Talk:New South Wales

Initial comments

What the place for the lowest elevation doesn't say where it is. Instead, it is filled by the highest. Can someone fill that? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hubert Wa (talk • contribs) 10:06, 12 December 2005 (UTC).

The misplaced elevation should be fixed, but it might be a bit hard to say "where the lowest elevation is". As far as I know, NSW doesn't have any points below sea level, and has quite a bit of coast. JPD (talk) 15:23, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

NSW has an area near Cootamundra that is below sea level. Its is on the geo maps somewhere. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.54.9.202 (talk • contribs) 19:13, 9 July 2006 (UTC+10 hours (AEST))

• Rather surprising since Cottamundra's elevation is said to be 318m [1], glancing at an atlas, I don't see any evidence than any land nearby is below sea level - need a more specific reference perhaps.--A Y Arktos\^talk 09:29, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

"Its coast faces the Tasman Sea." -last time I checked, the Pacific Ocean was off the coast of NSW. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.51.105.164 (talk • contribs) 03:42, 14 March 2006 UTC.

The Tasman Sea is part of the Pacific Ocean. JPD (talk) 09:38, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Why does Australia's most populous state, have such a small article? At 10.5 kb, it is the smallest of any Australian state/territory even the ACT has a bigger page with more information! Kyle sb 16:08, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

POV/bias

I normally try to be nice and understanding but did someone from Liberal Party HQ write sections of this? To describe post-war Labor as corrupt and Bob Askin as "vigorous" is a bit much. Also why does Askin get a run and Neville Wran nothing? Please save your propaganda for meetings. Tigerman2005 21/1/7

Stuby

This page is a bit stubby. I would tag it but I dont know how.Rudraksha 00:55, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Page is really short!!

The article is written greatly, but it's too short, first of all it needs info on the climate, popular sports in NSW, and maybe attractions...anyone want to write this up and add it, if not I will 202.6.138.33 09:04, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Go for it! You might also want to create your own login to edit from—this lets you set up preferences for display and editing, and Wikipedia can help you track pages that you're interested in following. But if you want to do the edits anonymously, you're still perfectly welcome to do so. Glad to have you aboard!/blahedo (t) 17:16, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

What is this article lacking, maybe tourism info, climate ect Jackp 13:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

The article needs expansion in the sections that are already there, a decent history section, people/demographics, then maybe education, culture, etc. Climate would go in the geography section, but tourism info does not belong in Wikipedia. JPD (talk) 15:29, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Except in the context of economy.--cj | talk 16:20, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Of course. I should have said tourist info, rather than tourism info. JPD (talk) 08:23, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Timeline removal 9 July comments

Who took the rest of the Timeline away? if you think the First Fleet's commission and setting out isnt of huge importance to the establishment of the Colony of NSW then you are robbing this page. All decent versions of NSW's colonial story include the first fleet content as do most schhols etc when they ask students to do a project on it. That info came from NSW's Timeline up to 1879 so was part of the first 100 years of colonisation. I'm dumb though. I dont have a degree in this stuff re Oz so dont know that any decent representation of a place isnt just about one dimension. Actually Malaspina's report should be in that timeline also

Put the first fleet stuff on its own page then with a link back to it.

The timeline is way too short now. Surely more than that has happened the last 230 (600,000,000) years in NSW. It seems there are computer geeks from out of Australia editing stuff here who want to be clever with their tools but are not so clever with the content they put up or remove, and have probably no local knowledge re NSW let alone qualifications in presenting its multifaceted story. Can the geeks that get here realise other non computer wizz people may think the geeks are divine with their editing 'tools'; but have way higher skills then they probably ever will in history/cultural heritage/Indigenous stuff etc, as well as extensive local knowledge of areas - and stop stuffing stuff up!! If you really have to remove good and relevant content find another place to put it such as creating a page for it then putting a link leading to it from its previous site. Imagine readign that NSW page and there is nil there on the timeline or its Indigenous story. You know, Today's NSW started off with the colonials 'Creating a Nation' (Grimshaw, Lake, McGrath, Quartly, 1994). A theme line for presenting that process as its given in MODERN NSW these days runs as: birthplaces, conceiving a colony, transplanting patriachy, making male and female worlds, man's space, women's place, sex violence and theft, contested domains, gendered settlements, giving birth to the new nation, depression dreaming, freedom fear and family, the State as Father, Affirmations of difference.

There may be too much geek/male stuff happening re what gets put here. Computer geeks are very very clever but its the content that gets put here is more important that geek ego. If stuff gets put up that looks like some tired old 1950s representation of what NSW and Oz is about, then what use is that?

Try and follow the above themes a bit when putting stuff here re Oz as its how its done. DONT cut out the story of over 50% of the population by just putting in dead facts and the male story. Also include the Indigneous, women and children's stories on every last topic page or wik oz content is no good for anything much. Just simple stuff such as white women being hugely respected by their culture in 1850 (good for more than just washing up etc as labour was short) but barefoot and preggers at the sink by 1950 needs to be reflected. There is a reason for those two differences that should be reflected in the content that gets up re those two eras etc. on any timeline. How many women explorers were there? None? Right. I'll rephrase it - how many women with exploring parties were there? Who were they and what were their roles? Same as Ted Egan's 'The Drover's Boy' story.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.54.9.112 (talk • contribs) 14:34, 9 July 2006 (UTC+10 hours (AEST))

What is up on the NSW page now reads like half the Australian Almanac, that I have the 1999 copy of. Its good but geez. If I want to read that book, I can just pick it up and read it or find it online. Extracts fromt hat book , yeah, but not all NSW's page like that as that isnt how NSW is presented anywhere else and hasnt been for many years apart from in that sort of publication. Add some substance to the NSW page following the above themes a bit. Tie some of the dry fact stuff in with some of the other.

The First Fleet was hugely significant to NSW - and it got deleted.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.54.9.112 (talk • contribs) 14:46, 9 July 2006 (UTC+10 hours (AEST))

• Partial response only: There is already a page on the First Fleet, there is also a main article on the History of New South Wales. If you want to find out who did an edit, use the history tab at the top of the page - for more info on this functionality see Help:Page history --A Y Arktos\^talk 04:51, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I may have different ip numbers but never a need to have different names. The following is from that other first fleet page

"The number of people directly associated with the First Fleet will probably never be exactly established, and all accounts of the event vary slightly."

Below is from what I put up: "'Sirius', H.M. frigate, Captain John Hunter; 'Supply', H.M. armed tender, Lieutenant Henry Ligbird Ball; 'Golden Grove', storeship; 'Fishburn', storeship; 'Borrowdale', storeship; 'Scarborough', transport, carrying 1 captain, 33 marines, 208 male convicts; 'Lady Penrhyn', transport, carring 1 captain, 2 lieutenants, 3 privates, and 102 female convicts; 'Friendship', transport, carrying 1 captain, 44 marines and privates, 77 male and 20 female convicts; 'Charlotte', transport, carrying 1 captain, 43 men, 88 male and 20 female convicts; 'Alexander', transport, carrying 2 lieutenants, 35 marines and 213 male convicts."

Mount Kosciuszko

Geoscience Australia gives the height as 2,228m. In any case, if there are further discussions to be had on this matter, I suggest Talk:Mount Kosciuszko. JPD (talk) 16:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

New South Welshmn

An inhabitant of New South Wales is referred to as a New South Welshman or, in gender-neutral language, as a New South Welsh person, but this is rarely used. It is far more common to say "s/he's from New South Wales" than "s/he's a New South Welshman".

Can you really say "she's a New South Welshman"? Is it a unisex term? Is there such a term as "New South Welshwoman"? Flapdragon 12:10, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Are we really called New South Welshman? Its the first time i've ever heard of it...--Ari89 10:07, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

• Yes the term is sometimes used - eg Proportionately less West Australians than New South Welshmen owned cars. [2] or But it’s not just the local fishing gentry among the New South Welshmen ... [3] or While many New South Welshmen served in WWII, ... [4] --Golden Wattle ^talk 09:34, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Howard himself used it in a speech recently Virtual circuit 04:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

--On the contrary, I've heard New South Welshmen (potential sexism aside) frequently, but who's ever heard of New South Walers? Anyone would think it's a State full of whale eaters...Simonmetcalf (talk) 09:48, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

References

To make this article better, it needs more referencing.

You're 100% right there. Atlantis Hawk 08:08, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Population of Sydney relative to the rest of the state

Seeing a {{fact}} tag on a statement that 2/3 of the state's population resides around Sydney, I checked the city's article. According to the city's article, about 4.2 million people live there, and the main article records about 6.8 million people. Seems to me that this is close enough Nyttend 18:14, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Early 1900

Sorry to whoever wrote it but a lot of it reads like a 6th grade school project - and a poor one at that. NSW is a state so its opinion on conscription is irrelevant. I gather this is a reference to Billy Hughes who was Prime Minister of Australia. He supported conscription, the Labor Party he led did not so he left the party. In any case it doesn't belong here. Tigerman2005 21/1/7

I shortened the line: "An inhabitant of New South Wales is referred to as a New South Welshman or, in gender-neutral language, as a New South Welsh person."

to: "An inhabitant of New South Wales is referred to as a New South Welshman."

Examples of gender-neutral language should be kept in the "Gender-neutral language" article unless it is particularly pertinent to the topic. I don't see how including it here adds anything to an article about New South Wales.

Date of establishment of the Colony

Phillip arrived at Sydney Cove on 26 January, which is now celebrated as Australia Day. But I seem to remember reading that his proclamation formally establishing NSW as a Colony (as distinct from a British possession) was not made till 2 days later, 28 January. Can anyone confirm this? JackofOz 06:30, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

New Data

This new ABS data may allow some updating of this article. angela26 06:19, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Touch Rugby league

A couple of editors are saying that "touch football" has more players that Football and linking to this site - http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/4177.0Main%20Features22005-06?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=4177.0&issue=2005-06&num=&view=

I don't think this is corrent. In this document [5] outdoor Football in NSW is shown with 219800 participants against "touch football" having 131000 participants.

This document [6] lists participtation levels with a total for organised and non organised sport. Again Football is clearly bigger.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Tancred (talk • contribs)

Firstly, please don't refer to any code simply as "football" in a context like this - it's just silly. Now let's look at the figures. The organised/non-organised document is not helpful, as it refers to the whole of Australia, not NSW. The NSW document does indeed show that soccer has more participants that touch, but the claim made by "a couple of editors" (actually, only one) was that rugby league has more participants than soccer when touch is included as a form of rugby league. This is believable, but it is not clear that it is true, as participants may have been counted in both the league and touch categories, so the numbers can't simply be added together. At any rate, this is all a bit silly. If we are talking about participation alone, we shouldn't be focussing on football codes, but things like golf and cycling. The original statement that RL was the most popular winter sport was clearly intended to be about spectator interest (compare it with the statement about cricket!), so simply replacing it with a statement about registered participants is not helpful. JPD (talk) 09:11, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

New Wales

I'm sceptical about this addition:

"It is not clear whether New South Wales refers to the area being named after South Wales, or a New Wales in the Southern Hemisphere.[1]"

Can somone be more precise about this "New Wales" than saying it lies south of the equator? The cited page doesn't even mention it. Looks like a candidate for deletion to me. Coughinink 01:26, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the cited page doesn't give any meaning other than the South Wales assumption, but the statement in the article makes more sense than your question? What more could be said? JPD (talk) 09:59, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

So "New Wales theory" is not supported by cited page. (In fact the cited page gives very little info and is not a reputably historical source.) There is a New South Wales in Canada too - and that's no south of the equator. Yes, it is an odd name. Apparently Canada was named first. Was Cook inspired by this? Does South Wales look like the NSW coastline??? I'm deleting both this speculation and the irrelevant citation.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:23, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I notice the speculation is back. "South Wales" is a distinct region in Wales, and is where most of the population lives, and is the industrial region. It is referred to frequently by people in Wales and England. New South Wales is named after South Wales. I will delete the speculation again. 86.9.117.51 (talk) 19:02, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see the speculation here, I saw it on the history of New South Wales page. I will direct that page's discussion page to here. 86.9.117.51 (talk) 19:05, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Energy production

Does anyone have information available at hand they could use to create an Energy section for this page? WA Burdett (talk) 09:17, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Ethnic Groupings

Why does this article not have the ethnic groupings? Wikipedia usually does a great job on having all the information on things like this, but this article lacks much of the information about population. If someone finds this information, please post it on this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.99.98.56 (talk) 01:27, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Premier

As the article itself makes clear, the Governor of NSW commissions an MP to be Premier and form a Ministry. In practice, as with every other Westminster system, the Governor does this on advice of the party with a majority of seats, and the person so selected holds office until the Governor withdraws that commission, the person resigns or they lose a no confidence motion on the floor of the Parliament.

On 5/9/08 Iemma resigned and Nathan Rees was selected by the majority party to take his place. However, Iemma has not (at this point) been to Government House to offer his resignation and the Governor has not (at this point) commissioned Rees as his replacement. Right now therefore, iemma remains Premier.

I raise this to make clear why we should not keep changing the Premier's name to Rees in the article. As of this moment it is inaccurate - it will inevitably be accurate in a few days and can be added then. Can I aslo remind people this is not Wikinews - there is no need to rush latest updates into articles, especially when to do so makes the article factually wrong.

Other opinions or comments welcome. Euryalus (talk) 03:48, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I've added "<!-- Do not remove until Nathan Rees is sworn in by the Governor. Please see the talk page. -->" to the infobox and Government section. Just hope people read it before adding Nathan Rees before his sworn in. Bidgee (talk) 04:41, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Apparently the swearing in will occur this afternoon, so it can be changed then. Euryalus (talk) 05:58, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

No problem. At this rate I'll say this evening or tomorrow since it's 4pm in NSW ATM so time is starting to run out. I'm keeping and ear and eye out (Watching TV and News sites). Bidgee (talk) 06:08, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Nathan Rees was just sworn in (National Nine News showed part of the swearing in). No online sources online yet. Bidgee (talk) 06:45, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

National parks

NSW has over 200 parks and reserves covering a huge area and this needs mentioning. Cgoodwin (talk) 06:56, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Seems a good idea. When you put something together you should probably include a total parks area vs state area for comparison purposes. --AussieLegend (talk) 07:23, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

History section

The was a section entitled "Gold Rush" which I have shortened and renamed "Mid-late 1800s". The preceding version was inaccurate, e.g. implying that the Gold Rush was mainly in NSW whereas it was mainly in Victoria, saying that the colony's self-government preceded the breakaway of Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia, rather than the other way around, etc. It went into great depth about an act that gave responsible government in NSW, which was not appropriate for this page and out-of-place.

More generally, I worry that the history section in this article is growing (in a stunted, amateurish way), rather than leaving history of NSW to be the definitive article. Do we really need this history section here at all? It should certainly not be in competition to the main history article, and the other is well written and extensive. 86.9.117.51 (talk) 18:58, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Why doesn't my history of NSW link above work? 86.9.117.51 (talk) 18:33, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Probably because you've linked to a non-existent article. The article you're after is History of New South Wales. --AussieLegend (talk) 19:36, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

You've missed my point - there is a redirect from History of NSW to History of New South Wales. 86.9.117.51 (talk) 19:42, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

...or at least there was until you vandalized the article by removing it so you could appear superior! Please explain why what you did isn't vandalism. 86.9.117.51 (talk) 19:46, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Article links in the list of breakaway colonies

The general policy of linking to the first and not subsequent mentions of another article is intended to avoid repeated unnecessary hyperlinks. However it is not a hard-and-fast rule and is not always sensible. Sometimes it is useful to link again to an article in a different context, especially if it is part of a later list with links to the other articles in the list, as is the case here. Linking to Tasmania, South Australia, but not Victoria and Queensland in the list of colonies that separated from NSW in the 19th century is simply unhelpful, even though the reader can find the latter two in another context further up the page. 86.9.117.51 (talk) 14:53, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

It may prove unhelpful if the reader has to search several paragraphs up the article for the links and the policy takes that into account. However, in this case the states are linked only four lines up the page in the same paragraph so there's simply no need to link them again so soon. Of the 111 words in the paragraph, 18 (16.2%) are linked. That's excessive linking by any definition.

“ "Excessive" is usually more than one link for the same term in a line or a paragraph, since in this case one or more duplicate links will almost certainly then appear needlessly on the viewer's screen.[7] ”

--AussieLegend (talk) 15:14, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, the article you quote from about excessive linking is not about linking on wikipedia, but on webpages in general. It does not constitute wikipedia policy or practice. Secondly, the quote you use doesn't say what it is describing is always excessive, it says it is usually excessive; and it might "usually" be excessive to link to the same word twice in a paragraph in some cases, but not in this case, since the second link is part of a list of links. Thirdly, you would expect there to be many links in the introductory paragraph to a wikipedia article, there are not too many (I note you have switched smoothly from saying that two links to the same article is "excessive", to saying that the number of links in the paragraph is "excessive"). Fourthly, your numbers are wrong - how can 18 words be linked out of a total of 11? 86.9.117.51 (talk) 18:28, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

The article in question is equally applicable to both external and internal links, both of which we use at Wikipedia. That's why it's linked to from Wikipedia:Linking. That particular article is part of the Manual of Style which is Wikipedia practice. Whether Methods of website linking says "usually excessive" or "always excessive" is really irrelevant to this case. Here we have a situation where you want to link exactly the same term within four lines of each use of it and that's clearly excessive. There's simply no need to link the same term so frequently. Once in the same paragraph is more than enough. That it's a list of links, which it isn't, is a poor argument. The opening of an article is supposed to broadly summarise the article. It should be fairly brief and doesn't need to get too deeply into specifics. Having already mentioned Victoria and Queensland once, there's no need to provide links to those articles again just because they're mentioned again. To do so is overlinking. As for the numbers, it should have been clear that it was a typo. Obviously there are more than 11 words in the paragraph so some simple maths, made possible by the fact that I included a percentage figure, would have made it quite obvious that I meant 111 words. I really don't understand where you're going with "I note you have switched smoothly from saying that two links to the same article is "excessive", to saying that the number of links in the paragraph is "excessive"". Two links to the same article in the same paragraph is excessive and the number of the links in that paragraph is excessive as well, especially given that it's an introduction. I'd expect far more links in the body of the article. I don't know why you'd expect the lead to have more links. --AussieLegend (talk) 19:19, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I think we've covered enough ground to show clearly that there is no consensus about whether having those two links is excessive or not. The best you can come up with is a quote describing something that could be "usually excessive". I say that doesn't apply in this case. But since the two links are part of a list of links, they are clearly useful. Unless we are going to remove them all (which would open up a whole new can of worms), they are necessary for contextual consistency. So we'll leave them in. EOF. 86.9.117.51 (talk) 19:39, 28 March 2009 (UTC)