Jump to content
House Price Crash Forum

Australia Faces Its Demons


Te Mata

Recommended Posts

0
HOLA441

I sympathise with you WayneL having spent a fair amount of time downunder myself. You hit the nail on the head with the 'we are the best country' etc etc - the worst of this bull is on their breakfast shows, insipid trash!

How Brits cope with living somewhere so remote, so wannabe american with all those bloody flies and the Aussie is best attitude is well beyond me.

Great place to visit, hell to live there, especially in the scorching summer!

Why were you there so long? Surely you were aware of Australia's faults before last year?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 4.4k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

1
HOLA442
but it doesnt make any difference if they fall.

infact, it would free up the pockets of first time buyers, who could then go to the high street and

'buy other things too'

exactly, if people, instead of pissing the saving in mortgage costs in outbidding everyone else with a bigger mortage, we would all have cheaper homes, more productive economies and better life all round.

i hate banks

Edited by Bloo Loo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2
HOLA443
Why were you there so long? Surely you were aware of Australia's faults before last year?

My folks took me there when I was 12. Started businesses etc etc, whinged for years and years until finally overcame the inertia, sold up etc.

That said. Oz "used" to be a very good country. Still monoculture, but it used to be far more laid back and friendly... and cheap. It made up for being isolated. All that is now gone however. I find it even more uptight, up itself and cliquey than anywhere I've been.

I particularly noticed it in 2001 when I went to Canada (Oz's cultural step-sister) on business. People there were entirely different... open, friendly and welcoming...well, except for the French. ;) Immediately after I went to the US... absolutely hated it, but noticed how much like them Oz had become.

Just took a while with family and business stuff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3
HOLA444
4
HOLA445
That said. Oz "used" to be a very good country. Still monoculture, but it used to be far more laid back and friendly... and cheap. It made up for being isolated. All that is now gone however. I find it even more uptight, up itself and cliquey than anywhere I've been.

thats more a worldwide problem , caused by rampant consumerism and the 'keeping up with the jones' ' mentality

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5
HOLA446
nah , the biggest ponzi scheme of all time is superannuation

the housing bubble is just his sidekick

true , we have a limited manufacturing base these days but we did record a 3 billion trade surplus for either august or september

when was the last time the UK recorded a trade surplus in a month? i believe it was some time in 1997?

the best thing we have here is plenty of land , you could camp out whilst the shit hit the fan in a big way and not see another soul for months

I wonder how many Super/Pension funds are up to their necks in MacQarrie bank infrastructure funds? Seems they found the magic formula a couple of years ago, bit like private equity whereby they buy out something like for eg

Thames Water (they did) and then load it up with debt, pay them selves special dividends then securitise whats left to sell on to pension funds, mostly in Australia. They have all sorts of sh*t, like airports, toll roads etc, all of them loaded up with maximum debt, all of them pushed to the limit to make a buck. May look interesting in a couple of years.

Excellent. I'm looking at heading out to Melbourne within the next 4 years. It's going to take me at least a year to get out there and then I'll want to rent for a couple of years while I work out where the nice areas are (any suggestions welcome). So if they start to crash in a few months I'll be looking to buy somewhere around the bottom :)

What's the story in Melbourne at the moment? Has the market just stalled, or is it still rising?

Think it has stalled, the inner, more expensive areas of Melbourne tend to sell by Auction (which is a scamy buisness iteself) have gone a bit quiet lately but this happens from time to time. To live in these leafy suburbs, you will be paying Londonish prices around $800k for something decent of a reasonable size, you can get cheaper but can be quite small in some areas. The further out you go, the cheaper it gets, unless near the sea in some areas. Rock bottom is around $250K in a soulless outburb where cars are worshiped like the gods of necessaty they are and hill billys wouldnt go astray. We are 'waiting and seeing' at the moment and depends on work. Melbourne can be a nice city to live in but what drives everyone mad is the weather, can change by the day or even within the day and forcasts 3 days ahead are nonsense. However the winter/spring climate is better to live in than it was in the old days before the never ending drought, then it used to rain every weekend like clockwork, dont know if we will get that back or not.

Doesn't matter, as long as someone wants the resources. Which is not currently the case, but that may change.

The biggest mystery of all is why Oz isn't the world centre for development and implementation of domestic and industrial solar energy. Instead, sunless Germany has that role.

"She'll be right mate" - not always the wisest approach. However the UK is surely in a much deeper hole that Oz, though I doubt they'll be unaffected. Brits might even stop buying so much of their gloupy cheaper wines that taste like blackcurrant soup.

Australia should indeed be the world centre for solar power and innovation, however the recent politics of the Howard government tended to pander to various vested interests and suspect solar didnt fill the right pockets, in fact nuclear was frequently mooted. The old CSIRO (goverment scientific research thingy) was privatised years ago and now tends to be the paid lacky of big buisness needing a bit of science. Lots of the best scientists buggered off and pure or useful research was put on the back burner, a bit like the USA. Too early to know what the Rudd govt is going to do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6
HOLA447
Whats your opinion on Sydney?

For me, it would have to be Balmoral, Sydney. Obviously if money was 'no worries'

St Kilda, Melbourne is also on my list - Fantastic food in Australia too.

When tshtf I know what country I'd rather be in.

Edited by doctorbone
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7
HOLA448
thats more a worldwide problem , caused by rampant consumerism and the 'keeping up with the jones' ' mentality

That's true, but in Australia try starting a conversation about Netrebko's performance at the Last Night of the Proms and suddenly you're considered effeminate or a poof. The only permitted topics of conversation is footy, cars, sheilas and money. Try having a vocabulary of more than 250 words and you're considered a subversive or a snob. Try doing something a little different to the Establishment in any field and be prepared to have your character assassinated. Eccentricity in any form is not tolerated... (unless you're gay).

Mrs and I trained gallopers for a living. She was ridiculed for wearing gloves when she was working FFS. (Hey, I don't want sandpaper hands on my ****).

It's basically a country of (temporarilly) rich chavs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8
HOLA449
9
HOLA4410
10
HOLA4411
I'm keen on leaving Britain at some point; Germany or Oz are my two key destinations. People still believe you can get cheap houses with pools over there when it's nothing like that at all.

Depends what you want and where you are. Adelaide is cheap (but facing a big recession as the Aussie car industry is in meltdown) and many of the houses built in the 50's and 60's, which Aussies don't seem to like very much, seem to have a pool.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11
HOLA4412
12
HOLA4413

dunno if you guys heard today but BHP announced 3400 job losses here

they also closed the Ravensthorpe nickel mine this morning , had 15 jets to fly all the staff out

i was listening on the radio and it told the story of one of the guys who was sacked

he had a house & investment property , and his wife works at bunnings (on about 1/8th salary as what he would of been getting in the mines) he "doesn't know what he is going to do"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13
HOLA4414

Australia is going to do it hard. No doubt about it. I am currently working as an IT contractor in Canberra and all our contracts are being terminated or not renewed thanks to a pommie git called Gershon who came over here at great expense (before the downturn even started) told the government they could save money by replacing contractors with permanent staff and then ******ed off back to pommie land. Thanks mate!

http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/...5-15306,00.html

BTW. I have lived and worked in New Zealand, Scotland, England (Norwich, Miltnon Keynes, London, Reading) and Amsterdam as well as in most states of Australia. Enjoyed aspects of all those places. What is the problem with small brained people who live in a country, dont like aspects of it and then run back home and spend the rest of their lives slagging the country off?

Some of the posters on this thread make ridiculous, almost racist generalisations about Australians. I would struggel to even define an Australian. Over 50% of my work Australian colleagues and neighbours were born overseas. How can they all be the same? I can eat food from over 100 countries within a radius of 5 miles from my house in Canberra. I can cycle to work on purpose built cycle paths that pass blue lakes, with the sun shining 9 days out of 10. My house (owned 100%) has nearly an acre of grounds that I can easily grow vegetables in and run chickens.

No one wants a depression, but if you are broke and have loads of free time to kill, this is the place to be. No worries mate!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14
HOLA4415

PS. Any poms living in south eastern Melbourne area should check out the following pub:

http://www.oaktreetavern.com.au/

Its a great little place, 90% English clientelle, (most seem to be married to Aussies and are happily settled in Oz, so they are not from the tiny minority of negative whingers that give the rest of the poms a bad name over here). The venue stocks a good range of English beers and pours first class Guinness. After a few pints of Speckled Hen last and with all the English accents in the background, I forgot that I was in Melbourne. Its a must visit for me each time I visit Melbourne.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15
HOLA4416
Australia is going to do it hard. No doubt about it. I am currently working as an IT contractor in Canberra and all our contracts are being terminated or not renewed thanks to a pommie git called Gershon who came over here at great expense (before the downturn even started) told the government they could save money by replacing contractors with permanent staff and then ******ed off back to pommie land. Thanks mate!

http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/...5-15306,00.html

BTW. I have lived and worked in New Zealand, Scotland, England (Norwich, Milton Keynes, London, Reading) and Amsterdam as well as in most states of Australia. Enjoyed aspects of all those places. What is the problem with small brained people who live in a country, dont like aspects of it and then run back home and spend the rest of their lives slagging the country off?

Some of the posters on this thread make ridiculous, almost racist generalisations about Australians. I would struggel to even define an Australian. Over 50% of my work Australian colleagues and neighbours were born overseas. How can they all be the same? I can eat food from over 100 countries within a radius of 5 miles from my house in Canberra. I can cycle to work on purpose built cycle paths that pass blue lakes, with the sun shining 9 days out of 10. My house (owned 100%) has nearly an acre of grounds that I can easily grow vegetables in and run chickens.

No one wants a depression, but if you are broke and have loads of free time to kill, this is the place to be. No worries mate!

+1

Although Canberra is the Milton Keynes of Oz...But with Batemans Bay being only an hour away ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16
HOLA4417
17
HOLA4418
18
HOLA4419

Amongst other countries, I have lived with my family in Australia, in various states there, for a number of years.

I too often heard and am still hearing all this "best country in the world" hype. However, many of the Aussies I met, admitted that in truth, they were envious of people with a European passport, because of all that culture and places of interest, on our doorstep.

Australia is not a place I could live long term. Along with many other things, I found the feeling of isolation, and the hot summers extremely stifling there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19
HOLA4420
That's true, but in Australia try starting a conversation about Netrebko's performance at the Last Night of the Proms and suddenly you're considered effeminate or a poof. The only permitted topics of conversation is footy, cars, sheilas and money. Try having a vocabulary of more than 250 words and you're considered a subversive or a snob. Try doing something a little different to the Establishment in any field and be prepared to have your character assassinated. Eccentricity in any form is not tolerated... (unless you're gay).

Mrs and I trained gallopers for a living. She was ridiculed for wearing gloves when she was working FFS. (Hey, I don't want sandpaper hands on my ****).

It's basically a country of (temporarilly) rich chavs.

I am one of them, however by and large I tend to agree with what you say, and after living half my life in the Uk with attendant travel in Europe etc it just sharpens up that perception that you have to stick to the straight and narrow with the majority of Australians and not be an individual.

Australia is going to do it hard. No doubt about it. I am currently working as an IT contractor in Canberra and all our contracts are being terminated or not renewed thanks to a pommie git called Gershon who came over here at great expense (before the downturn even started) told the government they could save money by replacing contractors with permanent staff and then ******ed off back to pommie land. Thanks mate!

http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/...5-15306,00.html

BTW. I have lived and worked in New Zealand, Scotland, England (Norwich, Miltnon Keynes, London, Reading) and Amsterdam as well as in most states of Australia. Enjoyed aspects of all those places. What is the problem with small brained people who live in a country, dont like aspects of it and then run back home and spend the rest of their lives slagging the country off?

Some of the posters on this thread make ridiculous, almost racist generalisations about Australians. I would struggel to even define an Australian. Over 50% of my work Australian colleagues and neighbours were born overseas. How can they all be the same? I can eat food from over 100 countries within a radius of 5 miles from my house in Canberra. I can cycle to work on purpose built cycle paths that pass blue lakes, with the sun shining 9 days out of 10. My house (owned 100%) has nearly an acre of grounds that I can easily grow vegetables in and run chickens.

No one wants a depression, but if you are broke and have loads of free time to kill, this is the place to be. No worries mate!

They got a hatchet man in to do what they wanted to do but not take the blame themselves, no doubt. Surprised he didnt outsource everything to India.

There is a lot of good things about Australia, and if you work with a mix of races then you are doing ok, away from the City jobs it isnt so bohemian and individualism is punished in one way or another, especialy if you have a pommie accent. My wife being Scotish was actualy blamed personaly for the 'Bodyline' cricket tour back in the 30's after they made a dramatisation of it back in the 80's, and even as late as 1997 was told she didnt have enough 'Australian' experience for an accounting job. I wish I could say they have moved on but cant see that from where I am at the moment, not quite as narrow but still a long way to go. At least we can watch SBS news these days.

Edited by steve99
Link to comment
Share on other sites

20
HOLA4421
+1

Although Canberra is the Milton Keynes of Oz...But with Batemans Bay being only an hour away ;)

I really enjoyed the few months I lived in Milton Keynes. Twas back in 91 in the last recession. I managed to get a contract for Mercury Communications. What I liked about Milton Keynes was that it had lots of green vegetation, hundreds of miles of bike tracks, I would arrive at work and have to dodge hundreds of rabbits hopping about, and yet on a Friday I could jump on a train and be enjoying a cold Stella in the West End an hour later. A very under-rated town. Plenty of small villages around the area with great pubs. Most of the people I worked with in England would joke about the concrete cows and the sterile 60's architecture in the cbd, but hardly any of them had even been there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21
HOLA4422
22
HOLA4423
I'd like to go and live there.

I can afford to buy a house there for cash, and live off of my savings for the rest of my days. I don't have a criminal record and I'd be happy to take a job and pay my taxes.

Trouble is, at the ripe old age of 45 I'm too old.

You can get a retirement visa if you can show you can support yourself.

I moved down over 3 years ago - was back in the UK a couple of times, no thanks.

There's a lot of crap written on this thread, I would advise making your own mind up. Discussing modern dance in a few UK pubs might get you a few blank looks as well. There is culture there if you want it but no, its not London - but nor are many places.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23
HOLA4424

"My wife being Scotish was actualy blamed personaly for the 'Bodyline' cricket tour back in the 30's"

People are strange. The first week I arrived in Edinburgh in 1989, I met up with some of my Scottish in-laws. The cricket was on and they were cheering like mad. I was confused because I didn't know that the Scots even had a cricket team.

It turned out that the cricket was a one day match and that they were cheering the Aussies as they whipped the sassenachs arses.

During my days in Scotland I had several experiences where people clarifed what my accent was and when they were happy that it was Australian and not English, I was told that I was OK.

Then when I worked in Norwich, one of my Scottish colleagues was hit in the head with a pint glass at a pub while we were watching an England game during the world cup. And they say that Ozzies are small minded bigots.

I found it very odd, because here in Australia, Scots, Welsh, Irish and English all seem to get on like a house on fire. I was not aware of the intensity of hatred held by some of the more bigoted minorities of those people against people from the other parts of Great Britain.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24
HOLA4425
You can get a retirement visa if you can show you can support yourself.

I moved down over 3 years ago - was back in the UK a couple of times, no thanks.

There's a lot of crap written on this thread, I would advise making your own mind up. Discussing modern dance in a few UK pubs might get you a few blank looks as well. There is culture there if you want it but no, its not London - but nor are many places.

Thanks.

Even though I could support myself, I'd still want to work. Not sure if I'd be allowed to at my age.

Food for thought though, and I have a suspicion that they might relax the criteria over the next few years for being 'allowed in' as it were.

I think you can get a 1 year working visa so that's another possibility.

To be honest, when I say I'd move there tomorrow, what I actually mean is in about 4 years when my son has flown the nest and it's just me and the wife wanting to leave Britain. (Slovenia looks quite nice mind you...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.




×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information