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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Tell me the bad things about living in Australia.

511 replies

ilovepixie · 26/05/2020 19:30

Following on from the USA thread what's the worst thing about living in Australia.

OP posts:
SyJMar · 28/05/2020 14:40

Racism. Sexism. Drinking culture and hideous levels of dv, with little awareness among male population generally. Lots of ignorance and close mindedness. And the damn heat. BUT... great schools. Good healthcare. Lovely place to raise kids if you can bypass raising sexist twats.

Mackymacmacface · 28/05/2020 14:40

The boredom if you're not into beaches, the extremity of sun (I get sunburnt putting the washing out!), the lethargy that comes with the heat, sweaty boobs and upper lip, the way colleagues and friends rush home after work - it's hard to convince someone to stick around for an hour for a cheeky

habibihabibi · 28/05/2020 14:46

eaglejulesk
I was replying to a poster who mentioned New Zealand.
And you wonder why the British are not popular? Look at what is going on in your precious country at the moment
I am from New Zealand Grin

OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow · 28/05/2020 18:43

Oh I forgot, flies. Not just buzzing round you but landing on you. Snakes, spiders never worried me, but I loathe the little bastards to this day.

TomPinch · 28/05/2020 23:19

@AtaMarie,

I disagree - in fact I will go so far to say that yours is the ethnocentric view when it comes to history.

There may more opportunities now to find out about Maori history, but that simply reflects how lamentably few there have been in the past. But furthermore, what you describe as history is in fact engagement in a living culture. While that is something non-Maori in NZ should do, it is not history as people on this thread would reasonably understand it, and engaging with it is far more of an involved process.

Leaving that aside, even taking into account oral history, the fact cannot be ignored that there is still much more in the UK than in NZ. For example, in 1100 AD, the estimated population of Britain was 1 million, and by then millions others had lived and died on the island: their existence is shown by all manner of archeological remains and excavations that are easy to go and see and are well explained. The population of NZ at this time - previous and current - was 0 - because humans had not arrived yet.

I could draw a similar comparison as of 1840.

A good equivalent in NZ to a castle or an Iron Age long barrow would be a pa site. Almost without exception, there is little to see and little explanation, if you can find them at all. This is partly because Maori built in wood, partly because sites are often unexcavated (for various reasons) and partly because there aren't comparatively that many, and because a lot of what existed was buried under the foundations of colonial NZ.

There is unanswerably less history in NZ for the reasons above, and what history exists is poorly explained. It isn't even taught in the schools. When contributors to this thread say there is "no history" in NZ what they are really saying is that there is an awful lot less, and this point is unanswerably true, and accusations of cultural bias simply won't wash.

Tunnocks34 · 28/05/2020 23:21

Never been to Australia but I have to say the spiders put me off! It looks like a beautiful country but I’m terrified of spiders!

squeekums · 29/05/2020 00:56

No decent cheese
Not so, Go to Aldi and many European cheeses lol

squeekums · 29/05/2020 01:08

it was heavily reported in WA media and there is a lot of community anger about it. WA has a diverse (including independent) media mix which I am thankful for. (I understand Queensland in the last few years has been overrun by right wing media, sadly, which might explain a lot about the last election)

Ahh that explains it, im in SA. Only news we hear from WA is about AFL

Oooo yes, Limestone coast and Yorkes grin
And I’ll go google for gin distilleries - I’ve been getting quite a lot of gin from KI mmmm

There a place on Yorkes who does pink gin, all local. Ive seen the guy in our local post office posting off bottles lol

www.sunnyhilldistillery.com.au/

justilou1 · 29/05/2020 02:16

Good grief! There’s fabulous cheese here. You can get cheese from all around the world. You just have to be prepared to sell a body part to pay for it.
I am over the the two supermarket chains blaming petrol prices for the extortionate cost of living when they own all the bloody petrol stations anyway and are price-fixing those too.

I loathe the “bigging-up” of mediocre products to jam local shit down your neck... often cellar door is twice the price than at the chain grog shops, etc.... The naff “legends” of Australia that we seem to expect everyone around the world to know about and treat them like they’re stupid because they don’t - ie Ned Kelly. (Who was an absolute psychopath, not a hero worth celebrating, btw...)

chatwoo · 29/05/2020 04:27

@IHaveBrilloHair

Has anyone mentioned how weird the mayonnaise is?Grin The Thai and Vietnamese food is amazing though
Have you tried the Japanese mayo called Kewpie? Much better! And readily available in Coles, Woolies or Asian supermarkets.
IHaveBrilloHair · 29/05/2020 05:22

Yep, I buy it online.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 29/05/2020 05:26

I saw Hellman's mayonnaise in our local Coles the other day.
However, I buy the real egg whole mayonnaise made by Praise and it's no different to Hellman's, in my opinion.
Unless of course you don't consider Hellman's to count as "real" mayonnaise either.

The best standard cheese here is the Norland cheddar. It actually tastes like cheese - but still only a mild to medium cheddar (which I like). If you want a strong, proper farmhouse cheddar, then you'd have to go to boutique cheese shops to find them - we're not too far from the Hunter Valley and there are a number of cheese shops there that do strong cheeses. There are also shops that sell European cheeses, at vast expense though.

The milk range here is far bigger than the UK, I think - HUGE range of different milks! And yoghurts -- well, I only buy a couple because so many of them are reduced fat (standard) and it has been hard to find a decent full fat bio live yoghurt, but there are more and more coming onto the market. I can even get proper double cream, which was hard to find 10 years ago.

It may well be area-dependent on how good or bad the dairy is, but in my neck of NSW, I have no complaints (especially as I can buy Boursin at the local Woolies).

IHaveBrilloHair · 29/05/2020 05:33

I absolutely love Asian food, its becoming more readily available in Glasgow, my nearest city, but not really in the small town I live in.

IHaveBrilloHair · 29/05/2020 05:39

@ThumbWitchesAbroad
When I was there all of the mayo was like cheap sloppy salad cream with added sugar, really gross.
My Mum used to send me hellmans, and marmite!
Are you near Newcastle?
My SIL posted a video of a stormy day there at the beach swimming pool recently, all I could think was, "no heating"!

custardbear · 29/05/2020 05:44

My mum moved there in 1997, lived there for around 16 years. I visited a few times, never felt homely, wherever I went to (did the east coast too as my brother was working out there for a year one time I visited - again he's never been back as he didn't enjoy the culture or surroundings in general - pockets of amazing places of course!)

Loads of bleak empty space that looked dry and desolate (WA) and just never really took to it, no intention of ever visiting again, and that's before even mentioning the dreaded
Spiders!

IHaveBrilloHair · 29/05/2020 05:44

I should add that my personal experience is 20 years out of date, but I do have v frequent contact with my daughter's family there.

chatwoo · 29/05/2020 05:46

@ThumbWitchesAbroad you can get Boursin?Envy I've never seen it here...

Tried a similar product recently (think it was one of the Yarra Valley cheeses) which was nice, but not quite as flavoursome!

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 29/05/2020 05:54

Yes, I'm not that far from Newcastle. :)

Chatwoo - NOTHING, but nothing beats Boursin, hey!
One of my friends in Sydney brought some for me to an expat meet up, and said she could buy it in Coles - so I put in a request to my local Coles (when you could still do that) and miraculously it appeared! Shock Woolies had it for a while, then took it off the shelf, then after a few years Coles took it off their shelf but Woolies brought it back, so I still have my Supply. It's bloody expensive ($7 or so for 80g) but god it's worth it! I've been forcing it on my local friends so that they too need to buy it, so that it doesn't go off shelf again Grin
You can buy it online from Woolies www.woolworths.com.au/shop/search/products?searchTerm=Boursin or you could try asking in your local one. It's not available from Coles online so I guess they don't stock it anywhere now.

Hopefulhen · 29/05/2020 06:38

@astrogirl99

The poster upthread's comments about disliking indigenous people because she was abused on a train, is a pretty standard attitude among British expats here.

What do you expect them to think? If I was abused over and over again by one ethnic group I would have a poor view of them too. Regardless of their social disadvantage it is unacceptable to harass anyone.

Witchesandwizards · 29/05/2020 06:41

I didn’t see @eaglejulesk‘s reply but I can only imagine Grin
Thank for everyone else’s support.
All the things mentioned are my opinion and reflect the negative things I have personal experience of in NZ, and my post was a response to poster asking specifically for this info.
If someone had told me this info before I left the UK, I wouldn’t be stuck here now!

LightWaterandTime · 29/05/2020 06:45

I haven't lived in Australia but visited many times and have both friends and family there. I think I could quite happily live there myself. Things I have felt though:

When people say there is a lack of culture/history - I don't agree, there is tonnes of both but I felt that a lot of places just feel very 'samey' - like town after town feel very similar to each other and it gets a bit mind numbing.

I think the police are very hot on drink driving but there is little/no stigma attached to it - in the UK if you were done for drink driving it would feel absolutely shameful and you would get judged. In Aus I felt it was like any other driving offence and you just try to evade being caught.

Shocked by the amount of sex shops everywhere - and like next to a pie shop or something in a normal shopping street.

I find most people more friendly than in the UK - but there is definitely a 'type' of Aussie that is very surly, almost sinister with an air of imminent violence about them.

Supermarkets are huge and well stocked but its all basic - you won't get anything like Marks & Spencer ready meals or Tesco's finest etc.

LightWaterandTime · 29/05/2020 06:49

I think with regard to towns feeling 'samey' its like a lot of places lack charm and finesse - almost like no thought has gone into design and layout.

SoberCurious · 29/05/2020 06:56

Racism
Sexism
Bugs
Sharks
Vegemite

SoberCurious · 29/05/2020 07:05

‘Brits love the R word’
That’s because no-one thinks of the Aussies as raving racists. Then you go and it’s like being in Kentucky or Mississippi

THIS!!!

Kittenlicker · 29/05/2020 07:25

@Witchesandwizards I live in NZ for a while and while I thought it was beautiful and stunning in places I couldn’t bear the parochialism of the place. I found it very isolating and small minded. Lots of folk had never even left the island and it showed.

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