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[Blargityblarg]

Australia is great! Apart from Victorians. But everywehre else is great!

You don't have to be bitter just because we're unambiguously the smartest, most attractive and best-smelling state.

I am contemptous of you filthy Victorians because you burn baby souls for fuel. And you can't drive.

That actually reminds me; one downside to the southeast of australia is that we burn lignite (we have had trouble educating the more... backward portions of the nation that it's made of ancient dinosaur souls, not baby souls) for electricity, resulting is cheap-as-fuck but environmentally Hitleresque power.

We can totally drive. Also we invented the national sport, and as I mentioned before, smartest, best smelling etc.

[Gamerlord]

Australia is great! Apart from Victorians. But everywehre else is great!

You don't have to be bitter just because we're unambiguously the smartest, most attractive and best-smelling state.

I am contemptous of you filthy Victorians because you burn baby souls for fuel. And you can't drive.

That actually reminds me; one downside to the southeast of australia is that we burn lignite (we have had trouble educating the more... backward portions of the nation that it's made of ancient dinosaur souls, not baby souls) for electricity, resulting is cheap-as-fuck but environmentally Hitleresque power.

We can totally drive. Also we invented the national sport, and as I mentioned before, smartest, best smelling etc.

DON'T LISTEN TO THEIR PROPAGANDA! VICTORIAN ELECTRICITY COMES FROM BABY SOULS! WAKE UP PEOPLE!

[kaijyuu]

(we have had trouble educating the more... backward portions of the nation that it's made of ancient dinosaur souls, not baby souls)

But what about the baby dinosaur souls? Still babies! Still burning!

[Osmosis Jones]

(and this is now an Australia thread. Sorry Abculatter :? )

[Reudh]

Well, I'll attempt a rerail.

While, yes, there are racists in Australia, they're the same you get in every country. Our racist groups tend to hail from the same sort of stock as say, your american Rednecks.

Pros of Australia:

- Providing you're a good person, we're apparently (I say this based on having spoken to new immigrants) some of the nicest people. (Though that might just be Victoria. VICTORIANS REPRESENT.)
- We're having a skills shortage, so if you're qualified as a tradie or a decent profession, you're pretty much guaranteed a job.
- Through agreements with the US and Canadian governments (Does it come under AUSCANZUKUS? dunno), you stand to have an easier time getting in, as will people from the UK.
- Our country is relatively stable, and through our partnerships with US and China we may well prosper (providing our mining holds out).

Cons of Australia:

- There are definitely racist groups. (In)Famously, there was the Cronulla Riot a couple of years back, our first riot in nearly 80 years. Stay away from parts of North and West Sydney for that reason. The outback isn't terribly welcoming if you're anything other than black or white. (quote from a British descent Muslim friend of mine: "I once went to Broken Hill. They all looked like they wanted to shoot me there!")
- We tend to have extremes of temperature, and certain areas are either barren or prone to natural disaster; ie. Queensland and WA occasionally suffer from Tropical Cyclones, and Cyclone Tracy just about wiped the capital city of Darwin off the map in 1974. We had the Black Saturday bushfires, and more recently floods. Our climate down in Victoria can be likened to California's - temperate, but rather warm.
- The animals are out to get you.
- Living costs are quite high. An example I like to use, an online friend from Maine can survive on one income (three dependents) of $USD30k/a having bought a house there, roughly twice the size of my family's house. Combined my family is on roughly $AUD110k/a. Houses especially are ridiculously high, as is fuel.

[GlyphGryph]

How can houses be so ridiculously expensive when you have so much bloody empty space to build them, Australia! It doesn't make any sense!

[Osmosis Jones]

Because 95% of the country is spider and snake infested desert. We all live on the coast.

[Reudh]

Glyph, allow me to show you some pictures.

Spoiler: No one likes to live in these places, except sheep and mad farmers. (click to show/hide)

Compare that with:

Spoiler: On the other hand, this is a Temperate Rainforest. I live ~20km / 12mi from this place. (click to show/hide)

That above image is only 50 km from the coast. The one above THAT is about 2000km from the coast, I think.

Spoiler: And finally: St Kilda, Victoria. This is close to Melbourne, about 5km. (click to show/hide)

[[/b]

Can you see now why our prices are so high?

[Osmosis Jones]

(Note; that beach is really skuzzy up close. It's filthy, the water smells bad, and there are no waves, because it's all part of an inlet rather than open ocean. As compensation though, have this!)

[GlyphGryph]

So it's really expensive because you all hate your neighbors and want as much open space between yourself and them as possible? But not TOO much space because then you'll be in sheepland?

[RedKing]

Having traveled through 2/3 of Australia in my teens (everywhere but WA and Tasmania), I would agree that it's a really nice place and I'd have no problem relocating there. My cousin already did that, even gave up his US citizenship to become an Australian citizen (though his motivation was love rather than politics).

But then I'm also attracted to hot, dusty, desolate places. Sleeping in an underground hotel (by which I mean, our bunks were literally shelves carved out of bedrock and accessible via tunnel) while somebody is setting off dynamite charges a mile away to mine for opal....well, I might not actually want that as a permanent status, but it was hella fun to visit. But for permanent habitation, I'd be fine with most of the rest of Australia.

My wife has some considerable time around Scandinavia and is real-world enamored of it, not just Internet-enamored. Too cold for my tastes. She insists Finland isn't *that* cold, even as she reminisces over photos of her coming out of the sauna and rolling naked in the snow. 

[Osmosis Jones]

My wife has some considerable time around Scandinavia and is real-world enamored of it, not just Internet-enamored. Too cold for my tastes. She insists Finland isn't *that* cold, even as she reminisces over photos of her coming out of the sauna and rolling naked in the snow. 

You see, that sounds awesome to me. I've seen snow once in my life, and have lived through summers where the tar regularly melted out of the roads; someplace cool sounds like bliss. Plus, you can chill your beer by leaving it outside for a few hours! Talk about convenience!

[kaijyuu]

The outdoors being a refrigerator isn't that great. Remember, actually have to go outside to retrieve your now-frozen drink, and that requires leaving your incredibly-expensive-to-heat dwelling.

[Osmosis Jones]

The outdoors being a refrigerator isn't that great. Remember, actually have to go outside to retrieve your now-frozen drink, and that requires leaving your incredibly-expensive-to-heat dwelling.

Air-conditioning ain't cheap either, and that's what jumpers are for. If I go outside in the level of clothing required to feel comfortable in the heat here, I'd get arrested for public indecency :/

[RedKing]

Not to mention your beer might go right past chilled to frozen solid. People in far northern climes actually buy refrigerators to keep stuff cold WITHOUT freezing it.

My wife adored spending time in Lappland. Lappland sounds like a frozen, reindeer-infested hell to me.
I adored spending time in Coober Pedy, Alice Springs and Mataranka. All of which sounds like a much more standard blazing hell to my wife.