youth and I know the 4 people shot in Melbourne were all adults. The typical 'homicide by gun' rate in the UK is usually between 50 and 100. That's the figure you should be using for comparison.

As for news of shootings being suppressed here and not in the UK. That is complete crud. The Age doesn't shy from reporting them and I know of one local shooting in the UK that failed to make the national news. Considering we get reports of road deaths and fire deaths from Brisbane I find it hard to believe that shootings are suppressed.

bcworld

....point taken...I didnt read the post properly.

So I'll compare apples with apples...in those stats i listed above there was also homicide by firearm for Aus of 0.31 per 100,000 (there was no figure quoted for England & Wales)......assuming a population of 20m that's 62 per year. That compares pretty unfavourably with your figure of 50-100 for 3 times the population.

jad n rich

Did anybody say suppressed played down was my phrase, in relation to the UK's front page headlines for a month method was more my point.

Heres an example, I didnt even know this had happened, its a qld town not that far from here, 3 days ago, didnt even hear about it, came up in a google search on stabbings. http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news...462134950.html

Or for a more well known example, how many people have not heard of maddie mccann? but how many know a 18 month old child was taken from its sydney bedroom and never found, about 2/3 years ago, so little was made of it, it received tiny media coverage.

MartinLuther

It does compare well. Probably one of the advantages of unarmed beat coppers. I'd would also guess the number of family shootings is higher in the remoter parts of Aus (in tandem with the higher Aus suicide rate).

MartinLuther

Symantics - shamantics...

We can prove anything with a well chosen set of examples

jad n rich

Well chosen? what a 2 second google search.

If that had happened in the UK it probably would have been blown into Teenage rampage, cops, teachers, kids parents stabbed. Headlines for a week.

Plus a couple of threads on BE

Amusing thought, should post that link with WTF is happening in australia!!! title.