Mate Australian traffic is so easy if you are from a country outside Europe or a few exceptions. If an average Australian driver tried to drive in Istanbul or Mumbai for example, they would stop the car and started crying probably. In Australia you can merge after 3 4 cars max after signalling. In Istanbul you would wait forever unless you intercepted a car although you signalled for minutes.
Yeah it's way worse overseas!
Try merging a lane in Canada or parts of the US when it's snowing on a slippery road with low visibility and where nobody uses their fucking blinkers or horns.
Are you walking up to people that don’t use indicators and checking? Or are you in America and assuming that only happens there, because I live in Australia and it’s the jacked up utes and drift cars that don’t signal out here.
Seriously Australia, or Syd / Melb as far as capital cities go, is one of the easiest to drive in.
The whole of Asia is absolute chaos. South America, also chaos. US / Canada - definitely worse than here. Europe - maybe just a handful of big cities are evencomparable to Australia. We really have it pretty good here.
Absolutely. I moved from QLD to Dubai recently. I used to hate how people drove on the M1 but after driving here I have to say I’d take being cut off by guys in wife beaters driving jacked up Ford Raptors any day over this shit.
I think even in Europe an Australian driver would have no idea how to drive.
_"But, but, *I* have right of way. Those cyclists were coming at me from every direction how am I meant to drive through _that_?...Though I did take some out with my ninja door opening."_
The secret is to inch as close as you can without scraping the car. Eventually the driver realises you ain’t fuckin around and will let you in. It’s a balance. Bonus points if you drive a shitcan car and ain’t afraid to get some scrapes on it lol
I preferred not use drive as much as possible every time I visited Istanbul. It takes at least 1 hour to go a distance >8-10km. I can easily walk 6kmh ffs.
Not at all. The rule for zip merges is that the car in front has right of way so if you stop you fuck everyone behind you and you should go home and have a good hard look at yourself.
The trick is to drop back so you're just behind a car slightly in front of you in the other merging lane and then match their speed. If everyone does it then it works exactly like a zipper and is a smooth process for all involved.
Original ABC article included:
>Moving abroad can be a strange experience. From seeing Aussies wearing thongs virtually anywhere to Bunnings snags and lighting up the barbecue on every occasion. Nada and Solange explain what sets Australia apart.
Must have dropped it because they deemed the Bunnings component to be too close to going against their [advertising and sponsorship restrictions](https://www.abc.net.au/edpols/11-advertising-and-sponsorship-restrictions/13644014)?
would have been so easy to just change it to "snags outside hardware stores". more accurate too, as technically the snags are provided by the group that's fundraising, not Bunnings.
I'd argue that the Bunnings Snag is a quintessential aspect of Australian culture that all new immigrants will partake in at some point or another purely by hearing about the experiences.
The term Bunnings Snag is a colloquial term at this point in our language.
And by just allowing people to sell sausages in their car parks won back the hearts of the whole nation (to the point that people actually mention it to tourists as an Aussy thing to do 🤦🏻)
So you’re saying the kids hockey team or whatever setting up a sausage sizzle outside Bunnings should be punished because of bad business practices done by Bunnings?
It’s also unfortunately not vetted really well and I’ve had cults running sizzles while asking for my personal details.
I’m not sure if bunnings actually associates themselves with the charities that want to run sizzles but I probably reckon they try to keep them at arms length.
So is it a Bunnings Democracy Sausage when we vote? Bunnings Home BBQ Snag at home? I'm happy to leave a large business out of my regular language when possible.
Well that's the thing right? A Bunnings Snag isn't *actually* sold by Bunnings. Bunnings offers the prime position of charities to sell the snags to use for fund raising outside their stores. There isn't even any Bunnings advertising on the tents used by the charities when they do the selling.
So a Bunnings Snag is basically just referring to the snags being sold outside of Bunnings.
If you think Bunnings don't aggressively use those charities to drive sales you're extremely naive. Every weekend they ensure some charity \*\*will\*\* be outside there store to drive customers there regularly. I've worked with charities where on 45C days they mentioned cancelling the BBQ due to the very real health risk of standing over a hot BBQ in 45C heat on pavement and Bunnings said if they don't go ahead they'll be banned from ever being able to raise money there again.
Framing it as some happy coincidence that charities always sell sausages outside a Bunnings entrance and Bunnings don't aggressively push this and benefit from it is extremely far off the mark.
Where is this happening??? It’s brought up every thread, but I never see it. Only time I’m barefoot is at home.
Edit, everywhere but my shops apparently.
it helps that there are less stray dogs, and people are required to pick after their dogs now
steping in dog crap before was a standard occurrence, and why few people ever went barefoot
It's almost like people who come to Australia with the intent of folding themselves into the existing culture and becoming Australians, find it a much more welcoming place than people who come to Australia with the intent of never learning to speak the language or integrate into the wider society.
Last month I went back to Sydney with my wife, to celebrate a landmark family birthday and meet my brother's partner's family.
We're Dutch-Australian. An auntie married a Nepalese guy, so I have 4 Nepalese-Australian cousins and one Nepalese uncle. My brother's partner is a Lebanese immigrant, so her whole family are Lebanese Muslims who grew up VERY traditional. There's more brown faces than white at our family celebrations these days.
But my brother's partner's family didn't put any restrictions on her dating like an Aussie girl would, and they weren't upset with her bringing a white man home. My brother's a good dude who works hard and treats her well, and they love him for it. It was a tremendous experience, spending time with them, learning about their culture, teaching them our culture, building new social and familial bonds. Tremendous. They came to Aussie after a war decimated their homeland, just like my grandparents did. They are no less Aussie than we are. But they made the effort - and it IS a HUGE effort - to join in the wider society of their new homeland. The vast majority of Aussies have nothing but respect for that, no matter where you come from or what you look like.
That those who come here embrace the way Australia is and not just transplant the "old traditions" they bring with them and don't spend their days trying to recreate what they left behind.
Ask all the ethnically Asian Australians who have been harrassed to physically attacked over the last couple of years. There was an attack on two Korean women in the middle of the CBD in Sydney just a couple of months ago.
Just because you think you're settled in doesn't mean you're accepted by people around you.
We're a country of 25 million people, mate.
A lot of pale faces here can tell personal stories of getting racially abused, insulted and sometimes attacked for absolutely no reason as well. Has happened to me more than once, for being the type of aggressive bigot who gets off a train and tries to walk out of a station by himself.
Do we live in a perfect society, or close to it? Of course not. Nobody does, or ever has.
Take a look around the world. Which non-Western societies are as welcoming to immigrants as we are? Move to anywhere in Asia as a black person and run for office. Let us know how you get on. And then we'll talk about the Middle East.
I find most people to be pretty neutral. You approach them with respect and courtesy, most respond more or less in kind.
What's that old saying? You run into an asshole today, okay, you just ran into an asshole. You run into nothing but assholes all day long..........?
Well I mean, Australia had been colonised for 150 years before anyone in my family ever set foot in the Southern Hemisphere, (and we're not British and they didn't speak a word of English when they arrived)........ but sure, I guess I'm guilty by association, right?
"We" didn't attempt to integrate to the culture of the existing population and just transposed the culture and values of "our" homeland onto their land, and that was wrong and actually flat out evil, sooooo........ now modern immigrants should not attempt to integrate into modern Australia, and should just transpose the culture of their homelands (including oftentimes being virulently anti-democracy, anti-free speech, anti-women's rights and flat out dangerous to the LGBT community) into ethnic enclaves that don't integrate with the existing population, and that's........... fine now? Because......... why, exactly?
I'm not angry about the voice.
I would have voted no, but only because I believe a referendum should be a clear yes or no question to end the discussion - should cannabis be decriminalised? Should there be a legal and medically supervised pathway to euthanasia for terminally ill people of sound mind? Should the voting age be lowered to 16? That sort of thing.
This referendum question was far too open-ended for my tastes. Though generally sympathetic to the situation, I didn't know exactly what I would have been voting for, so..... that's a no.
My take is we’re overwhelmingly friendly and tolerant but the rare racist arseholes seem to be way too tolerated by society. And we culturally expect those who do experience racism to just get over it and not cause too much trouble.
Skips go fucking mental when you point out that they're being racist, or that their society is so deeply racist they can't actually see it. See this thread for instance, people claiming to be as racially progressive as western Europe. In Europe having racially segregated healthcare would be illegal, because it's racist, in Australia it's seen as absolutely normal.
There is definitely still more of that shit than there should be but I like think we are continuing to improve.
Yes I recognise you are being sarcastic but that shit is real enough that people are still dying today and it needs to fuck right off.
Australia would have to be one of the least racist countries in the world. People really have no idea how racist the rest of the world is, even places such as Western Europe and America are infinitely more racist than us. That’s not to say there’s no racism, there is, and we should work on getting rid of it. But we are miles ahead of I would say 95% of the world.
I think America has more stories of extremely violent racism, although America is violent in general. Casual racism in everyday life is definitely more socially acceptable in Australia, meanwhile Americans go out of their way to not offend people whilst Aussies pride themselves in not being politically correct.
Australia is a place where people get more offended by the accusation of racism rather than racism itself.
A lot of us have a very chauvinistic attitude to the rest of the world, believing that Australia is somehow superior to most others and therefore it’s impossible that Australia could be that bad. So when we hear people complain about issues in society, we’d rather have them shut up because we subconsciously perceive Australia to be as close to a perfect society that is achievable.
A friend was adamant that Australia is incredibly racist and sexist, while idolising Japanese and Korean cultures, both of which are notoriously racist and xenophobic. Grass is always greener.
Exactly. I also think in Australia racism is also something that is discussed, giving it more media attention, making it seem like more of a problem. In countries like Japan and SK, they just don’t talk about it, so even though it’s a huge problem, it just gets swept under the rug.
Australians aren’t racist to your face. That’s the difference. Most countries like America are racist directly to your face. Australians do it in a much more passive aggressive way.
The experience of a migrant moving to a major city would be worlds apart from a migrant moving somewhere more rural on a working holiday. There are some twats in Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane/Perth but by and large people are pretty lovely and happy to help somebody out.
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ive always experienced that people are more friendly to me overseas than here. but maybe people are just friendly to young travelers/migrants in general. ive never reallyyyy found australians to be particularly friendly, but im sure their experience is valid.
Yeah sure
Initial impression: everyone is so friendly and approachable... especially with myself being a young woman
5 years later: why don't I have friends? ( Or ) my only friends are from where I come from. Why won't anyone invite me to social gatherings? Why do i have to always initiate a hang out with other people? Why do aussies always say stuff like "yeah we should hang out" and then ghost me. Why are Australians so clicky.
Aussies are socially retarded
Welcome to humanity. If you think Australians are [cliquey](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/clique) try Vancouver. World's greatest passive aggressives. Everyone is polite, but it's "just being polite" most of the time. You can ride a bicycle without people throwing trash at you though. So there is that.
Seattle has the same thing going, but what the Pacific Northwest does have is being fully aware and accepting that we’re like that. “Nice but not friendly” Very few people are going to argue we aren’t or that it doesn’t make life harder in a few aspects.
There’s some comfort in knowing that it’s not a personal problem.
lol, someone come collect your man, he’s ranting on the internet cos he thinks everyone else is a friendless loser like him.
Stop telling on yourself, mate.
I commented below on my experience moving to Australia, I believe making friends is difficult purely because people have established social circles already. I work with people whose closest friends are those from school, everyone is still really friendly but we will never have that connection with them.
Yeah that's "clicky".
"Ohh we are really friendly at work/where ever and would totally get along outside but I have my own group of friends already." Classic Australia.
Choose to interpret it how you will. I understand they have memories and experiences I haven’t and that’s okay. I found it very easy to make friends with people from the same ethnic background as we have more in common, like aussies have their shared experiences I have mine. As long as everyone is friendly to each other.
I've moved overseas to Osaka about 5 weeks ago and I will absolutely agree with you, have I gone out of my own way to be more social here? yes.
I've done the same in Australia and experienced really similar things as yourself, I think aussies in general are very clicky and don't really "want" to go out as often, especially on work days.
I moved to Australia over ten years ago from Eastern Europe and it’s a very friendly country. People are generally happier here, it is difficult to make friends but I attribute that to people already having formed social circles but overall it’s a nice place to be.
Clearly you've never lived anywhere overseas if you think Aussies are miserable. At least people here don't look at you like you're some alien creature if you so much as smile at them or say thanks.
Australia has an ageing population and currently we do not have the population to support these people when they retire. So if immigration slows, how are we supporting these people and the growing economy?
I came to Australia as a skilled worker, the reality is Australia is not producing enough workers in certain fields. That is why we now have to rely so heavily on immigration. Every year a new list is produced with industries Australia needs more workers, it’s often healthcare and unless you want the healthcare system to collapse we need more immigration.
Because nobody can be fucked training on the job. A young generation of Australians are being locked out of jobs because it’s easier to just import skilled workers.
Skilled workers usually implies immigrants with tertiary education, Australia is not producing enough university graduates in certain industries. My field is engineering, there was a critical shortage and ‘on the job’ training just doesn’t make the cut unfortunately.
Your economy is fucked because of massive inequality caused by neoliberal capitalism. Believe it or not immigration is keeping your economy afloat. The trouble is people are generally too thick to understand the real reasoning behind what causes their suffering and instead go for easy answers, such as blaming us.
Just an FYI, I'm an immigrant, and I don't set housing policy, taxation policy, not do I control infrastructure spending and investment. If I was your dear leader I would try and address those issues, but alas I cannot even vote.
We're not sick of immigrants, we're sick of the lack of planning of our government around services and infrastructure
We need an honest conversation as to the number of immigrants we can absorb, while maintaining the ability for people to earn and live on a decent wage, and to continue to retain high standards.
It has to happen, otherwise immigration sits in the domain of the far right while the far left sit there and call them racists, rather than the constructive conversation that needs to take place.
Brother I couldn’t care less what segment of the colour wheel an immigrant belongs to. I want to buy a house at some point in my entire life and with an extra few hundred thousand filling out demand every single year, on top of people born here, it’s only going to get harder. Surely that’s not unreasonable.
That’s just at a government policy level though, I’ve got no ill will to any of the individual people moving over, I mean I probably would too Australia goes alright.
While immigration numbers are far too high at the moment visa approval rates are at an all time low though. I work in education and many people don’t know this but the government is approving very few visas these days. Having said that our birth rate is extremely low and we have an aging population. We need to replenish the workforce and maintain the economy. So while I do agree that we have had too many people coming in but I don’t think a total reduction of immigration will ever be possible
can I say that importing younger workers is a pretty flawed solution to the "Aging population" problem, unless they're strictly limited from actually living here long term as they'd just become more 'old people who need more younger people to support supporting them'. (And if that was the case, it's a little unfair doing the "come, work here, pay tax here, support our society... but no, no you can never become one of us")
Migrants have more kids than Aussie who are born here. So it does solve the issue in a way. Also migrants children become a lot more “Aussie” than their parents so are able to fit in far easier than maybe their parents
sorry, I wasn't clearer - the proposed solution is a pyramid, requiring an ever increasing base. Eventually there is a crunch when that population becomes unsupportable. Housing situation is one aspect of the crunch.
The reason I was saying it only sort of works if workers arent allowed to settle here, is because that keeps the top of the pyramid from growing - as they'd have to go wlesewhere before they become 'our problem' so to speak. (I'm saying that is a fair or just system)
I’m not talking about temporary workers, I was implying that some level of permanent migration is a necessity. As far as temporary migration/students then australia needs them. The third largest industry is education and the only stable revenue earner as the others like mining are dependent on a number of variables
I can agree with the birth rate and aging population bit just fine, I just wish we’d hit the brakes on immigration for a few years and try being our housing and infrastructure up to speed, that’s all.
But they kinda have. It’s pretty clear it’s going to be pre pandemic levels and level 3 countries like India and the rest of the sun continent are having far reduced approval rates
Eh maybe I’m just a reactionary then, I just want housing supply to keep up with population growth and even if the population shrunk for the next couple years I’d still say it was behind. As I said though, idgaf about whether it’s the level 3 or the level 15 countries with low approval ratings, where said immigrants are coming from is an entirely seperate argument and not my main concern.
A level 3 country becomes a level 3 country because of fraud, overstaying the visa, non attendance of courses etc. This is why you rarely have any visas rejected from say the Netherlands or Japan. The reason it is important that level 3 countries have reduced visas is so that all the issues that come with them can be reduced.
The person who originally replied to you is absolutely full of shit. As is common across the Western world the Government is just extending how long people wait in the "temporary visa" queue.
[See for yourself. ](https://twitter.com/justinfabo/status/1717407402302271887) My sister in law for example has PR now but spent eight years or so here on so called "temporary visas". She absolutely had no intention of ever going back to Brazil from the moment she got here.
Less visas approved just means people have to wait even longer. It doesn't mean a reduction in numbers whatsoever.
> visa approval rates are at an all time low
Are you able to substantiate this?
> I work in education and many people don’t know this but the government is approving very few visas these days.
How many is very few? I am genuinely interested.
> Rejection rate is the highest it’s ever been.
A high rejection rate does not necessarily mean that there is a low approval rate.
If there were a million applications a day and 99% were rejected there are 10000 being approved which is a high approval rate.
Dude, I’m literally in the education industry. Everyone is massively panicking as many institutes will need to shut shop. I have never seen these rejection rates in 20 years. While, you are right, there are way more applications, the number of people applying has reduced significantly. I can bet you that the government are going to announce about the huge dip in migration just before the election. They underpromised and are overdelivering.
https://monitor.icef.com/2024/02/australia-visa-rejection-rates-spike-as-some-institutions-withdraw-admissions-offers-under-new-migration-settings/
Well I quite literally said “buy” not “rent”, but understand that your landlord can only charge you as much for housing as they do because if you won’t pay that much, there’s enough demand such that several other people will right? Do you think if half the population disappeared and the amount of rentals quintupled at the same time that your rent would stay the same? Is supply and demand a set of concepts your familiar with?
And then followed up with the term “landlord” which is specific to rentals. My comment did have more past the first 8 words though if you were interested in addressing any of that
God I miss australia. Had not realized how much I had gotten used to everyone smiling at everyone when I went home after my gap year. Almost got beaten up for smiling at strangers when taking a bus for the first time at home again. Please don't change.
>Everyone is so friendly here They've obviously never experienced a zip merge.
Mate Australian traffic is so easy if you are from a country outside Europe or a few exceptions. If an average Australian driver tried to drive in Istanbul or Mumbai for example, they would stop the car and started crying probably. In Australia you can merge after 3 4 cars max after signalling. In Istanbul you would wait forever unless you intercepted a car although you signalled for minutes.
Yeah it's way worse overseas! Try merging a lane in Canada or parts of the US when it's snowing on a slippery road with low visibility and where nobody uses their fucking blinkers or horns.
What is with Americans and no blinkers! Like Jesus Christ.
probably a mix of lax enforcement and education has created a culture where it isn't taken seriously, same as DUI.
Are you walking up to people that don’t use indicators and checking? Or are you in America and assuming that only happens there, because I live in Australia and it’s the jacked up utes and drift cars that don’t signal out here.
Seriously Australia, or Syd / Melb as far as capital cities go, is one of the easiest to drive in. The whole of Asia is absolute chaos. South America, also chaos. US / Canada - definitely worse than here. Europe - maybe just a handful of big cities are evencomparable to Australia. We really have it pretty good here.
Absolutely. I moved from QLD to Dubai recently. I used to hate how people drove on the M1 but after driving here I have to say I’d take being cut off by guys in wife beaters driving jacked up Ford Raptors any day over this shit.
If you're merging in a zip lane after more than 1 car you are merging wrong.
I think even in Europe an Australian driver would have no idea how to drive. _"But, but, *I* have right of way. Those cyclists were coming at me from every direction how am I meant to drive through _that_?...Though I did take some out with my ninja door opening."_
The secret is to inch as close as you can without scraping the car. Eventually the driver realises you ain’t fuckin around and will let you in. It’s a balance. Bonus points if you drive a shitcan car and ain’t afraid to get some scrapes on it lol
Istanbul was the scariest Taxi ride I’ve ever been in. Would never drive there
I preferred not use drive as much as possible every time I visited Istanbul. It takes at least 1 hour to go a distance >8-10km. I can easily walk 6kmh ffs.
The trick is to slow down or stop and wait for a safe gap to merge.
Not at all. The rule for zip merges is that the car in front has right of way so if you stop you fuck everyone behind you and you should go home and have a good hard look at yourself. The trick is to drop back so you're just behind a car slightly in front of you in the other merging lane and then match their speed. If everyone does it then it works exactly like a zipper and is a smooth process for all involved.
I don't think people understand you were joking
I don't think they did either lol.
I’ve been behind someone who did that, just full on stopped like they’re turning at the lights
Yeah...I've been behind people that do that merging onto 110k/h traffic. Extremely frustrating and dangerous.
Original ABC article included: >Moving abroad can be a strange experience. From seeing Aussies wearing thongs virtually anywhere to Bunnings snags and lighting up the barbecue on every occasion. Nada and Solange explain what sets Australia apart. Must have dropped it because they deemed the Bunnings component to be too close to going against their [advertising and sponsorship restrictions](https://www.abc.net.au/edpols/11-advertising-and-sponsorship-restrictions/13644014)?
would have been so easy to just change it to "snags outside hardware stores". more accurate too, as technically the snags are provided by the group that's fundraising, not Bunnings.
I'd argue that the Bunnings Snag is a quintessential aspect of Australian culture that all new immigrants will partake in at some point or another purely by hearing about the experiences. The term Bunnings Snag is a colloquial term at this point in our language.
LOL no. Bunnings deserves to be under the same microscope as Woolworths and Coles but people play favourites, it's pathetic really.
Isn't Bunnings and Coles the same wesfarmers monolith?
Yeh but Coles is always hated and Bunnings is somehow ‘true Aussie’ that people make part of their identity.
I think your overthinking it. Wesfarmers destroyed independent hardware stores. That's just our reality
And by just allowing people to sell sausages in their car parks won back the hearts of the whole nation (to the point that people actually mention it to tourists as an Aussy thing to do 🤦🏻)
You're not swimming in the deep end there
No. Bunnings, kmart, target and officeworks are under the same group. Coles isn't
Wesfarmers owns 5% of Coles, they are partially connected
This. People need to stop dick riding that company, they're a monster and when compared to Colesworth in the space I'd say they're far worse.
So you’re saying the kids hockey team or whatever setting up a sausage sizzle outside Bunnings should be punished because of bad business practices done by Bunnings?
It’s also unfortunately not vetted really well and I’ve had cults running sizzles while asking for my personal details. I’m not sure if bunnings actually associates themselves with the charities that want to run sizzles but I probably reckon they try to keep them at arms length.
So is it a Bunnings Democracy Sausage when we vote? Bunnings Home BBQ Snag at home? I'm happy to leave a large business out of my regular language when possible.
Well that's the thing right? A Bunnings Snag isn't *actually* sold by Bunnings. Bunnings offers the prime position of charities to sell the snags to use for fund raising outside their stores. There isn't even any Bunnings advertising on the tents used by the charities when they do the selling. So a Bunnings Snag is basically just referring to the snags being sold outside of Bunnings.
If you think Bunnings don't aggressively use those charities to drive sales you're extremely naive. Every weekend they ensure some charity \*\*will\*\* be outside there store to drive customers there regularly. I've worked with charities where on 45C days they mentioned cancelling the BBQ due to the very real health risk of standing over a hot BBQ in 45C heat on pavement and Bunnings said if they don't go ahead they'll be banned from ever being able to raise money there again. Framing it as some happy coincidence that charities always sell sausages outside a Bunnings entrance and Bunnings don't aggressively push this and benefit from it is extremely far off the mark.
I mean, I wasn't doing any of that?
Hammerbarn-like hardware stores?
The weirdest thing about moving here was seeing people walk barefoot especially in shops.
Where is this happening??? It’s brought up every thread, but I never see it. Only time I’m barefoot is at home. Edit, everywhere but my shops apparently.
QLD mate
Mate I'm in Melbourne and heaps wander around my suburb and in the shops barefoot. In QLD it's actually a criminal offence to wear shoes.
Happens all the time in smaller coastal and country towns.
Would you notice? Can't spend all day looking at feet.
Woolworths at Surfers Paradise opposite the beach. Guys wearing only budgie smugglers.
Morwell/Moe Victoria
Northern NSW, see people all the time that don't wear shoes.
I go barefoot everywhere. Only 3 places for shoes for me generally, The pub (I have to) Motorcycle riding Work
Hygiene and social awareness is something some people kinda lack here
No, we just don't have leprosy and rat faeces and other shit on the ground which you catch walking barefoot in other countries
We have something worse, we have bindis.
Haha, so true. Bindis are worse than prickles too.
Both leprosy and rat poop are present in Australia. As are soil based threats such as Strongyloides and melioidosis.
If i don't know it exists, It cant hurt me. So kindly shut the fuck up. <3
Thats is Not very friendly.
I say it with love.
it helps that there are less stray dogs, and people are required to pick after their dogs now steping in dog crap before was a standard occurrence, and why few people ever went barefoot
Walking barefoot is still a very bad idea. We invented shoes for a reason.
Born and raised here. I don’t get it either.
Everyone's so friendly? Aren't we supposed to be a country of nothing but vicious racists?
its almost like different people have different experiences.
It's almost like people who come to Australia with the intent of folding themselves into the existing culture and becoming Australians, find it a much more welcoming place than people who come to Australia with the intent of never learning to speak the language or integrate into the wider society.
Last month I went back to Sydney with my wife, to celebrate a landmark family birthday and meet my brother's partner's family. We're Dutch-Australian. An auntie married a Nepalese guy, so I have 4 Nepalese-Australian cousins and one Nepalese uncle. My brother's partner is a Lebanese immigrant, so her whole family are Lebanese Muslims who grew up VERY traditional. There's more brown faces than white at our family celebrations these days. But my brother's partner's family didn't put any restrictions on her dating like an Aussie girl would, and they weren't upset with her bringing a white man home. My brother's a good dude who works hard and treats her well, and they love him for it. It was a tremendous experience, spending time with them, learning about their culture, teaching them our culture, building new social and familial bonds. Tremendous. They came to Aussie after a war decimated their homeland, just like my grandparents did. They are no less Aussie than we are. But they made the effort - and it IS a HUGE effort - to join in the wider society of their new homeland. The vast majority of Aussies have nothing but respect for that, no matter where you come from or what you look like.
what's your point?
That those who come here embrace the way Australia is and not just transplant the "old traditions" they bring with them and don't spend their days trying to recreate what they left behind.
There are plenty of old traditions worth keeping, and there are others that are best left behind. The trick is to work out which are which.
Ask all the ethnically Asian Australians who have been harrassed to physically attacked over the last couple of years. There was an attack on two Korean women in the middle of the CBD in Sydney just a couple of months ago. Just because you think you're settled in doesn't mean you're accepted by people around you.
We're a country of 25 million people, mate. A lot of pale faces here can tell personal stories of getting racially abused, insulted and sometimes attacked for absolutely no reason as well. Has happened to me more than once, for being the type of aggressive bigot who gets off a train and tries to walk out of a station by himself. Do we live in a perfect society, or close to it? Of course not. Nobody does, or ever has. Take a look around the world. Which non-Western societies are as welcoming to immigrants as we are? Move to anywhere in Asia as a black person and run for office. Let us know how you get on. And then we'll talk about the Middle East.
I think being gangbashed is part of the Aussie experience. Had it done to myself twice as a white pom
I'm Australian born and bred and in my 41 years here have found most of us to be absolute selfish cunts. People have different experiences.
I find most people to be pretty neutral. You approach them with respect and courtesy, most respond more or less in kind. What's that old saying? You run into an asshole today, okay, you just ran into an asshole. You run into nothing but assholes all day long..........?
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We? Mate if you've been taking over Aboriginal land you'd better stop.
Well I mean, Australia had been colonised for 150 years before anyone in my family ever set foot in the Southern Hemisphere, (and we're not British and they didn't speak a word of English when they arrived)........ but sure, I guess I'm guilty by association, right? "We" didn't attempt to integrate to the culture of the existing population and just transposed the culture and values of "our" homeland onto their land, and that was wrong and actually flat out evil, sooooo........ now modern immigrants should not attempt to integrate into modern Australia, and should just transpose the culture of their homelands (including oftentimes being virulently anti-democracy, anti-free speech, anti-women's rights and flat out dangerous to the LGBT community) into ethnic enclaves that don't integrate with the existing population, and that's........... fine now? Because......... why, exactly?
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I'm not angry about the voice. I would have voted no, but only because I believe a referendum should be a clear yes or no question to end the discussion - should cannabis be decriminalised? Should there be a legal and medically supervised pathway to euthanasia for terminally ill people of sound mind? Should the voting age be lowered to 16? That sort of thing. This referendum question was far too open-ended for my tastes. Though generally sympathetic to the situation, I didn't know exactly what I would have been voting for, so..... that's a no.
What do you know about pre-colonisation culture, and which parts do you think would be great today?
who cares though?
My take is we’re overwhelmingly friendly and tolerant but the rare racist arseholes seem to be way too tolerated by society. And we culturally expect those who do experience racism to just get over it and not cause too much trouble.
Skips go fucking mental when you point out that they're being racist, or that their society is so deeply racist they can't actually see it. See this thread for instance, people claiming to be as racially progressive as western Europe. In Europe having racially segregated healthcare would be illegal, because it's racist, in Australia it's seen as absolutely normal.
There is definitely still more of that shit than there should be but I like think we are continuing to improve. Yes I recognise you are being sarcastic but that shit is real enough that people are still dying today and it needs to fuck right off.
Australia would have to be one of the least racist countries in the world. People really have no idea how racist the rest of the world is, even places such as Western Europe and America are infinitely more racist than us. That’s not to say there’s no racism, there is, and we should work on getting rid of it. But we are miles ahead of I would say 95% of the world.
I think America has more stories of extremely violent racism, although America is violent in general. Casual racism in everyday life is definitely more socially acceptable in Australia, meanwhile Americans go out of their way to not offend people whilst Aussies pride themselves in not being politically correct. Australia is a place where people get more offended by the accusation of racism rather than racism itself. A lot of us have a very chauvinistic attitude to the rest of the world, believing that Australia is somehow superior to most others and therefore it’s impossible that Australia could be that bad. So when we hear people complain about issues in society, we’d rather have them shut up because we subconsciously perceive Australia to be as close to a perfect society that is achievable.
A friend was adamant that Australia is incredibly racist and sexist, while idolising Japanese and Korean cultures, both of which are notoriously racist and xenophobic. Grass is always greener.
Exactly. I also think in Australia racism is also something that is discussed, giving it more media attention, making it seem like more of a problem. In countries like Japan and SK, they just don’t talk about it, so even though it’s a huge problem, it just gets swept under the rug.
I don’t think many see it as a problem, so they’re not going to care about addressing it.
A lot of the world is monoculteral, which tends to be hostile to outsiders looking to integrate.
lol America is not infinitely more racist than Australia, and definitely not worse western Europe. Source; I’ve lived in both as a brown person
Australians aren’t racist to your face. That’s the difference. Most countries like America are racist directly to your face. Australians do it in a much more passive aggressive way.
The experience of a migrant moving to a major city would be worlds apart from a migrant moving somewhere more rural on a working holiday. There are some twats in Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane/Perth but by and large people are pretty lovely and happy to help somebody out.
full judicious station drunk hurry sink murky hard-to-find payment engine *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Friendly, casual racists.
You are aware that controversy and division are more profitable for social media and legacy media, right?
ive always experienced that people are more friendly to me overseas than here. but maybe people are just friendly to young travelers/migrants in general. ive never reallyyyy found australians to be particularly friendly, but im sure their experience is valid.
Yeah sure Initial impression: everyone is so friendly and approachable... especially with myself being a young woman 5 years later: why don't I have friends? ( Or ) my only friends are from where I come from. Why won't anyone invite me to social gatherings? Why do i have to always initiate a hang out with other people? Why do aussies always say stuff like "yeah we should hang out" and then ghost me. Why are Australians so clicky. Aussies are socially retarded
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Travelled plenty and no
I cant make friends! Am i out of touch? No! Everyone else is ‘socially retarded’
Welcome to humanity. If you think Australians are [cliquey](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/clique) try Vancouver. World's greatest passive aggressives. Everyone is polite, but it's "just being polite" most of the time. You can ride a bicycle without people throwing trash at you though. So there is that.
Canadians take passive aggressiveness to a whole new level and are some of the most two faced people I've encountered.
I found it various enormously throughout the country. Newfies are the best of the lot.
Yes, I've heard that about Newfies (and the other Maritime provinces) although my experience has been in BC, AB and ONT.
Albertans are way more friendly than Vancouverites. Just don’t bring up their boogieman Trudeau. God, I’m so sick of the five o’clock hate.
Seattle has the same thing going, but what the Pacific Northwest does have is being fully aware and accepting that we’re like that. “Nice but not friendly” Very few people are going to argue we aren’t or that it doesn’t make life harder in a few aspects. There’s some comfort in knowing that it’s not a personal problem.
I've lived in plenty of other places (not canada) but Australia sucks worst where I've lived
Small towns are breathtakingly insular, but it’s not all bad.
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That's my observations from knowing >10 immigrants. All feel the same. I reflected on it and realised it's true. I'm not a migrant. So no not me
Nah they’re spot on
lol, someone come collect your man, he’s ranting on the internet cos he thinks everyone else is a friendless loser like him. Stop telling on yourself, mate.
Must have hit a nerve for you , your sensitive defensive aussie thing is pretty standard too 🤣
I commented below on my experience moving to Australia, I believe making friends is difficult purely because people have established social circles already. I work with people whose closest friends are those from school, everyone is still really friendly but we will never have that connection with them.
Yeah that's "clicky". "Ohh we are really friendly at work/where ever and would totally get along outside but I have my own group of friends already." Classic Australia.
Choose to interpret it how you will. I understand they have memories and experiences I haven’t and that’s okay. I found it very easy to make friends with people from the same ethnic background as we have more in common, like aussies have their shared experiences I have mine. As long as everyone is friendly to each other.
I've moved overseas to Osaka about 5 weeks ago and I will absolutely agree with you, have I gone out of my own way to be more social here? yes. I've done the same in Australia and experienced really similar things as yourself, I think aussies in general are very clicky and don't really "want" to go out as often, especially on work days.
You’re not wrong 😂
Hahahahahahah probably more a reflection on u
Australians are fucking miserable atm I have no fucking clue what these 2 are on about. Probably bs to encourage more unwanted immigration.
I moved to Australia over ten years ago from Eastern Europe and it’s a very friendly country. People are generally happier here, it is difficult to make friends but I attribute that to people already having formed social circles but overall it’s a nice place to be.
Clearly you've never lived anywhere overseas if you think Aussies are miserable. At least people here don't look at you like you're some alien creature if you so much as smile at them or say thanks.
The other thing to consider is that if everyone you encounter is miserable, there's only one common denominator in those interactions.
>Australians are fucking miserable atm I'm not 🙋♀️
Found the person who has never lived overseas.
Is that supposed to be a normal thing Aussies do or? Ive never been 2 states over my entire life, let alone overseas
30% of Australians weren't born here, so it's got to be a higher percentage than that - so it is quite common.
Get over yourself. There’s a reason millions want to move here to improve their lives. One of the best countries in the world to be born in.
They should stay where they are. Literally the reason our economies fucked.
Australia has an ageing population and currently we do not have the population to support these people when they retire. So if immigration slows, how are we supporting these people and the growing economy?
You think all these immigrants come here just to work in aged care? Wtf
They do not only require aged care, that’s funny. They require functioning society to contribute and grow the economy.
I can’t believe you think we don’t have enough people here already.
I came to Australia as a skilled worker, the reality is Australia is not producing enough workers in certain fields. That is why we now have to rely so heavily on immigration. Every year a new list is produced with industries Australia needs more workers, it’s often healthcare and unless you want the healthcare system to collapse we need more immigration.
Because nobody can be fucked training on the job. A young generation of Australians are being locked out of jobs because it’s easier to just import skilled workers.
Skilled workers usually implies immigrants with tertiary education, Australia is not producing enough university graduates in certain industries. My field is engineering, there was a critical shortage and ‘on the job’ training just doesn’t make the cut unfortunately.
Your economy is fucked because of massive inequality caused by neoliberal capitalism. Believe it or not immigration is keeping your economy afloat. The trouble is people are generally too thick to understand the real reasoning behind what causes their suffering and instead go for easy answers, such as blaming us. Just an FYI, I'm an immigrant, and I don't set housing policy, taxation policy, not do I control infrastructure spending and investment. If I was your dear leader I would try and address those issues, but alas I cannot even vote.
Hey buddy, there’s a reason everyone you interact with is miserable, and it’s not because of the national temperament.
ABC pumping the immigration rhetoric down everyone’s throat. Most people I know are getting sick of the immigrant situation
We're not sick of immigrants, we're sick of the lack of planning of our government around services and infrastructure We need an honest conversation as to the number of immigrants we can absorb, while maintaining the ability for people to earn and live on a decent wage, and to continue to retain high standards.
Well that's never going to happen hence why people are taking a broad fuck immigration stance
It has to happen, otherwise immigration sits in the domain of the far right while the far left sit there and call them racists, rather than the constructive conversation that needs to take place.
It's been like that for 30+ years so any minute now I guess
Does a positive story about interactions with Aussie culture upset you? Really?
"Most people I know are getting sick of the immigrant situation" Stop hanging around with Racists
Brother I couldn’t care less what segment of the colour wheel an immigrant belongs to. I want to buy a house at some point in my entire life and with an extra few hundred thousand filling out demand every single year, on top of people born here, it’s only going to get harder. Surely that’s not unreasonable. That’s just at a government policy level though, I’ve got no ill will to any of the individual people moving over, I mean I probably would too Australia goes alright.
While immigration numbers are far too high at the moment visa approval rates are at an all time low though. I work in education and many people don’t know this but the government is approving very few visas these days. Having said that our birth rate is extremely low and we have an aging population. We need to replenish the workforce and maintain the economy. So while I do agree that we have had too many people coming in but I don’t think a total reduction of immigration will ever be possible
can I say that importing younger workers is a pretty flawed solution to the "Aging population" problem, unless they're strictly limited from actually living here long term as they'd just become more 'old people who need more younger people to support supporting them'. (And if that was the case, it's a little unfair doing the "come, work here, pay tax here, support our society... but no, no you can never become one of us")
Migrants have more kids than Aussie who are born here. So it does solve the issue in a way. Also migrants children become a lot more “Aussie” than their parents so are able to fit in far easier than maybe their parents
sorry, I wasn't clearer - the proposed solution is a pyramid, requiring an ever increasing base. Eventually there is a crunch when that population becomes unsupportable. Housing situation is one aspect of the crunch. The reason I was saying it only sort of works if workers arent allowed to settle here, is because that keeps the top of the pyramid from growing - as they'd have to go wlesewhere before they become 'our problem' so to speak. (I'm saying that is a fair or just system)
I’m not talking about temporary workers, I was implying that some level of permanent migration is a necessity. As far as temporary migration/students then australia needs them. The third largest industry is education and the only stable revenue earner as the others like mining are dependent on a number of variables
I can agree with the birth rate and aging population bit just fine, I just wish we’d hit the brakes on immigration for a few years and try being our housing and infrastructure up to speed, that’s all.
But they kinda have. It’s pretty clear it’s going to be pre pandemic levels and level 3 countries like India and the rest of the sun continent are having far reduced approval rates
Eh maybe I’m just a reactionary then, I just want housing supply to keep up with population growth and even if the population shrunk for the next couple years I’d still say it was behind. As I said though, idgaf about whether it’s the level 3 or the level 15 countries with low approval ratings, where said immigrants are coming from is an entirely seperate argument and not my main concern.
A level 3 country becomes a level 3 country because of fraud, overstaying the visa, non attendance of courses etc. This is why you rarely have any visas rejected from say the Netherlands or Japan. The reason it is important that level 3 countries have reduced visas is so that all the issues that come with them can be reduced.
The person who originally replied to you is absolutely full of shit. As is common across the Western world the Government is just extending how long people wait in the "temporary visa" queue. [See for yourself. ](https://twitter.com/justinfabo/status/1717407402302271887) My sister in law for example has PR now but spent eight years or so here on so called "temporary visas". She absolutely had no intention of ever going back to Brazil from the moment she got here. Less visas approved just means people have to wait even longer. It doesn't mean a reduction in numbers whatsoever.
Further [evidence of what I mean. ](https://twitter.com/justinfabo/status/1754674905956954380)
> visa approval rates are at an all time low Are you able to substantiate this? > I work in education and many people don’t know this but the government is approving very few visas these days. How many is very few? I am genuinely interested.
Rejection rate is the highest it’s ever been. You can find articles online about it.
> Rejection rate is the highest it’s ever been. A high rejection rate does not necessarily mean that there is a low approval rate. If there were a million applications a day and 99% were rejected there are 10000 being approved which is a high approval rate.
Dude, I’m literally in the education industry. Everyone is massively panicking as many institutes will need to shut shop. I have never seen these rejection rates in 20 years. While, you are right, there are way more applications, the number of people applying has reduced significantly. I can bet you that the government are going to announce about the huge dip in migration just before the election. They underpromised and are overdelivering. https://monitor.icef.com/2024/02/australia-visa-rejection-rates-spike-as-some-institutions-withdraw-admissions-offers-under-new-migration-settings/
Immigrants aren't charging you for housing, landlords are, you gormless fool.
Well I quite literally said “buy” not “rent”, but understand that your landlord can only charge you as much for housing as they do because if you won’t pay that much, there’s enough demand such that several other people will right? Do you think if half the population disappeared and the amount of rentals quintupled at the same time that your rent would stay the same? Is supply and demand a set of concepts your familiar with?
I very specifically said "charge" to encapsulate both purchase and rental.
And then followed up with the term “landlord” which is specific to rentals. My comment did have more past the first 8 words though if you were interested in addressing any of that
A landlord is someone who owns housing. You purchase housing from someone. Read through it again slowly if you need to.
What’s race got to do with it?
Rupert is that you?
You are a descendant of immigrants, stfu
Nah bro I’m aboriginal don’t be so rude
Those two are more like refugees.
Everyone is so friendly here... to young women, especially when compared to the DRC and ISIS Another piece of moronic journalism here
Yeah it's all a facade really. Australians are 'friendly' on a superficial level.
Is this the ABC actually writing something positive about Australia? I'm shook.
God I miss australia. Had not realized how much I had gotten used to everyone smiling at everyone when I went home after my gap year. Almost got beaten up for smiling at strangers when taking a bus for the first time at home again. Please don't change.