British Expats - My Dilemma

British Expats (https://britishexpats.com/forum/)

- Moving back or to the UK (https://britishexpats.com/forum/moving-back-uk-61/)

- - My Dilemma (https://britishexpats.com/forum/moving-back-uk-61/my-dilemma-629513/)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grayling (Post 7918053)

Not this older person:thumbdown:

Blimey, not this one either:thumbdown:

Boring as b*tsh*t.

It is interesting to note that London and Melbourne have an ALMOST identical amount of rain per year and ALMOST the exact same number of rainy days.

Why then the bloody water restrictions and so on? Why is there not enough water in Melbourne for what is a lower population?

Mismanagement? Plain stupidity?

And why, oh why, oh bloody why, do people claim Melbourne has a better climate than south east England when it clearly doesn't?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grayling (Post 7916255)

have you ever actually been to Sydney or Brisbane?:confused:

If you had you would not make such stupid staements.

Where, anywhere near central Brisbane or Sydney, is there free and plentiful parking or quiet roads?

....and I doubt if the other major cities are any different.:rolleyes:

There's more to Australia than Brisbane and Sydney, and nearly all of it better. I'm talking about small regular towns, the likes of which in Britain are overgoverned with parking restrictions. Here I can park anywhere. I drove for an hour the other day and only two cars passed me on the other side of the road.

And please! THe charge that anyone who disagrees with you is a troll is SO 1990s

London is rainier than Sydney though.

And Manchester is rainier than London, Melbourne and Sydney.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hereandthere (Post 7918656)

Here I can park anywhere. I drove for an hour the other day and only two cars passed me on the other side of the road.

Not a very popular place, then :lol:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jules Europe (Post 7916422)

Sterling bottomed out back in December 2008 against the Euro. Since then it has made a steady recovery before stagnating once out again, but the exchange rate is still far higher than it was back in December 2008. Or do you think Sterling will plummet once again?

I work in a business, which brings in clients from all over and not just from Europe. The main currency though is the Euro and 50% of peoples monies are in this currency, but the other 50% are usually in Sterling, Swiss Francs, Swedish Kronor, Norweigen Kroner and Russian Rubles etc. Most from time to time, usually complain about about their currency and its exchange rate along with prices in their own countries. The clients from the UK, complain no more than say someone from Sweden, point being, the current economic crisis has huge amounts of people seeing the grass greener elsewhere regardless of the country that they are from.

I`ve read a lot of stuff about the Australian economy on these threads, the good and the bad, but I imagine that its no probably no better than most other first world countries in this respect.

I think sterling will go lower in the second leg down over the next 18 months - 24 months. I could be wrong of course, but the fundamentals to me do not point to recovery. Remember it's election time so all talk of "recovery" should be taken with a pinch of salt. UK still has rising unemployment (lagging, I know), it's cutting welfare, raising taxes and cutting spending. Also, interest rates there should be 3 or 4% in the next year or so, which will being further havoc. Sterling is toast IMO - and the only reason it isn't called the euro now is because the euro is not much better.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sally Redux (Post 7918660)

Not a very popular place, then :lol:

Not in the demographic sence, thank heavens.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hereandthere (Post 7918656)

But you cannot base your comparisons of the UK to Australia on UK cities and quiet Australian regional towns. They are not the same thing.

There are quiet places in the UK, just fewer of them.

Lots of people seem to do this. Move to an out-of-the-way place in Australia and then compare it to their life in London or Liverpool. Which is stupid. Not the same at all. Go to a quiet little fishing village in Cornwall or a town in North Yorkshire and then you will find a quieter slower life just like you are so proud of in Australia.

You really think living in the heart of Sydney is quieter and slower and with less pollution than the heart of London? Of course not.

Compare like for like or shut up.

I drove through the middle of Tassie a while back and it was quiet as anything. Passed one car in over an hour.

Wouldn't wanna live there though. Nice to visit, boring to stay there.

There are places in Northumberland where the population and traffic is low.

Again, I wouldn't live there for that reason but it's still there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jules Europe (Post 7916446)

London depopulating!!! Are you sure?

Looks that way. "London was the only region of the UK to experience a net population loss, which was 344,558."

In: http://www.24dash.com/news/Communiti...se-in-migrants

This is quite important - as anyone from Detroit will tell you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hereandthere (Post 7918656)

The parking restrictions where I am in Australia are no more favourable than those in the UK, in fact, they are worse. The roads are, if anything, busier than the south east England town I come from.

Friends from overseas staying last week could not believe the amount of traffic on the roads on route to the airport. We were crawling along for much of the journey.

Don't fall into the plain ridiculous trap of thinking that your quiet life in a regional town is representative of ALL Australia. That is just so stupid and devalues your more balanced arguments.

Quote:

Originally Posted by willamos (Post 7916712)

Do you really believe that the ''democratic'' system of Australia is really inherently more ''democratic'' than the ''democratic'' system of the UK? Do Australians really have more say in their country's affairs than British people do in theirs?? Was there a referendum in Australia about support for the war on terror? If Australia were to introduce an ID cards system, would the Australian people be given more say in that than British people?

Far from me seeking to run down Australia and promote the UK, I think you are a little too generous and glowing and trusting in your assessment of Australia.

You probably shouldn't go here. Australia has one of the highest rates of offering referenda to its population, including recently one about something as lowly as daylight savings in WA. The British didn't even get a say over the European Constitution - something that completely changes their law.
On top of that it gave women the vote before Britain did and expanded general universal suffrage before Britain did, which gives it a finer tradition of democracy and suffrage than the Mother Country.

Also, the Australian supreme court is actually in Australia, which is nice, I think, and something the British cannot say about their supreme court which is in Strasbourg. Over three quarters of all laws giverning your life in Britain are written and initiated in Belgium - but by whom? Do you know th enames of these legislators? Who votes for them? Do you have any idea how the European Commission is constituted? Do you know how the Commissioners are chosen? What about the European Council? Do you know anything about that?

There is no comparison in transparency and democratic participation when it comes to Australia and EU.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hereandthere (Post 7918677)

One MAJOR reason for recent fluctuations in London's population is the influx of immigrants (e.g. from Poland) to work in and around the capital who, in the light of the recent economic downturn, have decided to leave and go home. Some figures suggested as many as half a million such immigrants were leaving after having been in England for a few years or so.

Most government projections have almost all the boroughs populations rising in the next decade.

Hilarious how people (like you) will moan about over-population and then cite depopulation as a negative too. Love that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by willamos (Post 7918818)

Chronic overpopulation of a country, combined with depopulation of its capital city, is as bad a sign as one gets. I didn't think it was that sophisticated a concept, but clearly it is.

Democracy debate neatly dodged - 10 points.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hereandthere (Post 7918693)

Referendum in Queensland on DST?! Whoopee. No referendum held in Victoria about changes to DST in the last year.

Any referendums held on important issues that the government wants to have the final say over though? Such as the Vietnam war or the Iraq war? Don't think so. Any referendum on fluoride being added to water (a controversial issue) in a great, great many of Australia's water supplies? Don't think so. Did the Liberal government intend to hold a referendum on the controversial Workplace Agreement legislation it intended to introduce? Don't think so.

So well done for missing the point. They offer referendums on generally ''lowly'' things that the government doesn't have a huge vested interest in controlling.

And how do you KNOW that a referendum actually changes anything? How do you KNOW that the results of referenda actually affect the final legislation that is/isn't introduced?

If the government (any government; you really think the Australian government consists entirely of altruistic, dedicated public servants?) wants to do something, it will do it. If it doesn't, it won't.

I do not believe that true democracy, where a nation is run for its people by its people, really exists, anywhere in the world.

I singularly fail to see why Australian politicians should be any more moral and righteous and honest than politicians in the US or Britain. It's all the same thing. Or are you of the belief that Aussies are truly ''fair dinkum'', including their MPs?

I'm sure if the powers that be in Australia want the country to become a republic, it will happen, and a ''no'' vote in a referendum will become a ''yes'' vote.

Naive, mate. Naive.