What's what?
Found on Quora :
What do Australian citizens do without a second thought that would shock other global denizens?
Brayden Scooter
Brayden Scooter, Survived the land since I was born
Updated Fri
Swear mid sentence. Giving out directions, telling a story, telling kids off, watching sport, drinking, proposing, everywhere. ‘So just go down that fucken way till you hit the bloody lights, take a fucken left, then a fucken right, keep bloody walking, can’t miss the cunt’ ‘thank you officer’.
Call strangers mates and friends fuckwits. Everyone is your mate, unless there a dickhead. Your friends are your best mates and you call them the most offensive swear words to prove it.
have a barbie or some hot fucken food on Chrissy day. Christmas is in summer in Straya, so togs out, hit the pool, beach, the hose wherever. Barbie, Prawns, flies on Christmas is a staple of Australian culture.
Not drinking fosters, that’s our terrible export shit.
Using waterproof, tearproof Monopoly money as a currency. Well the Canadians and poms have it, but the yanks still don’t.
Tell people who are showing off their wealth to get fucked. Tall Poppy Syndrome. If your successful and making bank, good for fucking you, but don’t jam it down our bloody throats, we don’t need to see this $500 fucking vase in your hallway, or gold bars. Actually show us gold bars, but it wasn’t us that took them.
Speak English (Australian). Enough said.
Buy something from America, have it shipped out, delivered, because it’s cheaper than buying domestically.
Use internet that works never out of working times. I get kicked from Australian servers for having high ping when playing games. I’ll have to restart my internet daily otherwise we won’t have a “””stable””” connection.
Pay $500 a week for a 2 bedroom apartment with a bathroom, kitchen, dining room/living room in the city, and $500 for a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, kitchen, dining, living/loung, 2 car garage house half hour outside the city.
Go back 118 years and not be properly known as “Australia” but as a few colonies.
Play spin the bottle with Prime Ministers. Something stupid like 5 prime ministers in a term where there should be 2.
Mandatory voting. Makes most people actually take an interest in who they’re voting.
Know how to swim. Most Schools have compulsory swimming lessons.
Say “Fucken hell look at the size of that spider” in school and get told off for saying hell.
know a bunch of people who are in the building game. Chippies, sparkies, brickies, tradies are the life blood of Australia. If they’re busy Australia is having a boom, if they’re down on their luck we’re in a recession.
Give everyone a fair go. No one gets left out, everyone gets a go, whether that’s in neighbourhood cricket, shouting a round at the pub, getting invited for a barbie (unless their a cockhead), everywhere. It’s one of the core parts of the Australian way of life. We don’t care about winning so much as actually participating.
Town names call Wagga Wagga, Chinamans knob, Yorkeys knob, Funny Knob Creek, eggs and bacon bay, gooloogong, end of the world, mount buggery, tittybong , Toowoomba, Goondiwindi, and countless other ones. Many names have a Aboriginal inheritance to them, so we get a few creative names. Same thing with our street names, much better than 1st street or 5th Avenue or whatever.
Live in the future.
just a few, any others and I’ll chuck em on the bottom.
Merry fucken Christmas, and a drunken new year!
edit:
Enjoy meat Pies after a hard days yakka
Use Ausjectives: swear words to describe and add emphasis to words and sentences : kanga-bloody-roo, too fucken many
Classic Blowin! No need to make Australia great again! We never lost it.
Manly proving - yet again - that it is the literal low point for Australian coastal communities.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/surf-life-saving-club-pays-1200-to-a...
Societally speaking , if not geographically.
Blowin, I think you would be struggling to find a member of Queenscliff Surf Club who actually lives in Manly. It's a beach club for yuppies from surrounding suburbs.
My point exactly.
Australia’s East coast is approaching saturation point during holiday season.
Australia’s East coast is done. Not much true exploration left . This is impacting on the character of Australians as the vast majority of us now reside in urbanised landscapes. East coast is 30 years behind California. The rest of Australia is 30 years behind the East coast.
This video is called “ explore life “ . I was at Frazer not so long ago . The era of exploration there is loooong over.
Is the Aussie character diminishing as a result ?
Yes !!!!
Never mind exploration I just want a spot at the north end carpark in the arvos.
Did you notice that Harry Bryant filmed a section of his latest clip at that bank that you guys could’ve surfed for your Swellnet Christmas break ?
The NEL* ?
* North End Lookout.
Not Stanny. North end next to Frool Surf Club.
HB was out at the far north end on a boog y/day.
Further glimpses into the not-so-distant future of Australia -
"Thousands of drivers have been turned away from Hyams Beach - the local council brainstorms solutions with residents over its booming popularity."
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jan/06/hyams-beach-thous...
In the meantime, even in the most rugged and remote areas, councils continue the financial squeeze.
"Shack owners on Tasmania's west coast fear their lifestyle is under threat - leaseholders argue the fees are higher than the rates they pay for their permanent homes in urban centres."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-06/tasmania-west-coast-shack-owners-...
Those west coast of Tassie leaseholders sound like first class bloody whingers to me Andy. $1400 a year to live in what they are happy to call paradise. That's affordable even on a single pension. There are hundreds of thousands of pensioners who would kill for a deal like that. Plus the greedy fools want the right to pass the lease onto their families! Wow, what about recognising how lucky you are!
Yeah I was waiting for that BB ;)
My point is that from Moreton Island to Dongara, Tasmania to Cape York, that style of living, that part of Australia is vanishing.
And a booming population has a whole lot to do with it.
You'd want to say that quietly... they are a hardy bunch. The nearest footy oval is gravel, let that sink in. Also, check the median income for that part of Australia compared to the rates, and unemployment level. It may feel bigger than $1400 in an area abundant in employment.
A very wild coast, reminded me of Margs only more raw.
Ha ha VJ I'm just amazed that they think that they are doing it tough when there are probably a couple of million doing it way harder in cities and towns all over the country. Screw what it feels like, what they are asking for, hardy or not, is a free ride. Of course playing too much footy on gravel could have influenced their judgement over the years.
Considering the multitude of angles you could have got from those two articles BB, it's interesting to see the one you chose.
Well I had no interest in the other one. Tourists are sheep. We all know that. And no, the Tassie one didn't strike me as being about an endangered lifestyle. I am pretty sure that there are still plenty of opportunities around the place to live in genteel rural poverty if that's your preferred lifestyle.
Haha, I suppose genteel poverty ain't what it used to be!
I wonder how you'd go finding a squatter's camp or a fisherman's shack these days and living ultra-basic.
I'm too soft but I like the idea that they might prevail.
It might be hard on the coastal strip these days but I reckon if you wandered inland a bit you might find plenty living a pretty basic lifestyle. Maybe not on public land but, unless things have changed, there are plenty of rundown rural houses at rock bottom rents and plenty of land holders willing to tolerate a bit of a shack out of sight of the road for a small, almost regular, payment.
Does it not bother you how things have changed and are continuing to change?
No lament for the loss of that Tim Winton-style coastal way of life?
Related but on a tangent, I wonder if China are going to embark on a program of massive immigration to prop up their rapidly ageing population?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-06/chinese-declining-population-goin...
It looks like all that self loving over pammy was somewhat misguided...she's actually my soul mate....
"In her tweets and blog posts Anderson emphasized the wider importance of the protests, terming them a battle against the “politics represented by Macron and the 99% who are fed up with inequality, not only in France, all over the world.” She similarly responded to claims of protester violence by tweeting “I despise violence . . . but what is the violence of all these people and burned luxurious cars, compared to the structural violence of the French — and global — elites?”
Showing her broad interest in the political upheavals currently gripping the continent, she has in recent days also voiced her support for left-wing UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn while also sharply criticizing Italy’s far-right interior minister Matteo Salvini for his racist agenda."
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/12/yellow-vests-pamela-anderson-france-m...
It appears the 'bimbo' was playing all of us.
"...Polakow-Suransky argues that liberals’ “failure to confront the real tensions and failures of integration, by pretending violent extremism and attacks on free speech were not problems, infuriated many voters and left them feeling abandoned by mainstream parties.” He is also particularly critical of the left for refusing to acknowledge problems within immigrant communities such as crime, unemployment, and radicalization and for believing that national sentiment should be “purged” and replaced by cosmopolitanism. These missteps helped create a political opening for the populist right, which took over, albeit in warped ways, positions that used to be the provenance of the left, including a defense of the welfare state, activist government, and secular values, while also reaching out to workers and other alienated voters who in a previous era would have voted for social democratic or communist ."
"..[L]iberals,” he states, “proved better at finger-pointing than at self-reflection. They spend more time explaining the rise of populism than the fall of liberalism. They refuse to look in the mirror and recognize their own shortcomings, which led to the populist surge across the continent.” For Zielonka these shortcomings involve facilitating the trends currently menacing liberal democracy including rising inequality, a backlash against globalization, and nativism.
Zielonka takes liberals to task for their denigration of communal links and identities. Most people, he notes, “feel ‘at home’ with like-minded and like-looking people, they trust those whom they know.” Wishing these realities away is unhelpful. If liberals want to defend liberal values, particularly pluralism and tolerance, they need to figure out how to “create harmony, solidarity and communal spirit, which are needed for any serious collective endeavors.” These arguments are not, Zielonka insists, populist demagoguery—progressive communitarian critiques of liberal ideas have been made by thinkers like Michael Walzer...."
"...Liberals ignored the challenges posed by cultural and demographic changes and failed to envision how to make them compatible with social stability. This provided an opening for populists and other anti-liberal and anti-democratic figures to insist that homogeneity was the only way to protect national harmony and traditions.
Zielonka is equally scathing about liberal elites’ acceptance of (or at least acquiescence in) unregulated markets, austerity, and the disproportionate accumulation of wealth by the rich. Quoting George Soros, he notes that liberals should have recognized the danger of a version of capitalism that “holds that the common good is best served by the uninhibited pursuit of self-interest. Unless tempered by the recognition of a common interest that ought to take presence over particular interests, our present system is liable to break down.” Zielonka argues neoliberal capitalism has created deep economic and geographical divisions. (He notes, for example, that in his home country of Poland, although growth rates have been high over the past decades, their rewards have been very unequally spread and precarious jobs lacking social benefits have become commonplace.) Neoliberal capitalism raises the question of whether democratic elites are able to control markets and protect societies. If they are not, is it any surprise voters have grown dissatisfied and disillusioned with them?"
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/how-liberalism-failed-immigratio...
So the liberals are to blame for no-one listening to then about inequality and the social problems it causes for the last twenty years. And the right, whose policies produced the problems, are now the solution. Beam me up Scotty! The aliens have taken over.
Maybe if they actually focussed on inequality rather than just offering it the mandatory lip service whilst diverting attention elsewhere they might have pulled it off.
As the article states, they rolled over on just about everything important, whilst gorging on their minorities smorgasbord.
I don't think the article even remotely suggests the right has the answers. It just points out why the lefty elites are so on the nose.
Self reflection ain't their strong point...clearly...
"Lefty elites" fuck me sypkan you just made me choke on my mung bean and kale salad.
I subscribe to the theory that the whole political world moved to the right off the mythical centre a long time ago; neo-liberalism and all that, the usual political suspects. Now here in Australia that meant the Labor Party followed that tread to the right. So I would contend the Labor Party during that time and since more closely resembles the Liberal Party of old i.e. before Howard aka the unflushable turd. So it makes me laugh when people call supporters of the Labor Party "lefty elites" when they are nothing of the kind or when the reactionaries (hey I get to use that word again) accuse the Labor Party of pursuing a "leftist" agenda. Not lefty at all, just old school Liberal Party centre right policies.
Now my great hope is that people like Sanders, Corbyn and Shorten seize the moment and start to pursue more traditional centre left policies. Shorten will get his chance soon enough.
.... and while we are in a revisionist mood, so the right never rolled on anything important to sensible centre right voters? The recent Victorian election result would suggest otherwise it seems.
I was being flippant with that 'lefty elite' term. I should have I stuck with 'Liberal elites' from the article.
I don't actually think your average labor voter is a 'lefty elite'. They're more so the ones disillusioned with the distant lefty elite experts and academics influencing policy, hence the current situation.
We'll see about shorton. He's had three big opportunities to define the labor agenda and he's ducked and weaved everyone of them.
Just more bland bill.
He's certainly no sanders or corbyn, not even close.
More, clinton, trudeau, macron.
Neo liberal stooge.
I think Stu gave a pretty good account of how we ended up here, my beef would be the "lefty elites " (never met or seen one) were co-conspirators in the defang of unions.
As far as Shorten goes he really is only able to move incrementally back to the centre left, a fair bit of water to cross to get there IMHO.
The main article in this link is decent enough, but it’s the third comment down by “Gunammata “ that is really worth the attention. Nice summation with an enjoyable turn of phrase.
Amazing how many people are at the same place as myself in regards to the current state of Oz political direction.
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/01/the-coalitions-murdoch-fixation...
Yeah, agree with much of what he or she wrote, but to play devil's advocate a moment, the only way a government of any stripe is gonna derail the Neoliberal Express is by also derailing the economy - or at least seriously threatening to derail it.
It's a given that forty years of policy cannot simply be turned around without some blowback.
All well and good to talk about it, but who here is prepared to lose their job or house?
The change could ameliorate the effects of our current course but it’s not going to induce or prevent the massive societal correction we are due.
Our economy is built on the flimsiest of foundations . This needs to be rectified. Our paean to housing needs to be cut short and the comprehensively ruinous flooding of humanity via immigration that is its life support system needs to be stemmed ASAP.
To put into analogy the dichotomy you’re describing, Stu , to stop the rot now would be a broken arm for the nation . To continue our current trajectory is terminal cancer for our way of life. And the ongoing graduation of suffering that is increased foreign debt to pay for required infrastructure upgrades , depreciation of wages , reduced public services and amenities that we are told are necessary short term adjustments are really just the sickening administration of ultimately futile chemotherapy regimes that worsen our descent into irredeemable 2nd world status.
Who wouldn’t take a couple of years financial struggle to prevent the future of Australia becoming an unrecognisable cesspit ?
Theoretically I agree, but who's going to tell the (highly geared) nation that this will be the recession we have to have?
Reality says it will never happen. The PM that signs that off will be castigated from here to eternity.
And the PM who stands watch as the country endures the recession we will have be because we have to have it , will be castigated anyway.
May as well man/ woman up and attempt to achieve something beneficial for the country.
Wait , that talk is drifting awfully close to a plea for actual leadership from our political class. What was I thinking ?
Nah, they will be seen as a victim of circumstance, not the architect of it.
The politicians will only go where the people allow them to, that's democracy, and while there's talk around the fringes, we're a hell of along way from 'voluntary recession' becoming a national debate, and even further from that debate reaching any sort of consensus.
Meanwhile, just to add to the pessimistic tenor, that consensus will never be achieved as long as business moguls own the media.
What’s your personal opinion then , Stu ?
Would you rather a short term hardship or see the nation broke , busted and so crowded that you’ve got a better chance of seeing a flying elephant than you have of a world resembling anything you’d ever wish to experience in regards to crowds , amenity, services , living standard or general enjoyment ?
Remember the major economic upheaval of the early nineties ? Yeah , distant memory isn’t it ? That’s what’s required.
Yes I would, but it's not enough to wish for something, it also has to pass muster in terms of human behaviour. My opinion is that the people won't allow any recession, no matter how it's painted, to happen. People will hold on to what they've got - even if it's just the security of knowing what tomorrow brings and not leaping into the unknown.
Self interest - and by that I mean, immediate self interest - will rule, same as it always has.
Huh ?
Since when has the interest of the general population ever had anything to do with the direction of the political agenda ? Since when has anything in political discourse had to “pass muster” with the population ?
Any poll will tell you that the majority soundly rejects the current flood of immigration, yet this is roundly ignored by the political class. Why cant this ability to discount entirely the will of the people work towards improving the future of our nation for once ?
And I think that you’re overstating the opposition to a revision of the direction the country is heading in. People don’t like where we are going . Why do you think that the independents/ minor parties are so successful despite having no real expertise or ability to implement their hollow strategies ?
I got this vid from the comments on blowin's article
?t=505This mark blyth fellow certainly spells it all out in simple terms at the beginning. He's fucken gold all the way through actually.
You've just got to fast forward past the other institutionalised academics on the panel.
That video shows a lot about what's currently going on actually. And it's not just about the topic, message, or narrative. Its about how they all fluff about and waffle on, whilst one guy just gets straight down to business.
Re. recession
I'll take a couple of years of pain to set things straight. The 90's recession wasn't that bad. We're paralysed by fear of recession at the moment anyway, which seems almost worse.
This country is in the road to unrecognisable, and that's got nothing to do with the faces. It's now or never.
Besides, as blowin points out, it's coming anyway. We're just desperately tweaking with the degrees of magnitude
"Since when has the interest of the general population ever had anything to do with the direction of the political agenda?"
Since democracy was created.
You keep saying immigration, and I agree it's a huge issue, but it's only one side of the equation. I'm yet to hear anyone, public or political, mount a comprehensive argument about the structural issues wrought by reducing immigration.
They increased immgration for a reason, reducing it will do the opposite.
When someone gets up and starts assesing the full picture - good, bad, and painful to hear - then I'll listen.
Structural issues due to reduced immigration ?
Pick a year in Australia’s past and tell me the problems associated with lower population and there’s your answer.
It’ll most likely centre on Australia’s inability to defend itself during wartime or the size of our domestic market and it’s determination of market self sustainability.
Neither of which are applicable anymore or appropriate given the style of our expansion.
Why are you trying to pick a fight? I told you I agree with the theory...
Anyway, couple of points, you've said yourself the housing churn is what props up the economy. So who do you think is buying the houses? This is the phytoplankton for the rest of Australia's economic environment.
The requirements of a taxable, working-age population that acts as counterweight to support the not insignificant health needs of the ageing Baby Boomers.
The requirements for tech skills no longer taught in Australia now that university degrees are for the wealthy and TAFE has been gutted.
All can be dealt with, however stop number one will be...ah, raising taxes, and you're dead against that.
Immigration was increased due to GREED and greed only.
If you think reducing immigration will contribute to the opposite of greed the what is it we are waiting for ?
Here’s the current incarnation of how we arrived at our bursting at the seams imperative : https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/01/turns-mining-wages-arent-soaring/
Too bad it’s not in Woodside’s interest to collude any longer. Makes it harder to cry skills shortage when a major player calls bullshit. Different story a decade ago when the “Big “ show kicked off.
I can’t argue properly if I’m not facing adversity.
Of course taxes need to be increased......from the corporate sector.
Also , a lot less government dollars required when you’re not salting the ground of Australia’s liveability by attempting to keep up with the demands of an exponentially increasing population. Take a look at how much of our infrastructure spend is dedicated to unproductive maintenance of essential services , every road , hospital bed , government employee etc etc that is created to accommodating our population growth is the economic equivalent of treading water or jogging on the spot.
And it’s all borrowed money .
Coulda sworn you argued vehemently against corporate taxes being raised.
When ?
Not something I’d say. To be honest , I don’t really think that corpo taxes need to be raised .....just paid at the current requirements rather than offshoring all profit would be enough.
This is happening right now
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/01/answer-rising-nt-unemployment-c...
Piss take.
Advocating the you-know-who...
NT has the lowest unemployment rate in Australia, and unlike the caption the graph in that article doesn't reveal any coming disaster.
My research shows latest figures at 6,000 people currently unemployed, but keep in mind this is across the state with the lowest urban density - the population is spread out. Is it really as alarming as Macrobusiness makes out?
Bringing migrants in isn't favourable but NT isn't a good example for wider Australia as the population is largely rural with a higher percentage Aborginal, which brings with it another set of compexities that are unrelated to skilled migration.
A better analysis would be to see if these shortages are in any way due to NT's near-stagnant population growth. Over the last decade NT's population has increased less than 1%, two of those years it's even gone backwards!
A stagnant population and a skills shortages, who'd have guessed it?
Certainly not Macrobusiness.
The NT has just experienced a boom and bust in population due to a boom and bust in infrastructure construction. Many , many people went for work then they GTFO because the work dried up. This also explains the house price decrease.
People left because there wasn’t the work available. That’s how wages used to work :
1/ Not enough employees, wages rise.
2/ Wage rise attracts employees from afar.
3/ wages stabilise at appropriate market rates.
Then it worked like this :
1/ Not enough employees, wages threaten to rise
2/ Cries of “ Skills shortage “ , foreign labour imported rather than allow markets to dictate wages
Now it works like this :
1/ Business wants more profit , easiest way is to decrease labour costs
2/Cry “skill shortage “ despite adequate labour available
3/ Import foreign labour , depress wages , change the structural nature of the Australian labour market.
4/ Wages depressed , less discretionary spending for consumers, business falters
5/ in order to maintain profit margins , business underpays foreign labour , wages fall further - way below award
6/ Australia becomes a 2nd world economy.
Look at some of the skills shortages .....barista , bus driver !!??
Population density is no less urbanised. Statistics are skewed due to greater population of remote living indigenous Australians.
Stu & Blowin,
I agree with most of what you both have had to say but can I suggest most change is incremental and to undo 40 years of neo-liberalism we will need perhaps a new political and economic movement more aligned with the traditional centre left values to span a couple of decades or more. Perhaps I'm being really naive here but I can see a decade of Labor governments here in Australia and more than likely also in the UK .... that's a start.
AN ALL-ENCOMPASSING KALEIDOSCOPIC JOIN-THE-DOTS/ADULT COLOURING BOOK EXPERIMENTAL PROJECT IN NARCISSISTIC/ONANISTIC BIG PICTURE PARASITIC FORUM BLEEDING.
LIKE POLITICAL LIFE, PARTICIPATION IS WELCOME, ENCOURAGED EVEN, BUT NOT NECESSARY.