Australia   : loves and hates

 Thursday, 24 January 2002

Told you so. Earlier today I suggested that Tim Flannery's criticism of roses, lawns, and plane trees would send shockwaves around Australia. On my way back from the pool this afternoon I spotted this newspaper placard:

Given that this is Australia, you can be certain that if the issue is allowed to bubble along a little longer someone will manage to add sport to the mix.

10:55:36 PM    comments ()  

But wait, there's more. For Burningbird:

We await with interest the proclamation of the doctors' attitude towards the Aussie backyard.

10:52:50 PM    comments ()  

Well, actually, no. Burningbird writes: "Australia has one of the most restrictive immigration policies in the world." If you're looking for restrictive immigration policies you might want to start with Japan, though that will inevitably have to change. And in fact, Australia is second only to Canada <edit>per capita</edit> as the most generous nation in its offshore refugee program. The issue that's causing real heartache and negative press is the high numbers of boat people illegally entering Australia in an attempt to gain asylum -- some of whom have now sewn their children's lips together as a means of enforcing a hunger strike. As for me, I'd be happy to quadruple our immigration intake. In many ways, Australia was a miserable place to live before the two great waves of European (i.e. not British) and Asian immigration. (It remains a miserable place for Aboriginal people to live.) But not to relinquish our right to determine who comes here to live.

<edit>Now that Burningbird has posted a clarification, I'm happy to say that yes, we would like more yanks in our neighborhood. They were sure as hell handy in May 1942.</edit>

1:23:52 PM    comments ()  

Tim Flannery antagonizes gardeners. Not the infielder and coach for the San Diego Padres . Tim Flannery, the Australian mammologist/paleontologist/ecologist and author of The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People and The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples. According to the SMH, Dr Flannery said last night in a speech for the Australia Day Council that "roses, lawns and plane trees are a blot on the Australian landscape and should be discouraged." This suggestion, based on the fact that imported flora use too much of our precious water, will probably receive more attention in Australia than his call for increased recognition of the role played by Aboriginal people in shaping the country.

11:12:34 AM    comments ()  

A few words about infrastructure. I'd like to forestall any accusations that ADSL has turned me a blogging wuss. First, some facts:

Country	Population	Land Area	% Pop Online (Aug 01)
Australia	19.4 million	2,939,974 sq mi	52.49
USA	284.5 million	3,537,441 sq mi	59.75

Australia has 83% of the land mass of the US but slightly less than 7% of the population. One consequence of this disparity is that Australia's Internet infrastructure is vastly inferior to that of the US. I used to travel with a Toshiba Tecra notebook with a 14.4K modem someone had given me. In Australia it was only useful for checking email but when I was in the US I could surf the Net quite comfortably.

Although a high proportion of Australians have Internet access, many use their home dialup accounts reluctantly, preferring instead to rely on their faster office connection. I work from home so cable or ADSL is the only way to get fast access at a reasonable price. I pay $89 (about US$46) per month for a 512/128 ADSL connection. When I signed up, this was for unlimited usage but it's subsequently been restricted to 3GB a month. By US standards this is probably expensive. Here, for what you get, it's a bargain (as long as the connection stays up). I can't imagine blogging without it.

10:26:57 AM    comments ()