10 Reasons Why NOT to Move to Australia

As you saw from Wednesday’s post, the OECD has found Australia the best country in the world to live in. But that is not an opinion shared by everybody.

For some time I have been working on a post called ’10 Reasons Why NOT to Move to Australia’. When I say “working on”, what I mean is I have had the idea, created a notepad with the title and every now and then, when I think of a reason, I add it to the list.

In three years, this is as far as I have got…..

1. Your favourite hobby is history/archaeology.
2. You are allergic to golden sandy beaches.

That’s it!

But where I have struggled with this, a guy called Fred has had no problems in compiling his list. Fred contacted me recently via my YouTube channel with a request for me to allow his video as a “video response” to one of my videos.

I emailed Fred back and told him what I would really like to do is a feature post about his blog, even though I did not agree with a single thing on his website. I also explained I would very likely be taking the Mickey out of what he has said and asked if he was okay with that. I also mentioned that I could not work out whether his website was serious or a complete joke.

Fred replied he was happy for me to go ahead and also said “My website is just a tool to make prospective migrants know some facts before making their mind. I am just trying to do good here. Don’t forget that I mentioned that I have met some good people in Oz as well. To me the main problem was nature, not people. So the only fix was to leave. Wish you a good life in Oz.”

So, he is up for it and, apparently, his website is serious. So let us get stuck in.

On occasions  I have been accused of looking at Australia with rose tinted glasses. I have never really understood that idiom, but I do know it means I only (apparently) see the best side of this country.

Well, here is Fred with his view which is surely the worst side.

10 Reasons Why NOT to Move to Australia

What I am going to do here is run through each of Fred’s 10 points, summarise them in my own words and give you one short Fred quote from it. But to get the full flavour of Fred’s wonderful website, you really should visit it for yourself and read it all.

It’s only a one-page website and will take you less than 5 minutes and that includes pauses for laughter. Here goes…

1- UV Radiation

Apparently, to protect ourselves from these dangers, those of us here in Australia have to avoid the sun, wear long sleeves and trousers, big hats, slap on the sunscreen every couple of hours and wear dark glasses.

Mooloolaba Sun AvoidanceWell, I’m not buying that one.

It is not just us people who suffer either, according to Fred “Trees look sad.”

2- Pests

Cockroaches, snakes, rats and spiders are mentioned here and Fred feels that not even pest control can stop “the spider from building its home so quickly every day. They can’t stop it from checking your mail…”

Spiders checking my mail?

3- People

Fred’s general opinion of Australian people isn’t good. A top contender for best quote in this section was where he mentions the likelihood of being attacked with glass or something. But my favourite sentence of them all was the one just after he mentions having met some highly educated people who he thought were normal. He continues “However, the rest of them are divided into old people and young people. Old people are OK because they can’t fight!”

4- Cost of Life

Fred thinks Australia is expensive. He has some ideas why this is and explains it with this…. “One reason behind it is that the government pays for babies.”

5- Location

It is not just Australia is a long way away from so many other countries, but even getting about within Australia is tough because there are “not enough gas stations either.”

6- Health Care

sickOur health care system is funny and dental costs crazy. Waiting times are too long; expect to wait all night at ER. And, according to Fred, “Some small service centers are at par with developing countries.”

7- Roads

Bad, bad, bad roads! Roundabouts everywhere, even on the highways. You must visit his website if only to find out about our terrible roads. As he says “I have seen better roads in many places except Srilanka!”

8- Education

Universities are public and everyone studies for free, apparently. But the bad news is they are not safe and, according to Fred, you will probably be raped at night. Which leads me to my favourite quote from this one. “Of course there is no punishment or law.”

9- Housing

aussie houseBad, bad, bad housing! Houses are old and badly maintained because people want to spend their money on drink instead. But that is not the real problem with houses. No. There is a government conspiracy. According to Fred “Actually the government forbids new buildings so as to keep the price high, but the quality drops!”

There is a lot more information on Fred’s site about the housing, and I know I have already said you must visit his website if only to find out about the terrible roads. But now I am thinking, maybe you should only visit his website to find out about the terrible housing.

Hey! Why not visit his website to find out about both?

10- Crime

In Australia, teenagers attack old people all the time. It is a risk to go out at night. These teenagers get money directly from the government. And if you think all that sounds horrific enough, as Fred says, “There is no arrest, no law enforcement, nothing!”

Dang!

So there you have it. 10 reasons why not to move to Australia according to Fred. I don’t agree with any of it. Having said that, I think Fred’s site is as funny as any I’ve seen. So I thank him for making me laugh.

But this really is just a very brief overview of his 10 reasons; Fred puts it so much better than I do. I highly recommend you pop over to his website and take a few minutes to read and digest it all.

Fred also gives a bonus 11th reason which I won’t reveal here. So why not go to go to NotAustralia?

Update:

No point in clicking that link anymore, Freds website was taken down by the hosts. Last time I was able to click through, I saw the following message…

“We’re sorry, this site is frozen.
If you are the site owner, please contact our abuse team regarding the status of your website.”

Seems we weren’t the only ones who found Freds opinions offensive 🙂

Here’s his video:

No it isn’t.

Update 2: Fred removed his video from YouTube and explained why in a comment on this very page. You can see that comment somewhere below, a long long way below, underneath all the other yummy comments. Look for one by Fred sometime in June 2014.

Now, for those of you who can’t sleep at night worrying what that 11th bonus reason was, I’m going to reprint it here.

From the now taken down Not Australia website, this sums it all up really…

11- Bonus reason!

Most of Australia is dry and there are a lot of bush fires and house fires. An additional reason is the abnormally high intensity of sun radiation which makes this risk even bigger. Sandstorms come from the desert as well.

Comments

Please feel free to add your views and comments below, but do be aware that bad language and swearing is not allowed on this website. I thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Visa Assessment Service
{ 978 comments… add one }
  • Brendan Dempsey January 26, 2023, 1:51 am |

    Australia had a particularly unnatural inception as a prison colony not so long ago in historical terms. The type of contemptible cur, obsessively domineering, standover merchant protection racket crony slime as that do well in Australia would not seem to have changed too much in around a couple of hundred years as from when the prison wardens and prison warden bureaucrats and their lackeys, and the free settlers that found it advantageous to curry favour with such relatively unaccountable kings of the castle, were forming a nation that was born with a silver spoon in its mouth and within a relatively short time had the highest rate of youth suicide in the industrialised world.

    What I personally have noticed that the curs of mainstream Australia specialise in (am an Australian national myself but am not typical of them, apart from some superficialities of accent etc.) is grievously abusing men of their own society (perhaps some women as well) in a quintessentially Australian, crony authoritarian type of evil control freak manner and, if disapproving of the reaction, pretentiously pontificating on what they think the reaction should have been but if approving of the reaction, saying “look, that’s how ‘we’ Australians act”, whilst said curs of mainstream Australia deceitfully continue their cowardly behaviour as necessary to maintain their positions of safety and advantage from where they can inflict abuse without incurring too much risk to themselves (in that regard, the slimy, satanic bludgers have for a long time reminded me of people that cripple children for begging purposes, or species of animals that eat their own offspring, obviously not in the specifics of the action but in the extraordinarily heinous and spinelessly self-serving similar nature of their cringeworthy cowardice).

    The mainstream media driven type of grievously abusively disorientating, untenably duplicitous, toxic dishonesty that poisons many first world countries is, with Australia’s prison warden heritage, particularly sinister in Australia not only because such toxic dishonesty is very obnoxiously engaged in but because the inherent crony brand of authoritarianism and according mob-mentality, crony brand of inherent indifference transmuted into a bully-boy style of accentuated rogue contemptuousness and frequently reinforced with various vindictive, predatory further abuses, particularly prominent in powerful institutions in Australia, makes such toxic dishonesty at a systemic level particularly hard to root out.

    • BobinOz March 3, 2023, 4:37 pm |

      Such beautiful words Brendan, I’ve read it 73 times now, I still don’t know what it means 🤣🤣🤣

    • Jennoz May 26, 2023, 1:08 pm |

      Ummm…what? Not sure you actually SAID anything there mate. You do know that, right (it WAS deliberate, yes)? Did sound a lot like ‘pretentious pontificating’ so congrats on that I guess…

  • mia January 11, 2023, 10:03 pm |

    RE: comment
    Anonymous October 9, 2022, 10:23 am

    I concur, any one who thinks otherwise has their blinkers on, and is woke.
    I too hate this place and I was born here. I am fish out of water with a lot of talent going to waste here.
    Every time I made a step up in life and I was getting somewhere, i was chopped down in typical
    Aussie fashion ie tall poppy syndrome. Someone was always jealous of what I was achieving for myself.
    There has never been any well wishes from people from me achieving anything and doing well at what I did.
    Always negative attitudes towards me.

    People trade in or throw away their friendships like they do with a house hold appliance.
    If you don’t own a house, or you don’t own a car, or have very few friends because of reasons beyond your control
    or your affluence is not up to spec, people avoid you like the plague.
    I can confirm people on the public health system are used as lab rats for student doctors and experimental treatments,
    I have been a victim of it. Australia has a health apartheid system disguised as a lifetime health cover loading on private
    health insurance.

    This is a 2% per year tax (up to a maximum 70%) for a period of 10 years up to age 65. if you take out private health cover after the age of 30 if you didn’t have it prior to age 30. What ever your insurance quote is it will have added tax to it. If you could never afford such luxury’s as
    private health insurance in your 20’s because your job paid bugger all, you’ll never be able to afford it after age 30. Also
    the insurance premium go up an additional 4% (average) per year, whether it’s needed or not. The older you are here,
    the more the insurance quote will be, as age is a pre-existing condition.

    In many lower socio-economic areas the cost of food shopping is actually higher than more
    “well to do” suburbs. Grocery managers will hike up the price of items if it is seen to be selling well.
    If people stop buying those items, the price goes back down again. (I worked as grunt in retail 😉 )
    If there is a flood or other catastrophe and items are temporarily unavailable, managers will hike up the cost of items
    already in stock before the catastrophe happened. This was once a lucky country, not any more, it’s a rotting carcass.
    It is a shame I am too old now to find a life in another country, all I can do now is whittle away the rest
    of my oppressed life, living under this semi democratic pseudo neo fascist socialist dystopia.

    • BobinOz January 17, 2023, 9:43 pm |

      ‘semi democratic pseudo neo fascist socialist dystopia’ – that’s funny!!

    • Jenoz May 26, 2023, 1:12 pm |

      I must be a woke blinker wearer. Ever lived anywhere else? Your whining is hilarious. But go ahead, be miserable (just try not to whinge too loud to people living in countries/cultures with REAL problems). I wonder if all those poor refugees who are DESPERATE for the right to live in Oz know how awful you say it is…

  • Anonymous October 9, 2022, 10:23 am |

    (Technically my email starts with Fred, but I’m not the same Fred, so it was quite a coincidence to see that)I’ve unfortunately lived here my whole life and I can say yes it is a bad country. It has a very rough culture, even the upper-middle class rarely dress or speak well and they often treat people who do like they’re either gay or a snob. They are frequently narrow minded and very prejudice, and theres little room for individuality. Whether you’re old, gay, Asian/Black, sometimes if you’re female, sometimes even if you’re just unique, even if you’re only a little unique, they treat you like dirt. Even if one can do something a lot better, they will literally say ”what r u on about mate,” then nod their heads while laughing. They are usually rude and insulting regardless of whether they are in a bad mood, an okay mood, or even a good mood. They are frequently quarrelsome and getting into verbal, even physical fights. Theres a lot of toxic masculinity and the women are rarely sweet. The education system is terrible, one can go to do a Tafe course, and a substantial portion( perhaps say a whole quarter) of essential information will be missing. The public health system looks down on poor people and tries to experiment on them as it can’t profit much from them. The streets are often either unsafe and full of thugs or over policed and feeling like a police state. Only just last month a young man was shot in his car by policemen however he hadn’t actually committed crime, he was being a little irrational perhaps, but he’d not really done anything wrong. Hardly anything to do in most places, so very boring. In most places the weather is hot and the sun has a harsh sting to it, so not pleasantly warm and comforting; in fact it’s a good way to age quickly and get skin cancer, heat stoke or a fungal infection ect. Obviously many dangerous animals, eg the funnel web spider. Supposedly we don’t have guns but it’s not uncommon to hear about someone getting shot. Theres a lot of grey corruption and gang stalking going on behind the scenes but people try to keep it quite. Apparently now our online privacy is being violated much more than before since 2021 and we’ve gone down significantly on a world ranking for online privacy , they can legally hack into our bank accounts just for suspecting us of something. I’m highly multi talented, kind, I was good looking and hard working/studying, however they locked me in rooms, starved me, poisoned me, and humiliated me, and no one really cares. Something which may perhaps make Australia particularly bad, is the subtle manipulation, as in it dosen’t seem bad on the surface, it ‘seems’ like the lucky country, so it lures you into a false sense of security and one dosen’t realise what’s happening until it’s too late and the damage is done. I currently have an injury from police brutality and am being treated like a criminal even though I always go right out of my way to do the right thing. I’m an amazing person whos been very good to people and this is the thanks I get. Living in Australia is like a nightmare. I wish so badly I’d been born in a good country where I’d had the opportunity to live my life, if I’d had the opportunity, I would have been extremely successful by now. All Australia ever does to me is oppress me, manipulate me, torment me, ect. Australia’s reputation is already going downhill, I wouldn’t be surprised if in 10-20 years from now we’re having a humanitarian crisis, or theres lots of riots in the streets, or we are no longer a first world country or something. How long will Australia be able to keep up the deception and falsehood of being a good country with the way things are going. I want to be free of Australia so badly, I can’t stand it here, it’s like torture, and now I’m worried with whats being done to me atm that I will be trapped here forever.

    • BobinOz October 11, 2022, 4:28 pm |

      This is such a sad story Fred. If only you were born in ANY other country in the whole world other than Australia, your life would have been fantastic, with so many more opportunities, you would have most definitely been extremely successful. Oh well.

      For the record, I can only find two incidences of fatal shootings by police in all of Australia over the last month, and on both occasions the young men were advancing towards the police with a knife in their hand. Is that what you mean by being a little irrational?

    • Jenoz May 26, 2023, 1:18 pm |

      I 100% agree that you in particular would be much, much, much better off almost anywhere else. Surely other countries would welcome such a highly talented, clever, generous, kind, optimistic and gorgeous individual? It’s everyone else’s fault, right?

  • Janet King May 23, 2022, 1:42 pm |

    I moved to Sydney in December last year to be near my family after losing my husband. Taking a while to adjust from a house and large garden to a small (but perfectly formed!) apartment with a balcony on the 8th floor. However, I love both the apartment and the area I’m in – not far from shops, a creek visited by loads of birds, the foreshore and re-wilded areas. Since I arrived, the weather has been the worst in living memory apparently, but that’s not Sydney’s fault. It’s due to climate change which we’re all responsible for. Having recently bought a puppy, I find everyone I meet whilst walking her engages and is very friendly. I’ve even met someone with a similar pup and we share ‘playdates’.
    I’ve joined a choir and everyone is just great. I use Uber a lot, which is wonderful as I’m dreadful at finding my way round. It’s much cheaper than running a car and I love the chats with the drivers of all different nationalities who now love living in Sydney. I can’t say that anyone I’ve met is unfriendly – maybe it’s how you approach them if they seem that way?
    I’ve had an encounter with just one huntsman spider (so far) – a huge chap about 5 inches from ‘toe to toe’, but I was extremely brave and ushered him out onto the balcony with two serving spoons from the kitchen!
    The only downside so far is that, yesterday and today, the security system for the lift is out of action so getting back upstairs by lift is not an option. I took the pup for a walk and she had a struggle to get up 16 flights of stairs (and I wasn’t much better!). Fingers crossed it’ll be fixed soon.
    I love the cafe culture (but not the frothy coffee – I just like black coffee with cold milk, or Nescafe instant.) I miss ginger nut, Nice and malted milk biscuits (either don’t taste the same or they’re tooth-breakers here), Marmite (Vegemite is awful), fruit buns, proper crusty rolls and all the different types of cake you get in UK. However, I do love that there are so many different foods from different nationalities and everything is so fresh.
    Although I miss the dawn chorus in UK, it’s a different one here and I get so many exotic birds visiting the feeder on my balcony. Regular visitors are rainbow lorikeets which take sultanas from my hand, and others are Australian magpies, currawongs, little corellas, noisy miners, a butcherbird and a kookaburra. How great is that?
    So, overall I look out of my window and think ‘How lucky am I? I’m actually here in Australia.’ – and it feels amazing!!

    • BobinOz May 25, 2022, 6:23 pm |

      Hi Janet and firstly, sorry to hear about your husband.

      Sounds like you have settled in quite well in Sydney though, and just think how fit you must be getting navigating those 16 flights of stairs 🙂

      I have a tip for you with regards to Marmite as well, if you go to any Coles or Woolworths, look for ‘Our Mate”, that is Australia’s version of Marmite and it is imported from the UK. I’ve written a post about it, you can read it here…

      https://www.bobinoz.com/blog/13711/buying-typically-english-food-in-australia/

      In Coles you will find it in the ‘International’ section, normally aisle 6. Look for the English section in there, you’ll find things like Coleman’s Mustard, Fruit Pastels and other UK treats. You might even find some decent biscuits.

      Take care, Bob

    • Jeniz May 26, 2023, 1:25 pm |

      Good for you Janet. It’s a brave & difficult thing to move to a new culture. People often underestimate the differences btwn Aust & British culture. My parents moved us here from Scotland when I was a child. As much as I enjoy the odd visit back to the UK, there is literally a day goes by when I don’t thank the stars (&my brave parents) that I got to grow up in Australia. We are so, so lucky to be here in Oz.

  • Laura September 26, 2021, 11:31 am |

    Wow, some people in the comments are so angry! Very entertaining and still reading,
    My only disappointment was finding out that Fred’s webpage was taken down.
    I love your blog/website; very helpful in trying to decide whether to try moving to Oz from the UK. You might have persuaded me. What stands out to me when researching, is that no country is perfect and it comes down to what you value most. I love and hate things about the UK. I hate the politics; the fact I’ll never afford a mortgage here unless I move up North, at least not on my own; the expensiveness; the overcrowding; the cold, overcast weather and the low wages and working conditions in my profession. I love that it is small, the countryside, the history, the architecture, the fact that it’s close to Europe and my family is here. It comes down to weighing things up: What is the point of looking at beautiful buildings if I can never afford to live in one? What is the point of beautiful scenery if I’m too tired to enjoy it or to drive anywhere on days off? Australian houses are newer, and whilst still expensive, my higher salary means I could actually buy one and get more for my money in terms of space. But on the other hand, what is the point of having a nice home when my few loved ones are on the other side of the world? Either way, life will be best by finding a life partner, but it’s impossible to know upfront where that will more likely happen; I also don’t know any Australians to judge for myself if I’d like them, assuming there is even any generalisation to be made….The list goes on. The answer is to probably try it and see, and no country or place is going to tick every box and it becomes about personal priorities. I’d love to live in Scandinavia, for example, but I highly doubt my ability or my drive to learn another language fluently. My ideal country would be New Zealand, except it’s too expensive and the housing quality looks so bad I’ve had to rule it out. The biggest draw for me with Australia are the beaches. I literally would like to do that every day. The biggest downside is my severe arachnophobia; but I don’t think it’s something that should hold me back.

    Interesting to debate those things though. In the past couple of years I’ve had my times of hating the UK and could have easily written an angry article about how awful it is. But looking at the rest of the world, no place is perfect and in some ways we have it good here.

    • BobinOz September 27, 2021, 9:10 pm |

      Hi Laura, without doubt the comment section on this page is the most entertaining on my whole website, it’s given me so much fun.

      You’ve pretty much nailed it when it with your thoughts, there are so many things to consider when moving here and nothing is clear-cut, there are pros and cons to it all and as you say, that goes for any country you might consider moving to.

      All the things you love and hate about the UK and Europe of the same things I loved and hated as well. Then I came to Australia, for me the biggest change was loving the weather, it really is a mood change for me just seeing the sunshine almost every day instead of seeing that drizzle. That’s probably the biggest difference. It’s hard to be miserable when it’s sunny.

      I came from the expensive south-east of England and moved to Brisbane and so for me, housing here was much cheaper than in the UK, but if you were to move here from the North of England and then tried to buy a house in Sydney or Melbourne, then that would be a different story. Property prices in those cities are hugely expensive. Prices are rising here now in Brisbane as well, but you do get a much bigger house.

      I love the countryside here and all the open spaces and the fact that it’s nowhere near as crowded as the UK or Europe. Biggest drawback, of course, is leaving all your friends behind, that’s a tough one. When I was in the UK I also loved being so close to Europe, but then I was nearly 50 when I moved to Australia and I’d done extensive travelling around Europe, so I was close to done with it.

      Now I’m really close to a lot of Asian countries, so that’s a new plus, because I hadn’t travelled much of Asia before coming here.

      The reality though, as you have also noted towards the end, is that England is a great country and so is Australia. To live in either country is a gift, the fact that I have now lived in both countries is an even bigger gift. Anyone thinking about the move who isn’t sure, I always say, what if? What if you don’t try, then you will never know. What if you do try and you love it?

      It is a very big decision, whatever one you make in the end, I hope it turns out to be the right one.

      Good luck, Bob

      PS. I hated politics in the UK as well, still hate it here 🙂

      • Laura September 28, 2021, 12:17 am |

        Hi Bob, thank you for your reply! I find it very interesting to discuss and appreciate the insight.
        I’m also in SE England and I intend to try life up north for a while; I’ve never been though and I’m not overly hopeful/enthusiastic, but you never know. I actually love the rain, I just dislike the cold. But it still rains a lot in Australia, right?

        I have quite a dilemma to figure out: My number one love in this world is being in the sea, which means I want to live near the beach, in a place where the ocean isn’t freezing cold. But I am terrified of: sea snakes and jellyfish. Warm waters contain those things. Just yesterday I was watching TikTok videos of Perth, coveting the beautiful beaches, turquoise waters, and people kayaking, diving and swimming. Paradise! And affordable, quality homes nearby too…Then some guy films a snake coming out of the sea, a woman out walking her dog in the sunshine films a huge tree spider that even her dog would not go near, and another guy films a wolf spider pouncing from his bike onto his…nether regions. This was Perth mind you. But I just don’t know if I could cope with knowing that these are possible things I’d come across. I laugh at myself but truly my level of fear is 10/10. Such a shame 🙁 I’m sure it wouldn’t bother most people, especially if encounters are rare.

        On the other hand, such things must surely exist in all hot places (note: research pending). So does that mean I’ll just never go anywhere?!
        If it wasn’t for this I’d probably jump on a plane and risk the rest. Damn it.

        One other question: You said you were nearly 50 when you emigrated. I will be getting on for that by the time I have the experience and money saved to work abroad. I’ve always assumed I’d better hurry it up because the older you are the harder it is to get in, with 55 being a definite cut off point (at least it is for NZ). Any thoughts?
        Thanks again! 🙂

        • BobinOz September 30, 2021, 5:49 pm |

          Oh yes, we get plenty of rain in Australia, but it’s not the same as rain in the UK, not here in Queensland anyway. Queensland is subtropical so we often get sudden downpours/thunderstorms and then an hour later, it’s bright and sunny again. We rarely get the drizzly grey never-ending rain that the UK has.

          My best tip for you about swimming in the sea is always to swim between the flags, that’s where the lifesavers are. I think it’s still true to say that nobody has ever drowned or even lost their lives while swimming between the flags, because the lifesavers look out for people in trouble, they check for rips (currents that drag you out to sea) and they also check the sharks and jellyfish.

          Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast beaches are pretty safe, but the further north you go in Queensland, the more dangerous it can get and go past Rockhampton, and the danger increases with the possibility of crocodiles and more dangerous jellyfish. A.k.a. irukandji.

          TikTok doesn’t really represent life in Australia 🙂 and the things you describe just don’t happen very often. And the reputation of our spiders is somewhat exaggerated, most of us don’t give a moment’s thought to them at all in our day-to-day lives. I hardly ever see them; in the house, pest control is your friend.

          50 would have been way too late for me, but my wife was under the age of 45 and I qualified to live here simply because I am her husband, I would have had no chance on my own. Not sure what the cut-off is right now, last I heard it was 45 but I know the older you get the harder it gets to qualify for Australia. If you can put your application in before you are 40, that’s even better, in fact the younger the better. Don’t hang around and if you’re unsure, see a MARA registered migration agent for advice.

  • Shaun August 12, 2021, 3:57 pm |

    I find that negative comments about Australia are often not welcome on this site which has a very pro-Australia bias; however, my experience of Australia is very similar to the OP.
    Australia is a beautiful place, but it is very monocultural and doesn’t change much as you travel thousands of Kilometres between towns, and rapidly becomes boring unless your whole life is beaches, camping, or fishing (which they actually do at a whole new level)
    It is very rough, racist, with draconian attitudes towards child abuse, domestic violence, and anyone of a different race.
    I worked as a senior healthcare professional, and the Aussie semi-private medical system over-treats, over-tests, and over-diagnoses people. Pro-treatment models like this are often seen as good by the public, but you can easily be harmed by the Australian medical system, receive surgery that wont benefit you, and get a diagnosis of an illness you don’t have.
    Australia is very expensive, and despite earning more in Australia than the UK, I am financially better off in the UK, although if you save your Aussie dollars they will go a long way in Europe.
    The Australia work ethic is very low too (in general) – it will take a plumber, for example, 3 days to do what a UK plumber would do in one morning, and he/she will require other tradies such as tilers etch to complete the work, rather that do it his/herself. We had an under bath waste pipe leak – it cost us $2,000 AUD and 3 days, a job I could have done myself in a day, and a UK plumber in a morning. Because of this, Aussie businesses will openly admit they would rather employ UK tradies than Aussie.
    The thing that attracts people to Australia is that the typical KPIs of success in the UK are easy to acquire in Oz. For example, if you had a large house with pool at the beach in the UK you would need to be successful. Most people have this in Australia, so it’s easy to fool yourself into believing you’ve suddenly made it when you move from your semi detached estate house in the UK; and I get that, but what you lose by leaving the infrastructure of Europe is massive imo.
    I often describe Australia like this … Take one of the rougher council estates in your home city, imagine the occupants and their work/life ethic, give them a well paid job and a big house and you have the average Australian.
    I think that if you are at a level in your life that doesn’t present you with many opportunities, the Aussie lifestyle may give you a better life, but I also think those with opportunities will have a better life in Europe (and be a lot less bored).
    Finally – if Australia was the paradise that many people believe it is, it wouldn’t be continually struggling with skills and 50% of professionals who go to live there wouldn’t return.
    Horses for courses as they say – but I think that people considering emigrating should have a more balanced idea of what they are selling there homes and giving up their lives to go to.
    I lived there 2.5 years, that was more than enough for us.

    • BobinOz August 16, 2021, 6:47 pm |

      The reason negative comments about Australia often get criticised on this website is because, like yours, they can often become quite insulting. Your attempt to describe what you call the “average Australian” is certainly an insult to every Australian citizen.

      As I’ve said many times on this website, you cannot pigeonhole entire nations and that’s what you seem to be doing, you are strongly implying that all Australians are the equivalent of the occupants of the roughest council estates in the UK and that is really quite childish.

      As for the rest of the rubbish you have written, I won’t even bother to debate with you, I’ll just laugh quietly to myself and move on.

      • Joe August 18, 2021, 6:01 am |

        Bob,

        I don’t agree with everything that Shaun says and whilst I don’t live in Australia I have been there and have regular contact with many who have lived there all their lives and a lot of what he says chimes exactly with what they say also.

    • Pip July 17, 2023, 9:31 pm |

      Hi Sean, I’m so sorry things here didn’t live up to expectation – and I mean that sincerely. Our country is a vast place, and I would suggest that there is a lot more cultural variety actually here, than what you may have experienced. In the cities, a lot depends on: which city (smallest or largest), which postcode you’re residing in (and I don’t mean top of the range like Toorak or Mossman, there’s a lot of places that are great without being exclusive). Away from the southern/eastern parts of the country, you have the very interesting Broome, North Qld, and Darwin . I love the fact that we have very interesting family lineages in those places, where we’ve had Japanese pearl divers and Chinese traders and market gardeners, plus local First Nation people – for instance – often related to each other by inter marriage across a hundred years or so. Our Central Market/Chinatown precinct in Adelaide (apparently the best in Australia – grocery shopping here is a great Saturday ritual for many) has a friendly Greek and Italian workforce, added to in recent times by eastern European stallholders and Middle Eastern ones also. The market to me, like the equivalent one in Melbourne is just fantastic, very affordable fresh foodstuffs etc. A million tourists coming through each year also seem to love the atmosphere.
      Yes there are parts of every city that don’t interest me, I know what you’re saying there: but I’ve always been able to find groups to socialise with who have no interest in “the footy”, who enjoy folk festivals, international music, books, art galleries, museums.
      On the work front, a lot has changed since I was growing up in the 70’s – and not for the better. I put a lot of it down to changes that have occurred right across the western world: the rise of managerialism, the promotion of university education over learning a trade, and the decline of many of our public institutions – including parliament, legislators and politicians who see nothing beyond winning the next election (and feathering their own nests). A lot of our best minds in the public space were encouraged to retire early(!) 20 years ago, if they hadn’t already left for overseas opportunities when young. But I see a lot of negative social and political trends elsewhere in the English speaking world also… that mirror our own. Wishing you all the best for the future…

  • Omogun February 11, 2021, 10:16 am |

    Australia is probably good for some people but certainly not for me. So, I’ll pass.

  • scott October 25, 2020, 12:37 pm |

    Lets not forget the worlds most draconian democracy.
    After the way AU turned us into a island prison and does not allow any one to leave for what feels like a year now. mind you the only country in the world that is not a dictatorship has done this…
    You can not trust AU and the police.

    • BobinOz October 26, 2020, 5:32 pm |

      Yes, it’s true, we are the only democracy in the world that doesn’t allow their citizens to leave the country without a permit. On the plus side though, in terms of Covid 19, we now probably have one of the lowest case numbers for a country of our population in the world. I think it has been a price worth paying.

      • Fred January 19, 2021, 5:27 pm |

        Luck that there is giant moat around the country Simple quarantine and contact tracing has been a total disaster Compare Asstralia to Taiwan then talk

        • BobinOz January 20, 2021, 5:20 pm |

          There is a big moat around the UK, so let’s compare Australia’s figures with theirs and then decide what represents a total disaster.

  • landlubber August 29, 2020, 8:07 am |

    So according to this site teens in Aus are more dangerous than the local wildlife.

    Who woulda thunk?!

  • Amber August 13, 2020, 3:21 pm |

    I have lived in Australia my whole life. Born a bred in Melbourne visited other places. This country has so much law and enforcement and not everyone is violent. Most of us live in actual cities and towns and have gas stations everywhere and there are very safe roads actually and our school system Is very kind (at least it is here). Our houses are very good quality at least most of them and we save our money. The sun isn’t that bad all the time and why would we wear long sleeves and trackies on a 40 degree day (Celsius). But at the same time this was funny hearing these things.

    • BobinOz August 17, 2020, 3:53 pm |

      Yes, I agree, this page has given a lot of people a good laugh, but on the other side though, it’s also wound up quite a few people. 🙂

  • John December 29, 2019, 9:48 pm |

    I am a pom who has lived in Australia since 2007. Having travelled and worked in every state I have found it a great country, nice people (generally), stunning scenery and nature abundant. All that said it is not and will never be home to me. No fault of the country, loads to offer, it’s me as an individual. I use myself to make an example that it maybe the personality of the dissatisfied person not Australia. Easy to criticise rather than look inwards. Why do I stay? I moved here with a family who loves Australia and I love them. Not hard to live here, just not where I would like to be.

    • BobinOz January 2, 2020, 3:52 pm |

      Well said John, I agree 100%. Like yourself, I’ve been living in Australia since 2007 and I’ve also travelled extensively around the country. What’s not to like?

      It just so happens that I also love living here, so I’m happy to call it my home. If I didn’t though, if I hated it here, it would probably be for another reason, it wouldn’t be ‘Australia’s’ fault.

      Too many people like to blame Australia or Australians for hating this country, when as you say, maybe they should be taking a look at themselves.

      Happy New Year to you, cheers, Bob

  • Osvaldo November 15, 2019, 9:15 am |

    I have been in Sydney for 5 years now and can tell people that I’ve never seen so many racist and arrogant people in my entire life.

    I like to say that Australia is a good country, but Australians are another story. Therefore, I neither love nor hate them.

    There are a series of stereotypes about them and must say that I tend to agree with most of them.

    • BobinOz November 15, 2019, 6:16 pm |

      Sorry to hear Sydney wasn’t good for you. I’m not a big fan of Sydney myself, maybe you should try some place else?

    • Scott October 25, 2020, 12:45 pm |

      Mate you need to put this in context…
      I find it amusing you say you like Australia but not the people, that means you are a invader who wants our nature and our space and our pay but does not want to fit in with OUR PEOPLE. We just want our own country like you have. Lets face it your name sounds like its from argentiana, could you ever imagine any Australians going to live in argentiana?? Of course not, but you get your ass lots of you guys live here. You must understand how multiculturalism works, you come from a country where if i was a Australian i probably could not migrate to, yet here you come with all your traditions. Imagine how that makes us feel? We have no traditions and no culture at all when we go to the shop all we see is immigrants everywhere, literately we are out numberd 5 to 1, yet i i want to go move to any other country i can not unless i have a masters degree yet here every second restaurant is a Indian restaurant….. we have no food, no culture, no nothing, so please you must understand we would like to have our own country also not be known as the worlds multicultural lab. I am Australian born and raised and also a Aboriginal native to this country, yet i would rather be anywhere else then here for the simple reason that this place is not mine it belongs to all you immigrants and don’t think we dont know case we all know and we all are sick of it.

  • TechGirl August 31, 2019, 7:34 am |

    I will comment.
    I am an American who has lived all over the US, and I have been to Australia 5 times. Mostly South Australia.
    Pros:
    – The weather in Adelaide can’t be beat.
    – The food is higher quality. Less factory farming. Grass fed cows are common, etc.
    – The restaurants and cafes in Adelaide were fantastic.
    – The coffee served in cafes in Australia is superior.
    – There is not a huge poverty issue like we have in the US.
    – The heath care system seems to be superior to the US. At least as far as cost/insurance/billing, etc.

    Cons:
    – There are far more job opportunities in the US. No contest.
    – I encountered stereotypical attitudes about Americans. For example that we are constantly in danger of being shot, etc. Many Australians I might consider arrogant, complained that Americans are arrogant.
    – Maybe it was just the people I met, but social class seemed to be more of a thing. I think Americans gave up on social class. You have the Khardashians making money look trashy. And old money doesn’t seem to have it as good in the US as they might somewhere else. And, at least where I live, people can be religious, which occupies their mind more than social standing.
    – In general, I would say life is more difficult in the US. We have no job security, etc. I think that gives even Americans who are doing okay a sense of financial insecurity I did not find in Australia. So a weathly American might not be as self-satisfied because in the US it seems all your good fortune could disappear overnight.
    – In my social group, men and women interact and there isn’t a lot of war between the sexes. I saw a lot more feminism than I am used to in Australia. But the US is getting more of that too lately.
    – Australians aren’t as free with compliments as Americans. They consider our compliments a bit phony.
    – Australians supposedly have tall poppy syndrome, where they don’t like people who are too successful.
    However I also think Americans can tend to stand by friends who have fallen on hard times more. I think maybe it is just Americans tolerate diversity more?
    – Some women dress in a way that would be completely socially unacceptable where I live in the US, but Australians consider it normal. Not just showing a lot of skin, but just a bit trashy. My boyfriend’s mother called me “plain”. As far as I know I have never been called plain in the US. I put together “outfits” and don’t show a lot of skin.
    – I think American women are more likely to get together and giggle and crack jokes, even when men are around, and even older women. Again, maybe it is because life is more difficult in the US? It is like the old saying, you can either laugh or you can cry.

    – I think people in Sydney can be a bit snotty.

    At first glance, Australia is the land of milk and honey. It seems like paradise. But I missed how the constant struggle we have in the US can shape our personalities.

    • BobinOz September 2, 2019, 7:11 pm |

      Interesting observations. I’ve been to the US on four different occasions, Florida, California, Arizona and New York. Never got shot once 🙂 Never seen anyone get shot either, so I know what you mean.

      That said though, I can see why lots of people from other countries, including Australia, think that you are always in danger of getting shot, the mass shootings in the US are just so regular, it’s unbelievable.

      I have a page about that on my website as well, it’s caused quite a debate in the comments…

      https://www.bobinoz.com/blog/4548/look-out-shes-got-a-gun/

      • TechGirl September 2, 2019, 8:57 pm |

        Yes, I don’t know what is up with the mass shootings. There was another one Friday. We’ve had guns forever, so why this increase in mass shootings?
        Still, places like Chicago make that seem like nothing.
        https://chicago.suntimes.com/platform/amp/crime/2019/9/1/20841934/labor-day-weekend-shootings-gun-violence-homicide

        I saw a video of two young female (I think Aussie?) tourists in LA saying they got on a train and rode to Watts to check it out. I was thinking: that’s a good way to get killed.
        So maybe in the US we just are used to our reality?

        • BobinOz September 3, 2019, 4:09 pm |

          I’m up to season 12 in Shameless, they seem to think that Chicago is up and coming with coffee shops and hipsters taking over. You just can’t trust TV shows these days, can you? 🙂

          Isn’t Detroit in a similar mess?

          I hate to say it, but I think perhaps you are all used to your own reality in the US, because for those of us looking from the outside, the gun violence is nothing short of totally unacceptable.

          When schoolkids are scared to go to school, I think it’s time to admit the people in charge have let them down. As you have said though, no country is perfect, but the gun problem is certainly something where the US could do better.

          • Suzanne M Clifford September 3, 2019, 10:18 pm |

            Chicago is quite big. I’ve lived downtown twice and it is pretty cool.
            The south and west sides are horrible, along with some other pockets.
            I wouldn’t walk thru the loop (downtown business district) at 8pm though.
            Yes, we have a different reality we deal with. It is not that we think it is acceptable, just that fixing the issue is difficult. It is more complicated than just gun control. Chicago actually has very strict gun laws for the US. Drugs are also illegal and that doesn’t keep them off the streets.

  • Narelle August 9, 2019, 10:00 pm |

    Bob,one of the best things in Australia is the Dropbears, Bunyips and Hoop snakes. The best is the Dropbears, there are multiple variations and they live in most regions of Australia. It is our governments biggest top secret!

    • BobinOz August 13, 2019, 1:32 pm |

      Fought off a dropbear with my bare hands only yesterday, pesky things!

  • RAJNISH JASUJA August 7, 2019, 4:00 pm |

    I moved to Australia 20 years ago and these idiots ruined my life. Stay away from them. It is called bimbo of the West. Means beautiful country but dumb at the same time.

    • BobinOz August 13, 2019, 1:11 pm |

      Which idiots? Stay away from who? Why have you put up with this for 20 years? Confused.

      • RAJNISH JASUJA August 13, 2019, 2:06 pm |

        People here in general. Who were useless so far. Never been helpful instead always caused problems. Lot of things happening. I can’t explain each and everything unless you meet me in person. These people has full credit to destroy someone life but they cant built someone life. They give a lot of success who don’t deserve it and give nothing to people like me who deserve everything. Very unpleasant experience so far. No success at all in any area of life. They are there to make you unsuccessful not to make you successful. If you want to know everything you need to identify yourself who you are.

        • BobinOz August 15, 2019, 5:35 pm |

          Well, I don’t need to know everything, but if you want to know who I am anyway, read my About Me page.

          That is some statement you have made there about the people who live in Australia, it’s a huge generalisation, you are labelling everyone in the same way. If you stop and think about it, surely you must know it can’t possibly be true. Maybe there is another explanation for why you feel the way you do. It might be worth you thinking about that.

          • RAJNISH JASUJA August 15, 2019, 8:57 pm |

            I think you are from England. Right ?? What is your experience?? Can you guide where else should I move if still Australia is not a place for me ??

            • BobinOz August 19, 2019, 5:25 pm |

              Yes, I am originally from England, lived there nearly 50 years. Been living in Australia for the last 12 years. England is a fine country, I had a good life there, but I wouldn’t go back, not now.

              The country is in a mess at the moment, what with Brexit, and besides, I am very happy here in Australia. I wouldn’t live in the US if I were paid to do so. The gun culture on its own is enough to put me off.

              So my choice is Australia, which is why I live here, but clearly that doesn’t help you. Maybe you should look into some of the main EU countries?

    • scott October 25, 2020, 12:49 pm |

      all that and your still here 20 years ago wow….. what a leech …..

  • jock July 2, 2019, 9:59 pm |

    Australia is dying…watch the economy turn to crap…soon

  • hosdi January 10, 2019, 2:46 am |

    I live in Australia and I’d like to say I found 2 that were actually correct. You shouldn’t write this if you have no idea about Australia.

    • Dova Vierra February 20, 2019, 10:31 am |

      What is the best place to live in Australia with children r schools safe is is socialism capitalism?how is the government? How expensive in u.s dollars? Is it hard to find a job for a car technician

      • BobinOz February 21, 2019, 8:51 pm |

        All subjects I’ve written about, have a good look around this website and you’ll find them. There is a search function towards the top right hand side of each page, search for ‘job’, ‘politics’, and ‘schools’. I also have a whole category on the cost of living and my page The Cost of Living in Australia of Everything should also help.

  • tom December 2, 2018, 2:46 pm |

    are you kidding there are suburbs only 60or so km from Sydney that have no water or sewerage,and the summer is so hot and have any of you heard about skin caner we have the highest rate in the world.the roads are full of pot holes the taxes so high and you get nothing for it,,a lot of you need a reality check have any of you been over seas?
    oh and go to a public toilet here,,and see crap every where,,
    oh and yes we like to say would you want to live in Afghanistan??
    really is that what you are comparing us to,,supose they are similar countries

    • BobinOz December 3, 2018, 5:08 pm |

      Are you talking about West Wyee? West Wyee is 108 km north of Sydney CBD, it has no water supply or sewerage, but it is an illegal shantytown. Those houses are not supposed to be there, it’s an illegal settlement. It’s not a “suburb” as you describe it, it’s not even officially shown on the map.

      Not representative of Sydney suburbs at all.

  • unknown November 16, 2018, 1:02 pm |

    all these reasons to not live in australia are pathetic, most of those reasons are just made up, there aren’t any teenagers beating up old people. I just think you are too pathetic to live in australia.

    • Nobbled September 9, 2019, 10:14 am |

      Move to South Australia. Grandparents bumped off by the grandkids for their cash stash. Ferals befriending other ferals so they can get access to their bank card, bump them off, rape their kids or sell them, and pretend they are all still alive so the cash keeps flowing. Of course you can always shove a dead kid in a suitcase and chuck it out on the side of a busy highway where likely nobody will ever find it. Then there are barrels and acid to dissolve the bodies when there are just too many bodies. Or a young mum bumped off by her bogan boyfriend, and his mum buries the body under concrete in the backyard of her rental (you seriously do not want to dig in the backyards of SA rentals) or what about all the farmers and country town blokes who bumped off their wives and buried them out the back? Does nobody read the papers?

      • BobinOz September 9, 2019, 4:45 pm |

        Well it sounds like you read the papers Nobbled, but I can’t help thinking that you’re spending much too much time concentrating on the bad things and not celebrating the joy that is life itself.

      • scott October 25, 2020, 12:51 pm |

        lol sounds like this guy has taken every single serial killer case we ever had and put it into one verbal vomit.
        Now do that for EVERY OTHER country in the world….

  • Automode October 30, 2018, 4:32 pm |

    Comments are always good feedback even if they hate you (or your country). As they say: “knowledge is power”. So, it’s obvious to me that Fred’s list is really a xenophobic attempt to scare people away so he can have more Oz for himself. He’s in no way serious, though he does make some serious points. I’m born and raised from the land of Zion, being Utah USA, but my father was born in Australia in 1945. He became an Australian citizen in 1947 just like his parents who were from the UK.

    At some point in 1950 my grandparents bought into Mormonism and decided it was worth giving up everything and taking a long boat ride to Utah (Utah was a coastal state back then). My dad was bullied in school because he talked funny and wore weird clothes. My grandmother once told me she was asked by someone in church if she enjoyed having running water and a bathroom in her house. By 1956 all had become US citizens and none of them were still Mormon. None of them had much good to say about having to pay for doctors visits, the taxes, the roads, the job opportunities or the government and they all recalled being looked at as oddball foreigners by the other white people they were spitting images of. I always thought it was because that’s what the English do; they complain about stuff.

    Turns out people complain about stuff. All people, all stuff. But the only complaint my family had about Australia was that they left. Even then it was really a thinly veiled complaint about the US (in comparison).

    I guess this technique is an Australian thing because Fred is a master at it as well, although he was complaining about immigrants by complaining about Australia. I spent my whole life hearing how great Australia is and I’ve never been there. My dad never made it back. He was only 5 when he left but he never felt he belonged anywhere else. He also thought nothing after 1966 was any good which means everything else I grew up thinking was cool was, in fact, not (to him anyway). He thought that until he died and it made him unhappy, lonely and difficult. For a few people, defending the ways things used to be, or the way things are now, or the way things are somewhere else, seems akin to defending one’s breathing. Of course complaining seems to be the sum-total of their defense efforts.

    Of this I can say that the young are relevant because the the old won’t change. Oh, and old people like to complain so it’s a double win. I’m old so I can say that. Anyhow, and like I’d said, I’ve been told Australia is the best place on earth my whole life but I’m not closed minded enough to rule out bad news. I am, however, willing to overlook the funnel web, mouse, huntsman and red back spiders as well as the crocs, sharks, snakes, stingrays and other, generally unpleasant looking, creatures I’ve learned about. I mean if the first ones off the boats didn’t pack up and leave after dealing with them it must be an awesome place. Right?

    Hey, Isn’t there an ant in Australia the size of a beer can that can shoot acid venom from its 30cm stinger it uses to desolve and eat 3 adult wombats a day? It was called the wombant or something like that. Someone who isn’t me should google it because maybe Fred is right and we should all stay away.

    • Nick October 30, 2018, 6:09 pm |

      Australia is good my friend.
      But for me was good only for money and materials .
      I even regret sometimes that I left from Australia but it’s not easy to forget about your lovely materials and the easy access to them .
      Every single one Australian that I meet there all of them they said that Australia is a big jail.
      Work, home, work, home, work, home .
      There is no lifestyle you like it or not guys .
      5 to 10 Australians are going holidays to Greece, Italy, Spain and not because the weather and because it’s beautiful.
      It is the people that live there to make these countries beautiful.
      We are under economic crisis but still the people there are more happy than any Australian, American etc ….
      I know so many Australians that use to go holidays in Greece and when they come back they said, that these people there work for nothing ( 2 euro p\h) and they are extremely hard workers . They are so happy and they have nothing and here in Australia we have everything but we are very miserable.
      Australia is good for people that move from India, China, Nepal, etc .
      Will never be the dream country for Europeans.
      95% of Europeans are there because of the money.
      95% the rest of the world are there because they love it .
      I know too many successful people in Australia that they are from Europe and they have moved there 50 years ago .
      They all say to me I never felt like Australian.
      Another issue with Australia now is that 9 to 10 people cannot buy house anymore.
      So my friend your dad use to say how good was in Australia but this is what say every Australian….how good was….
      It’s not anymore that good .
      I’m open to questions and have a nice conversation, I want to say that I am not here to argue guys .

      • scott October 25, 2020, 12:53 pm |

        100% one of the best things i have read here, everyone and i mean everyone who is Australian hates the place, its a giant prison, we all know it and all you guys like is our money and resources its that simple.

    • BobinOz November 1, 2018, 7:25 pm |

      You will be pleased to hear, Automode, that the largest ants in the world do not live in Australia, I believe South America can lay claim to that honour. There is no wombant, which is a shame, because I liked the sound of that.

      Here is a story though about one of the biggest ants I’ve seen in Australia…

      https://www.bobinoz.com/blog/1792/my-intruder-battle-not-for-the-squeamish/

      As for Fred, we will really never know whether he was serious or not. I have exchanged a few emails with Fred, he has also made an additional comment somewhere here amongst the comments, no real clue given, we just don’t know whether he means what he said or he is pulling our leg.

      One of life’s mysteries.

  • Nick October 27, 2018, 10:14 am |

    Don’t argue guys .
    There is no place like Greece, you like it or not 🙂 I am from Greece though…
    Ok now I have live in Australia 6 years and now live in UK .
    Australia is good if you love the money and you are a materialistic person.
    There is 0 level of happiness and that is a fact .
    The only happiness in Australia is to go spend your money every weekend.
    Also yes there is the worse drivers I have ever seen in my life.
    There is a lot of control general that make people live in the fear .
    No lifestyle at all.
    No culture at all .
    People does not have simple common sense.
    Very dirty supermarkets, bogans walk around without shoes, they buying meat and then they regret and leaving it at shampoos section.
    Very poor market compared to Europe.
    Very big distances, you spend 1/3 of your life driving.
    And if you don’t drive bad luck.
    Only 30% of the areas got good access to bus,metro,tram .
    House’s are EXTREMELY poor made with very bad materials compared to Europe.
    There is heaps of things in Australia that make you think if that is for real or not .
    Price of houses have become double the last 5 years and the wages are still the same .
    Extremely hard for an Australian to buy house anymore.
    There is heaps of things I can write down.
    Only good thing for me in Australia was that there is a lot of job opportunities and that in Melbourne was a big Greek community with Greek cafe’s and souvlaki.

    • BobinOz October 29, 2018, 6:08 pm |

      Ah, yes, Greece, I can see the attraction.

      Eight years of austerity thanks to governmental mismanagement, excessive public spending, massive tax evasion, three Euro bailouts, totaling EUR246 billion, massive unemployment, people begging in the streets, runs on the banks, rioting in the streets, banks introducing a €420 weekly limit on withdrawals, it sure is a country we Australians look towards with envy.

      Instead we have shoeless Bogans leaving porkchops in the Health and Beauty section; such a terrible terrible thing.

      If only we could be more like Greece. 🙂 🙂

      • Nick October 29, 2018, 7:07 pm |

        This is what the media saying to you ….
        Don’t forget that today you live in a house because of Greeks ???.
        And remember something my friend.
        Australia are always back 30-50 years from Europe.
        What happened now in Australia?
        Ford, Holden, Toyota and much more have close down or move to China .
        40 years ago in Greece we had every single industry very healthy.
        We use to produce buses, trucks, military cars from company that called ΕΛΒΟ.
        We use to have out own white appliances that was way better than any miele, bosch etc .
        We had Nissan, Daihatsu and much more .
        Back then Australians use to eat fish and chips on the newspaper because they didn’t know what plate is .
        Now what happens is that you are going to follow Greece slowly slowly because that is part of the life .
        Australia without Europeans will be an absolute piece of garbage.
        Every single thing that happens in Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal etc is not by accident.
        There is very high morals and they try to eliminate that the Soviet Union…. oh sorry I mean the European Union.
        It’s a big story…..

        • BobinOz October 30, 2018, 6:02 pm |

          Never mind houses and ‘back 30-50 years from Europe’, Australia pulls its weight when it comes to inventions…

          https://www.bobinoz.com/blog/17749/the-a-to-z-of-australian-inventions/

          If it wasn’t for Australia, you wouldn’t be able to watch Netflix on your smart device, and there ain’t much that can beat that in today’s world 🙂 🙂

        • MerytKane January 22, 2021, 8:48 am |

          Umm.. give us a break. Like someone said before 200 years ago Australia was a massive prison. Of course we have no culture, we have only been a country for 100 years. Having said that, I also acknowledge that Aboriginals have probably one of the oldest cultures in the world, and some people need to do a bit of fact checking before commenting.
          I am an Australian born and bred. My parents same, and their parents too (except my pops on my mum’s side was english.) As much as I hate to say it we rely on skilled migrants. I work in a wholesale bakery and if it wasn’t for immigrants then I would be doing the job pretty much by myself. I’m not gonna try and counter every argument but if you can walk down the beach with a beer and not get shot or mugged then Australia can’t be a bad place can it? It’s done alright by me.

      • John January 15, 2019, 11:40 pm |

        Well said Bob. Give him some! Australia has thousands of great Greek people. We can probably handle the whole caper without his assistance.

  • Stela October 5, 2018, 2:36 am |

    I just want to say that no matter what country one chooses to live , one either adapt or move on. We all know that no country is perfect, but will improve if the inhabitants unite and transform the negative into positive and stop insulting each other. Australia is so far the best country to those who love law and order , nature and all the “strange” creatures created by our God. For those who are not happy, please leave. Stela

    • Christie November 18, 2018, 5:01 pm |

      @Stela: Couldn’t agree more! 🙂

  • McKinley July 14, 2018, 6:39 pm |

    i am an Australian and i know you were getting this form someone else but the people from other places that moved or traveled to Australia need to lean that every thing can’t be what u expect yea there might be things that even Australians agree that are bad but all countries are different and have things that u don’t like but dosn’t mean u have to hate it for ever and tell everyone that it is a horrible place. Also when people say that we are rude and racist we are not Australia is a nice,kind,friendly country. So if u don’t like Australia and u are from some where else u probably don’t like it because u are not used to it and Australians are if Australians like go visit the UK we will probably not like some things there but we won’t hate it forever.
    Thanks
    McKinley

    • BobinOz July 16, 2018, 7:05 pm |

      Fair point. It makes me laugh when people accuse Australians are being rude and racist, as if we ALL are. Like any country, we do have some rude people and we do have some racist people, but they are in the minority.

      That said, some of the accusations thrown Australia by some of the commenters here are even more laughable, making this page actually one of the most entertaining on this website. I’ve got more laughs out of this one page than all the others combined I reckon.

      • Nobbled September 9, 2019, 9:33 am |

        The only people who do not think Ozzies are racist bogan morons, are the racist bogan morons. Why? Because they all agree with each other and each other’s behaviour. And most of them have never lived anywhere else where they are the (horror horror) FOREIGNER so are to put it bluntly CLUELESS racist bogan morons. And before you tell me to “git back wear I kum from” I’m Australian born, bred, grown, but frankly the behaviour of and also acceptance of the behaviour of the boozed up brain dead bogans, is gobsmacking. And that’s just the uni grads. Then we have the low-life’s and sad to say, it gets even worse. ELITISM (and in places it seriously is not earned) is rife, so the game is to belittle someone else to prove (to yourself and your other moron mates) that you are not scraping the bottom of the barrel. NEWSFLASH: You are in fact swimming in the sediment at the bottom of the barrel. Where else to do random farmers chain up FOREIGNERS in a pig shed for raping duty, then calmly drive them to a hotel when the police are getting close and see nothing wrong with that. Where else do people MURDER friends and relatives for their welfare cheques and bury them under a garden shed or try to dissolve them in barrels when they run out of space in old junk cars in the back yard? Where else do 2 working visa FOREIGN girls who arrange a share ride to another city, get driven instead to an isolated beach, raped and then murder attempted (or in other notable cases achieved). And let’s not forget RAPING AN INDIGENOUS person will probably see the indigenous person charged. Violent lawless bogan racists? Hell no! I mean all of that is just normal aint it? And as per a previous post it’s just that them foreigners aint used to being lied to, raped and murdered. Hell they just need to time to get used to THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN WAY.

        • BobinOz September 9, 2019, 4:44 pm |

          Well, then I must be a racist bogan moron.

          Now then, Nobbled, I have news for you. Australia does not have world exclusivity when it comes to heinous crimes including rape and murder. Maybe you’ve heard of Ted Bundy or Jack the Ripper? You have repeatedly asked “where else”, well let me answer that; everywhere else in the world and in most cases, to a far worse degree than here in Australia.

          To prove my point, dear old Wikipedia have help me out with their list of serial killers by number of victims. Harold Shipman (UK) tops the list, with 218 proven victims. It is a very long list as well, maybe 400, possibly as many as 500 names on their lists.

          Representing Australia are John Bunting and Robert Wagner, who between them were responsible for the Snowtown/bodies in barrels murders and Ivan Milat who was convicted of the backpacker murders. You obviously know about these, because you appear to have reference them both in your comment. The only other entry from Australia is John Wayne Glover who was known as the Granny Killer.

          And that’s it for Australia, whereas, for example, the United States has more than 100 and Russia something like 30 on the list…

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_by_number_of_victims

    • TechGirl August 31, 2019, 8:05 am |

      I agree! My Australian boyfriend complains a lot about the US when he visits the US. And, most of time time, all I can do is say, yeah, you’re better at than we are. No place on Earth is perfect. Australia comes pretty darn close though.

  • Is June 25, 2018, 11:04 pm |

    What do you mean Australia has no history? You do realise Australia has one of the oldest histories? Have you never heard of Aboriginals – the true Australians??

    • BobinOz June 26, 2018, 5:47 pm |

      With all the ridiculous statements made about Australia in the above article, that’s your complaint? A slightly tongue in cheek comment about Australia’s history? That’s funny!

      For the record, I have not stated that Australia has no history, I’m just saying it’s not one of the top places in the world where historians/archaeologists would head to. Places like Egypt, Italy, Greece and many more would be of greater interest.

      I think you’ve managed to miss the attempt at humour here, I was just trying to illustrate how difficult it was for me to come up with a list of reasons why Australia is not good place to live. Never mind.

  • bitbot June 21, 2018, 4:08 pm |

    Half of these aren’t true…

    • BobinOz June 21, 2018, 8:08 pm |

      No, it’s more than half 🙂

  • Brandon March 28, 2018, 7:05 pm |

    It is actually disappointing for me to see people trash talking Australia. While I was reading through these comments, the main reason was because of the shootings. David, specifically, said that Australia has a lot more shootings in comparison to America.
    Do you really think he reads or watches the news?
    It is also a known fact that insects, such as spiders and bugs, only harm you only when you try to hurt them.

    I, personally, believe that Australiais a great place to be in. Sure, it’s not the perfect place and sometimes it can be dangerous. But there are law breakers everywhere, not just in Australia.
    Thank you everyone for taking the time to read my comment.

    Regards,
    Brandon

    • Chantelle March 29, 2018, 3:00 pm |

      You are a great guy mate, Love your comment.

    • BobinOz March 29, 2018, 6:56 pm |

      In fairness to David, and I did search down to check his comment, it was an ex-employers American wifes brother (resident of US) who has the absolutely crazy theory that “The amount of shootings that happen in Australia, its a wonder all Australian aren’t dead” and gave it as a reason why he would never visit Australia.

      I think we can all safely assume that David’s ex-employers American wifes brother is as mad as a march hare. I’ve just done a quick search, apparently there have been 1624 mass shootings in the US in the last 1870 days as at 16 February this year…

      https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/oct/02/america-mass-shootings-gun-violence

      Australia hasn’t had even one mass shooting in the last 20 years as at 19 February 2018…

      http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/5235372/two-decades-without-a-mass-shooting-in-australia/

      As Americans would say “go figure”.

    • Nobbled September 9, 2019, 9:55 am |

      Dear Brendan, you said this. “It is also a known fact that insects, such as spiders and bugs, only harm you only when you try to hurt them” Firstly HAHAHAHAHAHA and secondly, please remain in a dingy flat in the center of a city so contaminated that the bugs won’t even live there, because what you have written is typical of the brainless aussie bogan who has never actually SEEN any of Australia.

      Redbacks: Everywhere and can and do kill
      Funnelwebs: In a whole heap of places and can and do kill
      20 different types of snake that can and do kill, especially in springtime when it’s mating season.
      Ticks: Major disease carriers and can (and do) cause paralysis and even death
      Mosquitoes: Ross River virus, Murray Valley Encephalitis, Dengue fever and many more

      And not annoying them does not mean you will not be bitten. Prevention and understanding their habitat and how to avoid being bitten improves the chances of staying alive. Of course for those who have never actually seen any of Straya I wouldn’t expect you to know about anything to do with Straya.

      • Rex April 23, 2020, 2:19 pm |

        I TOTALLY AGREE MATE. Aus is the worst place in the world. Hot, dusty, dry, dangerous, moronic… the list goes on… Seriously who would want to live here?

        • Sj December 19, 2021, 9:36 am |

          Love it Rex.
          Youve just branded yourself a moron?

  • Alicia March 13, 2018, 9:25 pm |

    I’m a Californian currently visiting Australia. I came for a total of 3 weeks and I’m on a count down of when I am due to go back home (a little over a week left). I googled opinions for Australia to see if anyone else had a…not so positive experience.

    I realize that 2 weeks is not a fair enough of time to make solid generalizations, but it’s plenty of time to form an opinion. My personal experience here in Sydney and the local cities has been tolerable but not in a way that would make me want to return.

    1-people stare at me. I’d like to point out that I’m not sloppy, and I’m not slutty. My dress code is clean, neat, simple and elegant. On the other hand, I’m notoriously Hispanic with dark hair and dark eyes. The stares I get are not welcoming stares of admiration or friendliness, they are stares that border disgust and dislike. This has been the case several times, with the complete opposite being of people who think I’m a local up until I open my mouth and reveal that my accent is different.
    2- Perhaps this is because it’s the city, but driving around some parts of Sydney, Maroubra, Matraville etc remind me of Ukraine, México, England and San Francisco compiled into one-Australia’s most iconic region.
    3- it’s the start of Autum and I feel like I’m melting. Where’s the AC? Why does a 500mL bottle of water cost me over 2 dollars?!
    4- maybe it’s the specific individuals I have met, but I find the culture to be quite arrogant. Yes, the people here are beautiful, but I’ve noticed from afar that guys act in a condescending way unless the female they are dealing with is dressed….or wait, hardly dressed. I also find women to be a bit more rough and aggressive. Calm down! I was sitting at the pedicurist, and a lady walked in and sat down. She looked quite impatient. They had already assigned her to a chair which comes with a massage remote, and plenty of magazines to glance over while she waited. What does she do? Not even 5min later, she literally walked up to the worker fixing my nails and asked “am I going to have to wait until everyone here gets done? How much longer do I have to wait?!” This of course caused the staff members to hurry, lowering the quality of their work on the clients who they were currently working to appease to an unpleasant, obnoxious, impatient Australian women. From that moment on, I paid close attention to how women here interact with others, and I didn’t like it. Hopefully it’s just the city life, I would hate to think that this is the truth for most Australian women. Why be aggressive when you can be polite and lady-like?
    5- my experience here has been alright despite of little nuisances. The accent is a bit cute provided that the person speaking is otherwise pleasant and polite. The culture is relaxed and overall friendly. The Opera House looks nice and the water appears clean. I wish all tourists coming to Australia the best experience. I also wish love and peace to all Australians.

    • BobinOz March 14, 2018, 5:48 pm |

      Hi Alicia

      Firstly, I am sorry to hear that you haven’t had such a good time whilst here in Australia.

      I have to say though I am a little bewildered by the stares, we are a country built on immigration, we are all very used to different coloured skins. More so in Sydney and some of the other big capital cities. So I really can’t make out why so many people were giving you looks of disgust.

      The heat, well that’s just the way it is sometimes, Australia can be a hot country. It can also be quite cold in the winter in some cities, including Sydney. I do agree though that two dollars for a bottle of water is quite ridiculous, although if you go to a supermarket like Coles you can get a 24 pack of 600 mL water for just $8.40 which works out at 58 cents per litre.

      Not very convenient though when you are just wandering around town.

      Now, you are not the first person to mention to me that the people of Sydney can come across as a little arrogant. I’ve been to Sydney myself on three occasions, maybe four, and I didn’t notice it personally, but a few others have. Maybe it was the people you met, maybe it was the people that the others who have said the same met, and maybe I didn’t meet those people. I don’t know, but I do know that Sydney is definitely our biggest city and is also definitely not representative of all of Australia. I live in Brisbane and I think the people up here are pretty friendly and laid-back.

      The first time I went to Sydney was for six days, and I quickly realised I could never live there, the place is just too busy and too fast pace. It reminded me too much of England and the things I was trying to get away from. Things like people being impatient and being in such a hurry, which is what you encountered in Sydney.

      Personally, I think Sydney is the place to go to find a job, it’s not the best place to go for a holiday. Worth a visit, but not three weeks, I would recommend five or six days and then move on to somewhere more relaxing. I know you don’t feel the need to come back at the moment, but if you decide you will do that at some point, I’d go to Byron Bay first, then Gold Coast, then Brisbane, and then Sunshine Coast all spread out over two or three weeks.

      That would be, I’m sure, a much better Australian holiday. Love and peace back at you. Bob

  • Andrew February 7, 2018, 11:43 am |

    This is all very fascinating really and I can’t help but just keep reading on and on, and possibly foaming at the mouth and falling over backwards, but honestly I am trying to learn something or three legitimately useful about Australia. Living in the US, where I come from, and having lived in China for a few years also, I can’t deny the allure of Australia. Though I have my concerns about toit, and will be researching further.

    BobinOz thanks for the post and the tongue-in-jowl responses. Very apropo. Pity I could never find dear Fred’s response anywhere… and some of the commenters had their heads at least half way straight before their keystrokes got saved to the page. Can’t say I read them all though either…

    Still not sure ad to whether it would be worth contemplating a relocation to the Great and Wondrous Oz, though I certainly intend to take a holiday, hit the beach and hug a koala. Any, actually useful and intelligent, not completely crackpot advice would be quite welcome.
    Cheers mates, Andrew

    • BobinOz February 7, 2018, 8:52 pm |

      Well, I came here 10 years ago from the UK and I’ve not regretted it once. No country is perfect, but for me Australia has everything that I want. Great weather, open spaces, outdoor lifestyle, laid-back and fantastic beaches and hinterlands. It’s also a great place to bring up kids.

      If I were you I would definitely give it a try by taking a holiday first to see what you think. I’m sure you will not be disappointed.

      As for this page and the comments here, I have read them all, and as I’ve said before, this page has probably given me more fun and laughter than any other on this website. Glad to see you got the humour in it and fully understood it, many people don’t which is why it so funny.

    • RAJNISH JASUJA August 15, 2019, 8:58 pm |

      Can you tell me what is the difference in living in Australia vs living in America?? As I have been thinking of moving there for years. But not without having any job.

      • BobinOz August 19, 2019, 5:34 pm |

        Well, the obvious difference is you are far more likely to get shot if you live in the US compared to Australia…

        https://www.bobinoz.com/blog/4548/look-out-shes-got-a-gun/

        Worth reading the comments on that page to get a good understanding of how most US citizens feel about gun ownership and also check out this page just for the comments…

        https://www.bobinoz.com/blog/18039/usa-versus-australia-price-comparisons/

        Also, click on the Search button in the main navigation menu above and search for “USA”, you’ll find quite a few comparison pages that will help you.

        • Benji November 19, 2020, 10:58 am |

          Honestly, stop with the claims of uncontrolled violence in my country. Most Americans don’t own a gun because they want to shoot you. It’s freedom to defend yourself. Most shootings happen in poorer areas of large cities. On the whole, America is a peaceful country. Australia may be more so, but you are blowing things out of proportion.

          • BobinOz November 23, 2020, 5:45 pm |

            Most shootings happen in poorer areas? Oh, well that’s alright then isn’t it? Benji, I know a lot of Americans are passionate in defending their freedom to defend themselves, and their right to bear arms, but seriously, in this day and age, it’s not working out very well for you is it?

            That’s my opinion anyway, and I’m sticking with it.

  • Don Muthuswamy January 13, 2018, 9:37 pm |

    I have lived in Australia, Ameria, Singapore and London and I’d like to say that Australia is the best country that I have lived in. Bob, if you or any others here don’t like Australia, you guys are free to leave, try living in places like Singapore and you’ll know how lucky Aussies are to leave in this beautiful country.

    • BobinOz January 16, 2018, 10:25 pm |

      I love Australia Don, I’m not going anywhere. If you read the article more carefully, you will see that I am just reflecting the views of somebody else who has long since gone back to where he came from.

      • Raj January 26, 2018, 4:39 am |

        He didn’t get it. 😀

        • Ra's al Ghul January 26, 2018, 9:57 am |

          Oh my gosh is this post still active? I read it last year and laughed so much and it’s still active?
          Lollll

          • BobinOz January 29, 2018, 7:08 pm |

            Yes, it’s still going, and it’s still just as funny hehe

        • BobinOz January 29, 2018, 7:07 pm |

          @ Raj: Lots of people don’t 🙂

    • RAJNISH JASUJA August 15, 2019, 9:01 pm |

      There are two kind of people here.
      One who got more than what they deserve and obviously they will be very happy here but there are people who got much less than what they deserve including me. So for us it is not that great. Although I am trying my best to get everything I deserve.

      • Sj December 19, 2021, 9:44 am |

        Hate to tell u buddy…but it sounds like what you deserve is a big boot up the backside.???

  • Richard December 16, 2017, 2:18 pm |

    Hi, I am a UK person living in Australia, I cannot wait to move back to the UK. Australia is a horrid country to live in with rude, racist people. The racism is not obvious, but it is clearly present everywhere, meaning people dont admit it, but they are. Infrastructure has to be at least 30-40 years behind uk, roads, hospitals etc. No schooling is free, you pay thousands of dollars a year for fees, uniform, books etc. Australians are very rude, and this shows on the roads where it is officially reported that they are among the worst drivers in the world (google it). Education standards are abysmal. This place is also the nanny country of the world with repressed people with no freedom and governments and a police force that constantly takes the p##s out of people and treats them like children. The governments have no vision and Australian politics is a laughing stock of the world (very childish and petty). I am a white UK person living in Melbourne, I have a good job but I cant afford to buy a house as prices are so over inflated (driven by the government to artificially stimulate the economy by allowing mass foreign investment etc, this place should have collapsed years ago and indeed it needs too). It is easily twice as expensive to live here than in the UK. There is much more I could say. To say Melbourne is the most liveable city, in my opinion is crazy, I would rather live in any town or city in the uk.

    • BobinOz December 18, 2017, 4:55 pm |

      Yes, I took your advice and googled ‘worst drivers in the world’. Three YouTube videos appeared at the top of that search, no time for that, but in fourth position was one called ‘The Ten Countries With The Worst Drivers – Jalopnik’.

      Here are the countries they listed in that top 10, starting at number 10 which was Vietnam, followed by Italy, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, USA, China, India, and in the top spot, Russia.

      No Australia, sorry.

      There was another top 10 list a couple of places below that, still no mention of Australia. Yes, I saw one headline asking if Australians were the world’s worst drivers and another suggesting Melbourne drivers are the worst in the world. But they were written by Australian newspapers and in the case of the latter, a Melbourne-based newspaper.

      What d’ya think?

      For the truth about school fees see Cost of Living in Australia: School Fees.

      Richard, there’s nothing wrong with preferring the UK, but there is no need to do a ‘Fred’ and string together a load of false accusations against Australia. Yes, sure we have rubbish politicians, and houses are expensive in Melbourne. But good luck with Theresa May and the mess that is called Brexit (a vote which was largely based on racism, you can google that for yourself) and I’m sure you will find everyone extraordinarily polite when you get back home.

      • Richard December 20, 2017, 6:08 pm |

        Hi Bob, thanks for your response. None of my accusations are false, you obviously have blinkers on in your attitudes, which given the nature of your web site, I fully understand. My views are shared by almost every British person I know regardless of of there wish to stay or leave. Of cause most of the countries you mentioned will be worse, but for first world western countries, Australia is among the worst. I am not sure I agree with the USA as I have driven in many parts of the USA and find the drivers to be more courteous than Australians.
        I also find your comments on brexit very narrow minded. Although there were some racist reasons, the majority was the fact that people are not happy with foreigners taking there jobs and getting better treatment from the government that British people. I could go into this more but i don’t have the time. I agree Teressa May is not the right person to lead Britain through this temporary turbulent times, in fact I believe Borris is the best man for the job, he has the guts to do what is needed. My wife is Asian, but brought up in Australia. We have visited the UK several times and she cannot believe the difference in acceptance and how much more comfortable she feels around British people and how much more friendly and genuine they are. The UK is much more multicultural than Australia. Please do not accuse me of writing false accusations, it is not within my nature to do this, and as I previously said these are common views. I believe you must understand a lot of what I have written but maybe choose to ignore it or not admit it. Thank you. Richard.

        • BobinOz December 22, 2017, 4:43 pm |

          Richard, we are all entitled to our opinions, but you have appeared to have stated your opinions as if they are fact and when something is misleading to my readers, I have a duty to point it out.

          It is not, for example, easily twice as expensive to live here. Where did you get that figure from? You have no data, it’s just your opinion. On the other hand, I have written 89 price comparison articles on this website so far and I know for a fact that Australia is not twice as expensive as the UK. In fact many things here in Australia are cheaper than in the UK. Petrol for example.

          I’ve lived here 10 years, the very small amount of contact I have had with the police has always been very pleasant, so I don’t really know why you are saying those sorts of things about the Australian police either.

          Public schools do not cost thousands of dollars each year, to say they do is misleading. Some people who live here are incredibly polite, you seem to be implying everyone is rude and racist. It’s just not true.

          I’m just pointing out that much of what you say is misleading. Like I say though, you are entitled to your opinion, your opinions are not fact though, and I needed to point that out.

          • Richard December 22, 2017, 7:03 pm |

            I may exaggerate slightly to get my point across, but in essence I am correct. Australia tops the UK by 4 places in cost of living, this is a fact. Much of what you put on your website is misleading, biased or half truths as with your education expenses for example. I will not reply to anymore comments after this, but I feel you need to ensure people know the unbiased truth. I am not saying the UK is perfect either, but there is definitely more going for it than Australia. Maybe in a couple of hundred years when Australia has had some proper time to develop and mature, it might be a good place to live, but for now. no thanks. As I said this is my last response, but please do not lead people into falsehood, this is irresponsible, they have a right to know all aspects and truths of life in Australia. Your statement about not being able to write anything bad about Australia in 3 years clearly shows how bias you are as no one can possibly love somewhere that much. I much prefer the UK, but I am sure I could come up with a list of things I thought were not good in a short space of time just as I am sure you can with Australia. Do not deceive people anymore. Thank you. Richard.

            • Richard December 22, 2017, 7:09 pm |

              Just the one more comment, for my 2 children to attend school for one year cost about $800 dollars in book packs, about $500 dollars in school uniforms and varying amounts for subject cost (for both about $600) that’s $1900. As you say the class costs are not compulsory, but they simply will not let your child attend if you don’t pay them. UK cost, maybe a couple of hundred on school uniform, all books, writing material and subjects included and free. Petrol is the only thing that you will find cheaper in Australia than in the UK, thats it from me, no more.

              • BobinOz December 24, 2017, 4:53 pm |

                The great thing about you Richard is the more you comment the easier it is for people to see that it is you who is attempting to deceive people, not me.

                In your first comment here, you stated you “pay thousands of dollars” for schooling in Australia, which gives the impression of at least $2000 a year per person, probably more. Now you are telling us it’s just $950? That’s deceiving.

                You also stated that it is “easily twice as expensive to live here than in the UK” and now you are telling us “Australia tops the UK by 4 places” for the cost of living? Four places would not equate to twice as expensive, in fact I’ve just googled “worldwide country cost of living index list” and numbeo tells me Australia is 13th with a cost of living index of 85.96 and the UK is in 25th with an index of 76.02. So on the face of it, Australia is more expensive by about 11%. But if you look at the local purchasing power index, Australia is fifth and the UK is in 15th, so effectively Australians earning an average wage here can buy more than somebody on an average wage in the UK because wages are higher here.

                Maybe that’s why The Telegraph, in an article containing a list of The 20 most expensive countries in the world puts United Kingdom in 12th place and Australia just below in 13th suggesting Australia is, in fact, slightly cheaper than the UK.

                So, again you have tried to mislead my readers by suggesting it is “easily twice as expensive to live here than in the UK” when it clearly is not.

                You even misled everyone when you said you were going to make your last comment here on the subject, and then six minutes later you made another comment! 🙂

                You say “I may exaggerate slightly to get my point across, but in essence I am correct.” No, you’re not correct, your exaggerations are completely deceitful which is why I had to respond. This is the last time I will reply to you though, and unlike yourself, I’m going to stick to my word on that.

                Have a wonderful Christmas, Bob

      • Peter April 3, 2018, 2:32 pm |

        BobinOz you sound like yet another misinformed arrogant bogan. Brexit is not racist driven you tit ,in fact it’s the Brits that just want self determination and away from the EU’s failed policies. Maybe you should go study what the word “racist” actually means you idiot.

        By the way the world has moved on since Trump being President to a less politically correct one. Pity you still live in the past(much like your country as well….so backward).

      • Dad fill June 24, 2018, 9:44 pm |

        Aussies are arrogant, seriously lazy and constantly take short cuts.
        Driving in Melbourne is horrible, full of jumped up meat heads in Ute’s who never use their trays to put anything in.
        The Women, so unladylike they may as well be men.
        Racism and alcohol abuse everywhere.
        If it were not for my 11 year old daughters who has succumb to the Aussie way we would have left this place, I feel for her as she does not know anything else.
        I really don’t know what to do, but I can’t take much more of it.

        • jane July 4, 2018, 3:32 pm |

          i totally agree with you Dad fill

          • jane July 4, 2018, 3:58 pm |

            People in Australia are rude bogans, boring weather unlike England where you get a real cold winter. Australian television is horrid, full on atrocious reality shows (all scripted of course) Australia can’t put out a good movie unlike the UK, simply because they can’t act and are a bore, UK comedy shows are the best in the world and are great to watch, watching Doc Martin makes me want to go back. I love the gloomy grey sky’s , the british humour, the cold dreary weather where you can rug up and get cozy. (unlike in Australia) School fee’s here are through the roof compared to UK school fee’s. Australians are racist, where you either get looked at twice when you open your mouth and they hear your ancent, or they give you some wise crack joke about the country your from. (especially NZ or UK and India) British people are kinder, friendlier and have more decorum in general in the way they speak. UK actors seem more natural and relaxed in tv interviews unlike australian actors who look uncomfortable and nervous. (talk shows im referring too) I have to agree with everything Dad fill and Peter have just mentioned. Australia is a racist country so get your rose colored glasses off and wake up BobinOz !! UK beats Australia in every way. Go ask all the Australians that have moved there and NEVER come back to Australia. I would go back there too if it wasnt for my kids who are all older now wanting me to stay close to them in Australia. Oh how the weather is sooo boring in australia .

            • BobinOz July 5, 2018, 9:04 pm |

              I’ll take Australia’s ‘boring weather’ all day long over the UK’s cold and dreary. That’s my personal choice, nothing to do with rose tinted glasses. And seriously, the quality of movies and TV shows is an issue?

              It would be a sad day for me when the quality of the telly shows dictates where I want to live. And these accusations of Australian racism are getting boring now. Of course, they don’t have any racism in the UK do they?

            • Sj December 19, 2021, 9:57 am |

              Jane
              Youre browsing the wrong website for you! This website is to help us poor blighters stuck in grey ole Blighty get out of this damp hole, but it sounds like you just need to search flights to London on qantas and come back to your gloomy paradise☔☔☔

        • Fred January 19, 2021, 5:38 pm |

          Right you are!

    • Aus citizen December 20, 2017, 7:27 pm |

      I completely agree I’m 36 years old and I was born and lived in Australia my whole life I have never been to another country but I’ve heard everything over in other countries is better then Australia.
      The government of rude they control and dictate over there people and treat most citizens like scum the whole place is extremely expensive I make good money but can’t afford to buy a house and barely have money left at the end of the week to survive the legal system is a joke you are guilty till proven innocent here unless of course you are a rapist or are youth then you get off scot-free I can’t wait to sort out my visa and leave Australia and never to return.

      • BobinOz December 22, 2017, 4:44 pm |

        Well, once you have been to another country you will be in a better position to compare and just maybe you will realise that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

        • Black January 21, 2018, 8:26 pm |

          Lived in three countries. Still dont like Australia. You need to accept tht people do not like it.

          • BobinOz January 22, 2018, 7:07 pm |

            Nothing wrong with not liking Australia, but to say things that are completely untrue about the country because you don’t like it is a different matter. So when somebody makes false accusations, that’s when I feel the need to respond.

            Happy to accept that you don’t like Australia, but thankful that you haven’t said, for example, it’s because “It is easily twice as expensive to live here than in the UK” (as said above somewhere), because that is just nonsense.

            • Peter April 3, 2018, 2:49 pm |

              Just because you own this silly little page does not mean you can dictate the truth you dumb Bogan ,you come across as a very LOW IQ individual. Why don’t you just shutup and let people express their opinions. I doubt you ever got 8th grade or have travelled outside of convictville. Yes?

              • BobinOz April 5, 2018, 8:28 pm |

                I lived in the UK for nearly 50 years before moving to Australia just over 10 years ago. I’ve travelled quite a bit, I’ve been to many places including France, Spain, Portugal, Egypt, USA, Turkey, Greece, Germany, Belgium, Amsterdam, Mexico, Japan, Thailand, Cyprus, Italy, Scotland, Ireland, Switzerland, Singapore, Czechoslovakia and probably more, these are just the places I can think of off the top of my head.

                Did the Mensa IQ test back in 1976, can’t remember the exact score, but it was 140+, and the letter they sent me said that placed me in the top 2% of the population.

                Just goes to show how wrong you can be, doesn’t it?

      • Terry Baccus June 24, 2018, 11:43 pm |

        I work in uk and have been here for years the grass is always greener until you get there then it’s browner and redder rhan the outback. Unfortunately my work keeps me in uk as cant get the same job in Oz
        Oz is definitely a better place look on the HDI on google to see where Oz places in world ranking.
        UK is very capitalistic and not a place you want to be poor or old in.

    • Suzy December 29, 2017, 11:39 am |

      You are so right, you should have gone to NZ such a nicer country!

    • Trace January 22, 2018, 3:52 am |

      I totally agree with this comment. I was born here in Oz and I’ve seen how the last 30 years have changed a once lucky country into a basket-case ! Everything costs money..a lot of money. Buying a home, educating yourself or your children has become unaffordable for many. My daughter is a doctor and still rents! The roads are constantly being worked on and speed limits are down to 40 km/hr…on the freeways !!! And if you think that’s stupid, you’ll pay an enormously big fine if you get caught ignoring speed limits, no matter how ridiculous. The politics and public service are extremely corrupt, however no political will to introduce any sort of watchdog…the game’s too good for the pollies here..they all end up in cushy jobs overseas after they’ve done all they could to wreck the economy. There is no generosity toward the poor, most people seem to think the poor deserve what they DON’T get..such as dental care unless you can wait 12 months, or a decent education that would help you get out of poverty, or even a job.We pay less in welfare (%GDP) than the USA, but our pollies tell us we spend too much on welfare..phhht! We spend too much on politicians more like it. Our politicians are paid more than every other country except Hong Kong. The unemployment rate is so understated it’s quite ridiculous how much effort has gone into hiding the real numbers. We are told we’re a democracy with all freedoms that come with it, except if don’t want your child brain damaged by a vaccine or some other medical mishap. BTW no compensation schemes in australia if you or your child suffer any medical mishap. Most other countries do. But if you don’t get your child all vaxxed up, you can’t send them to school !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What democracy??? I live in Melbourne but I’ll be taking my measly super and retiring in Thailand like many aussies do. The worst part is that aussies deserve it all because they never rise up and complain…and even when they do, the media downplays the numbers and politicians happily ignore it.

      • Trace January 22, 2018, 12:06 pm |

        Addendum.
        Australia has a very….. restricted democracy. I can’t think of any other way to describe a society where it’s citizens have just one democratic function: to vote Red or Blue into power. The voting system ensures that only those parties will ever gain power. That’s it, nothing else we do sways the government except to form new lies and cover-ups.
        It appears we remain convicts..and we celebrate it on the 26th…Governor Phillip created a penal colony on the 26th, not a nation…and it’s remained so in some respects ever since. We have things taken from us through manipulation and we never say a word. The solariums that delivered controlled doses of UV for a dose of sunlight in the middle of winter or just a great tan…banned in Australia. I’m banking kids will now go back to sun-baking.
        The E-cigarettes we’re not allowed to have because the TGA states it contains toxins ..nicotine (minus the other more harmful chemicals contained in cigarettes).
        While I’m onto the TGA…I just wish they’d take a serious look at the adverse reactions recorded on their own website for vaccines ! For heaven’s sake..more kids killed by vaccines than whooping cough, measles etc combined.
        ..and what’s going on with the media in this country? Why aren’t things like that and the recent autism studies ever published???
        Ok…so it’s clear I’ve completely lost faith in our country..and that makes me sad.
        My kids are growing up here.

        • BobinOz January 22, 2018, 7:27 pm |

          Crikey, you really do have the hump don’t you? Trouble is, almost everything you say here could apply to many many countries, they’ve all changed dramatically over the last 30 years. As for our ‘restricted democracy’, what choice do you think they have in the UK or the US other than red or blue? At least we do have a choice of two, some countries only have one.

          Anyway, I’m certainly not going to get into a debate with anybody who seriously believes that vaccinations are not a good thing, so that’s me done, I’m out of this conversation.

          • Trace January 23, 2018, 2:17 am |

            …and there you go. That’s the mentality of many australians. Implicit trust in authority because it saves doing your own research into what they’re doing.
            Deeply frustrating for people who actually see the injuries.
            Australia is one of very few countries in the developed world that has no vaccination injury scheme. WHO in fact recommends it.
            We’re also still fluoridating the water. Only a few countries in the world still do that. Europe outlawed it many years ago.
            The reason we’re still being poisoned is because of people who never question.

            • samuel January 27, 2020, 5:00 pm |

              The way Bobinoz is talking he must be a 33rd degree Mason. Bob man who manipulated you to think this way? without doing a real research of who controls the system. It is obvious Trace is right about Australia.

    • Brad February 28, 2018, 5:47 am |

      Richard,
      I don’t believe you’re living in Australia OR you just have no real idea about your own country. Forgetting a massive list of things that are also wrong/worse with the UK, let’s just talk numbers. London’s minimum wage (and unlike in Australia, where most business’s will almost always pay way above minimum wage) is only £7.5 / hr and the average professional’s salary in London (which is significantly higher than anywhere else in the UK and in fact Europe is only £33,000 (a full qualified/chartered accountant, engineer, lawyer, architect with 10+ years experience will be lucky if they are taking home £40,000 (that’s only a scummy $72,000 AUD). That’s the first thing, that pay for the average educated middle class person is almost double in Australia. Second thing, you won’t even be able to get a scummy 2-bedroom apartment in zone 3 of London for less than £500,000 and chances are it’s not even going to be a freehold, it’s this disgusting thing sweeping across the UK called ‘leasehold’ (because let’s not forget that it’s a country with an aristocracy)… so majority of land is being re-bought by “a company…” aka an aristocrat. (a reversal to what happened after WW2, where aristocrats had to sell off massive amounts of their land). I could go on to tell you everything that’s wrong with your NHS and education too, but I think income ratio to realestate is enough.

      • Jon February 28, 2018, 1:36 pm |

        Brad,
        I cannot let your anti UK diatribe go unchallenged.
        I have lived in several countries and travelled and worked in many more.
        I have yet to find “heaven on earth”
        All countries have their own individual causes of frustration, most including both UK and Australia, have many attractions. For you London housing prices are obviously the big issue, but if you think you are alone try talking to any young professional in Sydney.
        Blue collar wages are much much better in Oz and provide a higher standard of living. Professional salaries, not so much so, although medical professionals do much better. For professionals, Australia’s small economy is a frustration.
        You also talk about cost of living and housing.
        Petrol is certainly cheaper in Oz, so is housing generally if compared with the London extended commuter belt.
        Meat and fish can be a bit cheaper, but fruit and veg appears extortionate in Oz. Plus the variety available is so, so much more limited. Tropical Fruit is the clearest example, because UK imports cheaply worldwide, mangoes, avacados, kiwi bananas etc are in season somewhere worldwide and always cheaper than Oz production because even in your season your costs (labour) are so high. Meals out are very expensive! (Labour costs again!)
        However as you point out wages are higher, so both in UK and Oz, we can afford to eat!
        Good advice in Oz is to be teetotal, since the price of both beer and wine is so high even in relation to wages.
        Housing in Sydney and Melbourne commuter belt is comparable with London suburbs. Thus very high! However given higher wages, maybe not so unaffordable. Housing around UKs other major cities is cheaper than Oz, although the houses will also tend to be smaller.
        Leasehold is a racket which got out of hand over the last 10-20 years and legislation is now being brought in.
        I don’t live in the cold North East nor wet West but near the sunny South coast. Australia is hot…very hot often!…dry and sunny, but on balance I’m not sure the climate is better. Although planning a BBQ is problematic in UK, I feel I lose fewer days per year to weather here than in Oz. What can anyone do at 35+ except hide in AC somewhere.
        Which is better, will depend on individual circumstances and preferences.
        On this site, people argue vehemently for both sides, but mainly they are all falling into the trap of thinking the grass is greener elsewhere. It isn’t!

        • BobinOz February 28, 2018, 9:42 pm |

          Well, I live in Oz, obviously, but I’m not teetotal. So forgive me if I ignore your advice Jon 🙂

          Seriously though, as someone who lived in the UK for the vast majority of his life, I was 49 1/2 years old when I moved to Australia, I think I’m in a reasonable position to judge if the grass really is greener elsewhere, or more specifically from the UK to Australia.

          For what it’s worth, here’s what I think. Both the UK and Australia are excellent countries to live in. When I moved from the UK to Australia, I thought and still do think now that the grass here is definitely greener. I love my new life in Australia, every bit of it, and I wouldn’t go back to the UK for all the tea in China. As they say.

          That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy my 49 and a half years in the UK though, it’s also, as I said, a great country. But sometimes a change is as good as a rest, and it gives you a new lease of life, and therefore it makes the grass feel greener.

          If I had lived in Australia until I was 49 and a half, and then moved to the UK, I suspect I may have just found the grass in the UK to be greener, and for the same reason; because it’s different.

          As for wages, cost of houses, the weather, the people, the lifestyle and all that stuff, it’s all swings and roundabouts, you win some and you lose some, but for somebody who does take the plunge to move to another country, it’s just being somewhere different that can often make life more fun.

          One thing I am extremely pleased about though, and that is that I was born in the UK and lived there first, and enjoyed living in that country in the 1960s through to the 2000’s, and then came to Australia to enjoy a country with much less population density, much more of an outdoor lifestyle and a more laid-back way of life. For me, it was just the right way round of doing it.

          • Jon March 1, 2018, 1:01 am |

            Bob,
            Agree with all of that and with your personal judgement. My main point is there is a lot of miss information and miss conceptions on both sides.
            As for where the grass is greener, of course in Queensland, like Ireland it’s the rainfall. So you are undoubtedly correct.
            I can never though get over the shock that I can buy a wide range of Aussie wine more cheaply in Tesco than I can in the big liquor stores next to Coles….often, judging by the label, the identical wine.

            • BobinOz March 1, 2018, 7:05 pm |

              Well, I tested your wine theory online, the first bottle of wine I saw that was available in both Tesco’s and Dan Murphy’s was called Ringbolt Cabernet Sauvignon and it was £60 versus $125 respectively. Of course, at today’s exchange rate of $1.75 per GBP, then the wine in Australia is about three dollars a bottle more expensive. If you hadn’t voted Brexit though, the pound would still be worth (probably) in excess of $2.20 and the wine would have been cheaper here 🙂

    • Emily May 5, 2018, 8:35 pm |

      Hi Richard,
      You saying that Australia is a racist horrid country, is actually racist statement. If you want to go back to the UK then go, no one is exactly begging you to stay. Lol ??

    • amira July 4, 2018, 12:41 am |

      yeah australians are very rude,mocked and bullying us .
      I really hate aussies.they disrespect our hometown,Philippines.

      • Oliver July 10, 2018, 2:43 pm |

        Tbh EVERYONE is rude.

    • Sam October 13, 2018, 7:40 am |

      I am a true blue dinky di Aussie coming from many generations born & raised in Australia. I’ve never lived in any other country & in fact have only left our shores once to go on a cruise at the age of 50 so I don’t have much experience to compare my Australian life to how others live overseas. I do think it is quite expensive to live in Australia now days, the cost of household utility bills has skyrocketed thanks to our good old government, we love to verbally bash our government because they dont their people first. I also agree there is alot of racism here too which is basically breed from fear but we wont show our vulnerability, instead we’ll call you degrading names to try to make refugees especially feel ashamed. If you look under the surface at our racist behaviour you will discover that we fear that we are losing our countries values, culture & mateship, are traditions are being destroyed, we have become quite desperate in trying to hold on to what is important to us while feeling scared, confused & untrusting of some cultures who seem to have an agenda of bringing terrorism to live next door to us & have become our neighbours whether we like it or not. I do believe that the majority of Aussies are kind but alcoholic brings our the violence & agression in our society and that can look very ugly indeed. Oh & I’m scared of spiders, snakes, sharks, wild animals & terrorists. Cheers big ears lol

    • Terrus October 14, 2018, 6:54 am |

      Richard i live in uk but originally from Oz. You, my friend, have a sharp learning curve ahead. London now outstrips New York, USA in murder rate, GBP £ is falling faster than a prositutes draws, PM May has completely messed up Britex, over 10 years of gov austerity elderly suffer with inadequate social care and low pension (which is bad after 40 years of work, compare that with the Oz pension) yet still give £4 billion to rich African countries etc etc etc

      • BobinOz October 15, 2018, 7:46 pm |

        Sounds like the place has fallen apart since I left nearly 11 years ago. I have to say, the Brexit thing is an absolute mess. I can’t think of anything about it that is positive.

    • RAJNISH JASUJA August 15, 2019, 9:04 pm |

      Oh so you got unpleasant experience like me. Well we have something in common. Yes there are lot of things which are not right here. I am victim of that. Can we meet sometimes exchange numbers??

  • Amber December 8, 2017, 12:37 pm |

    I hear Australia is great if you’re white.

    • BobinOz December 8, 2017, 5:47 pm |

      No good to you then Amber 🙂 sorry, couldn’t resist. To clear that up for some of you, just in case, here is the definition (or one of them) of amber:

      a honey-yellow colour typical of amber.

    • Trace January 22, 2018, 4:09 am |

      Wrong…..its great if you’re a dog or a cat maybe.

    • jane July 4, 2018, 4:06 pm |

      Bang on right there Amber. If your white you’ll blend in.

      • Sam October 13, 2018, 7:48 am |

        Not in Sydney you won’t, I visited Sydney recently & I felt like a foreigner in my own country, it was quite unsettling but not disturbing, we were treated ok by the different cultures which is predominantly Asian in Sydney now from what I could see since I was last in Sydney 20yrs ago.

        • scott October 25, 2020, 12:59 pm |

          100% SAM, finally someone who gets it, and its not just Sydney even places you would think they would not invade like Brisbane have 10 to 1 Chinese to native born Australians. Imagine if we did that to any Asian country… it would never happen we would be ran out, matter of fact i have teacher friends who where ran out of china recently.

  • Nicola November 29, 2017, 11:29 am |

    Who is the Fred person the writer keeps talking about?
    And if australia was so bad then why is Melbourne in Australia the most liveable city in the world ? the roads here aren’t bad bad bad! There better then anything Americans have

    • BobinOz December 1, 2017, 3:46 pm |

      You know about as much as I do about Fred, which is his name is Fred. As it says above, he contacted me through YouTube wanting to spread the word about his thoughts on Australia.

      So I gave his ideas a platform here, and look how much fun we’re having 🙂 I think, actually no, there is no doubt this is the funniest comment thread on my website.

      • Michala December 5, 2017, 9:05 am |

        this is bs! i live in australia and this fred guy knows NOTHING. abosulute bs this is! i cant believe someone would say this about home country which i prefer over any other. Everything said above is total lies and false info.

  • HORRIBLE November 20, 2017, 7:58 am |

    You cant leave your suburb to work, or buy groceries as we have no roads or proper infrastructure. Its really an embarrassment and im ashamed. Yet we will keep developing new suburbs and bring in people by the truck loads. Very expensive and over taxxed place yet we see no improvements to society or infrastructure with all those taxes. ITS BAD.

    • BobinOz November 20, 2017, 8:52 pm |

      According to the World Bank collection of development indicators, Australia had 817,089 kilometres of road in 2009. IBISWorld tell me that supermarkets and grocery stores in Australia have a combined revenue of $101 billion and employ 362,102 people.

      Where is it you live exactly?

      • ShauninOZ December 4, 2017, 12:07 pm |

        You mix apples and oranges, as usually. Your reply is misleading, as usually. Demagogy 101.

        • BobinOz December 4, 2017, 6:07 pm |

          No I don’t, I prefer pears.

  • no November 12, 2017, 2:55 pm |

    where the heck in Australia did you go?? “theres pests in Australia” Theres bloody pest where ever you go!! “teenagers attack old people all the time”. I don’t know one person who has even attacked someone our age, let alone an elderly person. “not enough gas stations”. What the hell are you doing in your car that you need a gas station every few hundred metres??

    • BobinOz November 13, 2017, 5:39 pm |

      I hope you didn’t mind me making a small (two tiny little letters, no prizes for guessing anybody) amendment to your comment no in order to get it approved, we have a strict no swearing policy on this website 🙂

      Your comment does remind me of a signpost I used to drive past in the UK when I lived there, it said ‘Last petrol for 50 yards.’

      I kid you not, and it was true as well, two petrol stations very close together. Very funny. I fully agree with you though, getting petrol isn’t a problem here in Australia.

  • Ozimandias October 28, 2017, 6:39 pm |

    So we have racist roads, racist UV, racist health care, racist housing, racist people, racist crime, racist pests, racist cost of living, racist location. Did I mention everything is pretty much racist?

    Here a racist, there a racist, everywhere a racist, racist.

    Old McRacist had a farm. Ee i ee i o.

    A strange fact, a lot of people want to live in Australia, even though it is so racist.

    “Fred” seems well endowed with Marxian class-consciousness ideology. In other words, a TV sucker.

    • Westren Bulldogs November 13, 2017, 4:43 pm |

      Im reading these comments in 2017. Im from USA and visiting Australia to meet family and Ive been here for 5 months heard 0 racist comments, Im staying in Adelaide I think some of you guys must live in America and are just feeling jealous or you live in some crazy place in Australia. Then crimes I just don’t understand that was stupid, in fact my family started laughing! Comparing crimes from Australia to USA thats not funny, duh their are stupid people everywhere, add least not all Aussies have guns! I agree weird! Ps I tried to spell words like Australian do so might not be all right.

      • ShauninOZ December 4, 2017, 12:17 pm |

        1) People, brainwashed by their TVs, exchange “racism” with “xenophobia”. Most Australians are not racist, the are afraid of all that is foreign.
        2) You said you visited Adelaide. South Australia is not the exact image of the rest of Australia. Adelaide was built up by hard working settlers from Germany. This part of Australia highly reminds of mainland Europe and it has a similar style (compared to the rest of Australia which is more”bogan”, UK-like, no offense).

        But you are right indeed, stupid (as well as kind) people are everywhere.

  • Connor October 25, 2017, 12:52 pm |

    This is very racist and not true.?

    • BobinOz October 25, 2017, 8:40 pm |

      No, it’s not true, that’s why I personally find it so amusing. It’s not racist either, because Australians are not a race, it’s a nationality. I do get what you mean though 🙂

  • Sam October 2, 2017, 7:51 am |

    Some of the things on the list are true, some aren’t. It is true about UV, pest, cost of living and location. However, I know education here isn’t free, and they actually have a great health care system. But the biggest issue here is people. It is indeed multicultural, but there is generally a lack of respect for non-white people. Too many racists, especially towards Asian people. Having lived here for 4 years, I have encountered countless rude racist comments and was even attacked one time. Nearly all my Asian friends have had the same experience. Of course not alll Australians are racist and rude. This statement will never be true. There are wonderful people here , too. But I am talking about the percentage and the frequency of occurrence. It seems to be higher here from my experience compared to other places I have been to. I don’t feel very safe walking on the street. There is no gun issue here and people don’t get shot as often as in the US. However, I can get verbally abused for my ethnicity on a daily basis, and I feel I have been treated differently at my workplaces. I think that is the biggest drawback of Australia, and that is my opinion.

    • BobinOz October 3, 2017, 7:05 pm |

      That’s sad to hear you are being treated like this Sam, you shouldn’t have to put up with that stuff. Whereabouts in Australia are you? Not that it makes much difference, racism shouldn’t be happening anywhere. Hopefully the wonderful people massively outweigh the idiots.

  • Bil September 17, 2017, 7:46 pm |

    It’s like a blog for the touched

  • Mahboobe September 10, 2017, 5:16 pm |

    Good day every one
    I applied for PHD last year and am going to travel there soon. but, I feel stressed about the condition and the environment, after reading blogs… like above…. I’m scared the Australians don’t like foreigners.
    I don’t mind the hot weather or Snakes 😐 🙂

    • BobinOz September 11, 2017, 6:58 pm |

      Australia is a very multicultural society, the vast majority of people here are very welcoming to foreigners. Like any country though, we do have a small minority who are racist.

      Have a read of the following post and the comments…

      https://www.bobinoz.com/blog/11904/is-australia-racist-racism-in-australia/

      Don’t be scared, enjoy Australia 🙂

      • Mahboobe October 2, 2017, 3:09 pm |

        😀 Alright …. Thank you so much for the motivate 😉

    • Linda Walsh September 26, 2017, 7:55 am |

      Hi, there is good and bad everywhere. Much depends on your keenness to fit in, and Australia is very multicultural, especially in the cities. I must say however that for most folks, there’s no place like home.

      • Mahboobe October 2, 2017, 3:08 pm |

        You’re right. Thanks for the response.

    • ShauninOZ December 4, 2017, 12:22 pm |

      Good luck with your PhD. You soon learn what was plain whining and what is reality… the hard way 😉

  • Bobby July 29, 2017, 2:38 pm |

    I think the law in Australia favours the criminal where the punishment is to leant and the victims are the one that suffers. This doesn’t matter which law system.

  • Lime July 14, 2017, 4:14 pm |

    Please, please, always check your facts when writing this kind of thing. most of the things you described are no longer a problem or just not true. we have very good internet with NBN and if you use sunscreen, sunburn is not a problem. there are no sandstorms unless you live in the desert and although there are rats in some areas, all the other things you described are either not here or not pests. The Australian community is amazing and everyone is friendly, there is a very high standard of living and education and there is HARDLY ANY CRIME! Infact, 3 out of the 10 most livable cities are Australian, and the top one is Melbourne!!! Seriously, it’s almost like you’ve never actually been to Australia.

    Please, make sure your country is better before you start spreading false information about other countries.
    Thanks, Lime.

  • Liv July 5, 2017, 10:55 pm |

    Please get your facts straight before writing such a blog. Universities in Australia are not free nor are they unsafe. Plus, we have a public health care system for all to access unlike the US. If there is one thing you can’t accuse us of, it is having a poor health care system. Almost all of these arguments are completely inaccurate and ignorant… But yes, it does get hot down here. Peace out mates

    • BobinOz July 6, 2017, 7:22 pm |

      Actually, I disagree with you slightly, I think we have an excellent healthcare system here. I have, unfortunately, had quite a bit to do with hospitals lately, both private and public, and they have all been absolutely marvellous.

      Peace to to you too Liv 🙂

    • Connor October 25, 2017, 1:25 pm |

      I completely agree

  • marko July 4, 2017, 3:02 am |

    Lol have you even been to australia?? The roads are among the best in the world. Better than anywhere in the world I’ve been.
    Miles better roads then the US for example.
    And Universities aren’t free.
    Come on dude do some research at least if you’re not going to visit

    • Tim October 20, 2017, 7:17 am |

      Australian roads are worse than most countries I have been to and roadworks take forever to be completed. The reason is it is a very large country with not many taxpayers. So where in Australia do you have the German type autobahns? It may sound hard to believe but Turkey definitely has much better roads than you do.

      • Terry October 28, 2017, 10:17 am |

        When people write that Australia has roads I wonder which bit of Australia they have seen and what other countries for they have been to. Australians have only been making roads for two hundred years. Don’t believe the negatives others say, come and have a look for yourself. There is reason why Australia always gets good reviews.

        • Mark October 28, 2017, 3:51 pm |

          I will start with I like Australia Terry as can be testified from my comments on Bobs site. I have also travelled the world extensively and could not resist replying in humor to your comment as I fully agree Australia has been making roads for 200 years sadly some have them though have not been touched since 1817…Though I suspect there are some potholes in Deptford UK about the same age as well as other parts of the world.

  • Mark June 27, 2017, 10:40 am |

    This is a big lie Australia is a great place and u should 1000000% come here

    • Mark June 27, 2017, 10:46 am |

      Also were not the only country that has rude people ( we don’t have rude people ) and were also not the only that has bad houses and we don’t have radiation. Maybe he’s thinking of a different country.

  • Mark June 5, 2017, 11:48 am |

    Well, I think your overview of Australia is a bit unfair, though Melbourne is way way overrated, here’s why : https://www.facebook.com/Opposing-everything-because-Im-from-Melbourne-1571492209530380/

    • Lime July 14, 2017, 4:20 pm |

      Melbourne’s great, although housing is a little on the expensive side

      • Frank Accardo July 15, 2017, 3:15 am |

        Actually, I’ve been looking at some houses located just outside of Melbourne like Craigieburn. They’re a lot more affordable. My hopes of moving to Australia are still alive.

        • ShauninOZ December 4, 2017, 12:36 pm |

          Housing in Australia has not changed since the first settling days. You are cold in winter and you are hot in summer (in fact, there are no other seasons in Australia). Forget about cozy sitting in front of a TV in winter (unless you have electric blankets and heaters all over you) and in summer (unless you have your air conditioner running the whole day). This is not mainland Europe, the houses are still being built up from wooden frames and plasterboard.

          Feel free not to trust my comment. You can always come here and experience yourself, the hard way.

  • Brooklyn May 26, 2017, 9:33 am |

    Are you kidding? You cannot possibly say that the people of Australia are rude and mean! I think maybe 5% are rude but you just can’t generalize an entire country like that. And if we did in fact “claim” that pavlova was our own creation, we told the internet it wasn’t; how would you know otherwise? And the only expensive part of Australia is Sydney, because of the amount of tourists there are immigrants. Check your facts, there isn’t one true statement in this site.

    • BobinOz May 29, 2017, 6:59 pm |

      Pavlova? Who mentioned Pavlova?

      Anyway, I think you will find there are some true statements in this site, just not on this page.

  • Austin May 21, 2017, 8:49 pm |

    Your knowledge of Australia is lacking. Crime rate here is as low as it gets. Compare it to other countries and you’d be blown away by the information before you. It’s one of the safest countries to live in. You clearly didn’t do your research before making this.

  • i don't like Australia May 19, 2017, 1:04 pm |

    Hey,
    this website is sooooo true. Australia has the worst heat and i got so sunburnt. and there are the weirdest animals e.g snakes.
    in the shopping centers there were way to many people every where

    • BobinOz May 19, 2017, 7:51 pm |

      Ah, yes, thanks for adding that one which somehow slipped the net, bloomin, snakes in the shopping centres! They’re everywhere, especially when the sales are on!

      As for the people though, yes, they are EVERYWHERE! I remember reading somewhere that there’s one person for every 7 square miles in Australia. Ridiculous!

      Bloomin’ Australia!

      Thanks for your comment i don’t like Australia, you made my day 🙂

    • Brooklyn May 26, 2017, 9:35 am |

      Ooooooh sunburn. Really? Wear sunscreen, wear a hat, put on a shirt. Pretty simple.

    • Lime July 14, 2017, 4:17 pm |

      Hey, maybe if you used sunscreen you wouldn’t have gotten sunburnt. It’s not that hard.
      Don’t say you did, because you wouldn’t have been sunburnt otherwise.

    • Martin November 27, 2017, 7:17 am |

      Hey, do you think snakes don’t deserve Black Fridays? How can you be so insensitive? 🙂

      • BobinOz November 27, 2017, 7:29 pm |

        Do you mean Red-bellied Black Fridays? 🙂

  • Lillianna April 30, 2017, 2:21 pm |

    Hi Bob
    You are way of course Australia is nothing like that and while the government is bad half of the things you said were exaggerated or plainly not true. i have lived in Australia a long time and have not heard or seen some of those things you talked about!
    Even though some of those things were silly i must agree with the 2nd one and a few others. Some other things you talked about were very true i was talking about them for ages!

    • BobinOz May 2, 2017, 6:40 pm |

      The things I said? I think you need to read it again to find out exactly who said what 🙂

      • Frank Accardo May 22, 2017, 9:29 am |

        This an open letter to all who are on this forum. I live in the US with my wife who’s an Australian citizen. After visiting Australia for the first time in 2001, I had an epiphany and realized that Australia aligned much more to my personal beliefs about healthcare, gun control, and other issues. My question has always been, how do we make the move to Australia? I’m a respiratory therapist in the US, but the field is not recognized in Australia. My wife is a writer, so she’d have no trouble moving. But what can I do? I guess my question is, could I study for anything in the US in relatively short order, and use that knowledge to find a job in Australia? Any ideas? Any former US citizens who have managed to make a life in Australia? Thank you for anybody who might be able to offer some advise.

        • BobinOz May 22, 2017, 7:05 pm |

          Frank, I’m not sure what you mean by ‘not recognised in Australia’, because I have just googled ‘respiratory therapist jobs in Australia’ and quite a few vacancies have shown up. Obviously with your wife being an Australian citizen, she won’t need a visa, but if you can successfully apply for one as her husband then I see no reason why you shouldn’t find work in your field when you get here.

          I have a page about Americans in Australia, you might like to read it and take a look at the comments made on it, there are quite a few stories of people who have moved from the US to Australia. Here’s the link…

          https://www.bobinoz.com/blog/13748/americans-in-australia-do-australians-like-americans/

          • Frank Accardo May 23, 2017, 12:41 am |

            Hi Bob. I’ve googled those same respiratory positions several times in the past. Unfortunately, they are all either Saudi Arabia or US locations. Plus, I’m not actually worried about the actual filling out of the visa, because I know I would have little trouble getting in with my wife and her family being Australian citizens. I just wouldn’t want to be any type of burden on the system by not finding work.

Cancel reply

Leave a Comment

If your comment doesn’t get answered, find out why…..
FAQs and Comment Policy.