Talk:Australia

Australia Royal National Anthem

I'm trying to add it, but there was an issue: |royal_anthem =
"God Save the Queen

Twillisjr (talk) 20:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

'God Save the Queen' has not been Australia's national anthem since 1984, when it was replaced by Advance Australia Fair, after a plebiscite to choose the National Song. Myk (talk) 06:00, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Unbeknownst to most Australians, it is indeed still the "royal anthem", used in the presence of the monarch when they come to visit (although this tradition may have fallen out of favour). However this has been discussed several times before and it was resolved each time not to put it on the information bar on the right hand side as "Advance Australia Fair" is the only widely known (or indeed, for the vast majority of Australians, the only known) anthem which is used in all situations except for Royal visits (not clear if god save the queen is still even used for these). Thus I would request you not to revisit the issue and attempt to add it again. Saruman-the-white (talk) 12:15, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Dental Care

On my last visit to Australia I noticed many Australians have very bad teeth. I have been told there is dental care in Australia. Maybe you should add it under health so people know why Australians have bad teeth.

Also, I found interesting the long (years and years) queues for social housing. That was in fact very shocking to me. Maybe you could aslo add this. Finally, I find the Australia article doesnt really represent the truth. It is more like a tourist brochure - only nice things are stated. I assume it is written moslty by the Australians... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 113.104.213.70 (talk) 11:25, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Are you sure that isn't something better suited for Health care in Australia? Are you sure it's also a national problem, or just an issue in a particular area (say, Redfern in Sydney)? Are you also sure that maybe the most notable points about Australia is that it's generally a nice place, and the articles spinning off from this main article go into more detail about the negative aspects? It is a big country after all and you could hardly expect one article to comprehensively detail every little detail. Comics (talk) 11:51, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Guys I'm Australian and I don't know anyone with bad teeth so don't add "they have bad teeth" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.184.110.246 (talk) 06:04, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm Australian and my teeth are terrible. I got a lot of fillings under the Commonwealth Dental Plan, but during treatment in 1999, Paul Keating lost the election to John Howard, and one of the first things John Howard's government did was to abolish the Commonwealth Dental Plan. This was, fortunately, just after I'd gotten a partial plate which really helped me attending job interviews (my front three teeth are missing). But I still needed more fillings. Since then, all the previous fillings have fallen out and I need more, but hey, some of my fillings are three or four surfaces and would cost maybe $300-400 each: overall we're talking many thousands of dollars, which might last five to eight years maximum. It's serious money taken on a national level, but I reckon it's something we need to aspire to. Mind you, whether we'd put this in a WP article is not something that I'd support. WP is not a blog. TheBustopher (talk) 01:28, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Australia got its independence from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Currently the infor box says Aust. got its indo. from the United Kingdom. I suggest this be amended to be "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|United Kingdom" (linked). Could some one make the small linking change. I am an IP editor and can't edit the article. 86.42.28.118 (talk) 22:41, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

The UK of G. Britain and Ireland ended in 1922 according to that article. The Statutes and Acts that granted independence to Australia were all passed after Ireland had become a dominion (and, later, sovereign nation of it's own) and the other country became the United Kingdom; the only act that could be seen as independence from the earlier country is the federation of Australia. What made you concerned about the link in the first place? Comics (talk) 23:51, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the first user in that the generally accepted date of independence cited in the vast majority of cases worldwide is 1901. Saruman-the-white (talk) 12:16, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

The proper article to link to is United Kingdom, not United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and it has nothing to do with what year you consider independence to have come in. Click on that second link, and you will see that it is not about a country. It begins, "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it." From that, which would imply the article is about the formal name, it turns into a history of Ireland from 1801 to 1922. An article about 121 years of Irish history is not a sensible one to which this article should link in noting the country it achieved its independence from. It is not as though the United Kingdom only came to be called that after separation with Ireland, so it is not as though using the current link would somehow be deceptive. You can add on top of that Comic master's point that 1901 didn't fully provide independence anyway. You can say that the "generally accepted date" is 1901, but even were that true (which I am not convinced of), what is generally accepted is not true. Independence came in stages, which is why the infobox lists four acts (and five dates). -Rrius (talk) 13:40, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Well it was not my suggestion so i do not care much either way, however using UK of GB and Irl would probably be more consistent as the US is listed as getting independence from "the Kingdom of Great Britain". I agree that independence was a process, however to back up the person who made the original suggestion I will say that if 1901 is taken as the key date in that process, which i believe it was (more important than stat. westminst., aust. act...), then the conventional and consistent practice would be to link to the UK of GB and Irl article, as the UK of GB and N.I. did not exist on that date. I will not change it myself, though, because it doesnt bother me much either way. Saruman-the-white (talk) 07:34, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the first user in that the generally accepted date of independence cited in the vast majority of cases worldwide is 1901. - Saruman, I'd like to see some sources, because it is certainly NOT the case that Federation in 1901 was seen at the time as anything like independence, and no reputable historian of the present day would describe it that way either. The 6 colonies chose to federate into a single polity, but the links to the "mother country" continued uninterrupted. They were even strengthened, because there were now 7 representatives of the queen, not 6. All appointments to Australian vice-regal offices were approved by the British government until Scullin's time in the early 1930s. That certainly doesn't sound like independence to me. When the UK declared war on Germany in 1939, Menzies made no separate declaration of a state of war between Australia and Germany; rather, he simply confirmed that the UK's declaration automatically applied to Australia. That certainly doesn't sound like independence to me. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 08:19, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

UTC Offset

I have just altered the UTC offsets from 10.5 in normal and 11.5 in Daylight saving to 10 and 11 which is the true status. I wonder why it was given as 10.5 and 11.5 in the first place? All the Eastern States are UTC +10 (and those with Daylight Saving go to 11 in summer). SA and NT are UTC +9.5 which is possibly where the confusion lies. In fact as far as I know there is NO time zone at all that's UTC +10.5. Vanuatu, Solomons and probably parts of Russia (etc) are +11 and New Zealand (etc) is +12. In fact SA/NT are quite unusual with a half-hour time zone: geographically they are well and truly UTC +9 - the borders line up really well with 120-135 degrees longitude but they've chosen to be only half an hour behind the Eastern states for "convenience" (and so are essentially on permanent 1/2 hr daylight saving - SA goes 1-1/2 hrs forward in summer!!). Anyway, I digress: can someone suggest why we had UTC +10.5/11.5 in there at all, or was it simply a misinterpretation of where South Australia is in the scheme of things?? TheBustopher (talk) 15:59, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

As I indicated in my reversion, this is explained at Time in Australia, as specified in the note for the timezones. Lord Howe Island uses UTC+10:30 during the winter months and Norfolk Island uses UTC+11:30 all year round. The article actually appears wrong in that it should specify (UTC+8 to +11.5) all year round. --AussieLegend (talk) 00:04, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I see: I have failed to consider external territories. I can see reasons for an against including external territories into consideration - I suppose those living on Norfolk of Lord Howe WOULD call themselves Australians. I wonder what time zones other countries are given in their WP pages? (eg Hawaii for USA or maybe Gibraltar for UK (examples off the top of my head - I'm sure a few other countries wil have external territories in far removed time zones)). Better have a look, but thanks for the explanation. TheBustopher (talk) 06:39, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Good heavens, I HAVE read Time in Australia, and given that we are including external territories here, what about Heard and McDonald Islands which is UTC +5 with no DST as the furthest of the range??? In summary it needs to be UTC+5 to UTC+11.5 if we are going to have regard to all external territories... TheBustopher (talk) 06:47, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Heard and McDonald Islands are unpopulated and a very long way from Australia so we really don't need to cater for them. --AussieLegend (talk) 09:25, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, people on Norfolk Island are often quite keen to not be considered Australians. Many are descended from the Bounty mutineers, who have had nothing to do with Australia historically. But it is part of the country, they use Australian currency and are supported in many ways by Australia, so the time zone should probably be considered an Australian one. HiLo48 (talk) 10:51, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

If we include Australian Antarctic Territory, I calculate the range starting at UTC +3 (45°E), although I notice that Time in Australia#External territories doesn't include this complete range - presumably because we don't have a station right on the edge. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:18, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Let's take a step back. First of all, Hawaii is as much a US state as California, so of course it is included in the range. Note that the Northern Marianas and U.S. Virgin Islands, both of which elect non-voting delegates to Congress, are not included in the range. Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands are not included in Britain's range, and France's various overseas departments aren't included at France. That said, the real question is how much the fact that Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island are populated and physically close to Australia matters versus the fact that their political position is significantly different from NT and the ACT. Mine own view is that it really doesn't matter because Australia's time zone situation is so complicated. -Rrius (talk) 12:55, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps a simple "Various" would suffice? I♦A 13:59, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

The population of Antarctica is negligible, and non-permanent (they get rotated after a few years max - I once knew a guy with the bureau of meteorology (hi Dave) who got rotated from Antarctica to Cairns - that's a bit of a contrast). So I think by the Heard and MacDonald Island principles outlined by AussieLegend above, we really need to eliminate Antarctica from consideration as well. However, the more I think about it, I think Norfolk and Lord Howe need to also come out of consideration, too. They are listed under 'anomolies' under the Time in Australia article. TheBustopher (talk) 01:09, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Australia has free tv (meaning not 3 commercial channels)

Hey, australia now has free tv (digital). The article says it has sbs, abc and 3 commercial channels. I live in Melbourne and we now have like 15 channels including sbs and abc, not to mention sbs 2 and 3 and abc 1,2 and 3!!!! Can someone fix this??!! 182.12.56.154 (talk) Kolin —Preceding undated comment added 17:11, 2 April 2012 (UTC).

Australia has always had free TV, in both analogue and digital form. Despite the plethora of channels available, I have 23 digital and 7 analogue here, they're all owned by one of public broadcasters or one of the three commercial networks so the article, which refers to networks and not channels, is correct. --AussieLegend (talk) 18:06, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

population density

In reference to the info box on the right side of the article, specifically: "- Density 2.8/km2, 7.3/sq mi"
A mile is longer than a kilometer, thus a square mile is bigger than a square kilometer. Consequently, should the density per square mile not be lower than the density per square kilometer? Of course I might misunderstand the intention of the data, any clarification is welcome. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.169.201.86 (talk) 10:36, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Think it through :) More people can fit in a square mile than in a square kilometre, so the density for a square mile will be bigger than that of a square kilometre. I♦A 10:40, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, there are 2.59 square kilometres in a square mile, so if there are 2.8 people per square kilometre, then there are 2.59 x 2.8, or 2.752 people per square mile. --AussieLegend (talk) 12:52, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Australia Royal National Anthem

I'm trying to add it, but there was an issue: |royal_anthem =
"God Save the Queen

Twillisjr (talk) 20:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

'God Save the Queen' has not been Australia's national anthem since 1984, when it was replaced by Advance Australia Fair, after a plebiscite to choose the National Song. Myk (talk) 06:00, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Unbeknownst to most Australians, it is indeed still the "royal anthem", used in the presence of the monarch when they come to visit (although this tradition may have fallen out of favour). However this has been discussed several times before and it was resolved each time not to put it on the information bar on the right hand side as "Advance Australia Fair" is the only widely known (or indeed, for the vast majority of Australians, the only known) anthem which is used in all situations except for Royal visits (not clear if god save the queen is still even used for these). Thus I would request you not to revisit the issue and attempt to add it again. Saruman-the-white (talk) 12:15, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Dental Care

On my last visit to Australia I noticed many Australians have very bad teeth. I have been told there is dental care in Australia. Maybe you should add it under health so people know why Australians have bad teeth.

Also, I found interesting the long (years and years) queues for social housing. That was in fact very shocking to me. Maybe you could aslo add this. Finally, I find the Australia article doesnt really represent the truth. It is more like a tourist brochure - only nice things are stated. I assume it is written moslty by the Australians... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 113.104.213.70 (talk) 11:25, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Are you sure that isn't something better suited for Health care in Australia? Are you sure it's also a national problem, or just an issue in a particular area (say, Redfern in Sydney)? Are you also sure that maybe the most notable points about Australia is that it's generally a nice place, and the articles spinning off from this main article go into more detail about the negative aspects? It is a big country after all and you could hardly expect one article to comprehensively detail every little detail. Comics (talk) 11:51, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Guys I'm Australian and I don't know anyone with bad teeth so don't add "they have bad teeth" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.184.110.246 (talk) 06:04, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm Australian and my teeth are terrible. I got a lot of fillings under the Commonwealth Dental Plan, but during treatment in 1999, Paul Keating lost the election to John Howard, and one of the first things John Howard's government did was to abolish the Commonwealth Dental Plan. This was, fortunately, just after I'd gotten a partial plate which really helped me attending job interviews (my front three teeth are missing). But I still needed more fillings. Since then, all the previous fillings have fallen out and I need more, but hey, some of my fillings are three or four surfaces and would cost maybe $300-400 each: overall we're talking many thousands of dollars, which might last five to eight years maximum. It's serious money taken on a national level, but I reckon it's something we need to aspire to. Mind you, whether we'd put this in a WP article is not something that I'd support. WP is not a blog. TheBustopher (talk) 01:28, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Australia got its independence from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Currently the infor box says Aust. got its indo. from the United Kingdom. I suggest this be amended to be "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|United Kingdom" (linked). Could some one make the small linking change. I am an IP editor and can't edit the article. 86.42.28.118 (talk) 22:41, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

The UK of G. Britain and Ireland ended in 1922 according to that article. The Statutes and Acts that granted independence to Australia were all passed after Ireland had become a dominion (and, later, sovereign nation of it's own) and the other country became the United Kingdom; the only act that could be seen as independence from the earlier country is the federation of Australia. What made you concerned about the link in the first place? Comics (talk) 23:51, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the first user in that the generally accepted date of independence cited in the vast majority of cases worldwide is 1901. Saruman-the-white (talk) 12:16, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

The proper article to link to is United Kingdom, not United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and it has nothing to do with what year you consider independence to have come in. Click on that second link, and you will see that it is not about a country. It begins, "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it." From that, which would imply the article is about the formal name, it turns into a history of Ireland from 1801 to 1922. An article about 121 years of Irish history is not a sensible one to which this article should link in noting the country it achieved its independence from. It is not as though the United Kingdom only came to be called that after separation with Ireland, so it is not as though using the current link would somehow be deceptive. You can add on top of that Comic master's point that 1901 didn't fully provide independence anyway. You can say that the "generally accepted date" is 1901, but even were that true (which I am not convinced of), what is generally accepted is not true. Independence came in stages, which is why the infobox lists four acts (and five dates). -Rrius (talk) 13:40, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Well it was not my suggestion so i do not care much either way, however using UK of GB and Irl would probably be more consistent as the US is listed as getting independence from "the Kingdom of Great Britain". I agree that independence was a process, however to back up the person who made the original suggestion I will say that if 1901 is taken as the key date in that process, which i believe it was (more important than stat. westminst., aust. act...), then the conventional and consistent practice would be to link to the UK of GB and Irl article, as the UK of GB and N.I. did not exist on that date. I will not change it myself, though, because it doesnt bother me much either way. Saruman-the-white (talk) 07:34, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the first user in that the generally accepted date of independence cited in the vast majority of cases worldwide is 1901. - Saruman, I'd like to see some sources, because it is certainly NOT the case that Federation in 1901 was seen at the time as anything like independence, and no reputable historian of the present day would describe it that way either. The 6 colonies chose to federate into a single polity, but the links to the "mother country" continued uninterrupted. They were even strengthened, because there were now 7 representatives of the queen, not 6. All appointments to Australian vice-regal offices were approved by the British government until Scullin's time in the early 1930s. That certainly doesn't sound like independence to me. When the UK declared war on Germany in 1939, Menzies made no separate declaration of a state of war between Australia and Germany; rather, he simply confirmed that the UK's declaration automatically applied to Australia. That certainly doesn't sound like independence to me. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 08:19, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

UTC Offset

I have just altered the UTC offsets from 10.5 in normal and 11.5 in Daylight saving to 10 and 11 which is the true status. I wonder why it was given as 10.5 and 11.5 in the first place? All the Eastern States are UTC +10 (and those with Daylight Saving go to 11 in summer). SA and NT are UTC +9.5 which is possibly where the confusion lies. In fact as far as I know there is NO time zone at all that's UTC +10.5. Vanuatu, Solomons and probably parts of Russia (etc) are +11 and New Zealand (etc) is +12. In fact SA/NT are quite unusual with a half-hour time zone: geographically they are well and truly UTC +9 - the borders line up really well with 120-135 degrees longitude but they've chosen to be only half an hour behind the Eastern states for "convenience" (and so are essentially on permanent 1/2 hr daylight saving - SA goes 1-1/2 hrs forward in summer!!). Anyway, I digress: can someone suggest why we had UTC +10.5/11.5 in there at all, or was it simply a misinterpretation of where South Australia is in the scheme of things?? TheBustopher (talk) 15:59, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

As I indicated in my reversion, this is explained at Time in Australia, as specified in the note for the timezones. Lord Howe Island uses UTC+10:30 during the winter months and Norfolk Island uses UTC+11:30 all year round. The article actually appears wrong in that it should specify (UTC+8 to +11.5) all year round. --AussieLegend (talk) 00:04, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I see: I have failed to consider external territories. I can see reasons for an against including external territories into consideration - I suppose those living on Norfolk of Lord Howe WOULD call themselves Australians. I wonder what time zones other countries are given in their WP pages? (eg Hawaii for USA or maybe Gibraltar for UK (examples off the top of my head - I'm sure a few other countries wil have external territories in far removed time zones)). Better have a look, but thanks for the explanation. TheBustopher (talk) 06:39, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Good heavens, I HAVE read Time in Australia, and given that we are including external territories here, what about Heard and McDonald Islands which is UTC +5 with no DST as the furthest of the range??? In summary it needs to be UTC+5 to UTC+11.5 if we are going to have regard to all external territories... TheBustopher (talk) 06:47, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Heard and McDonald Islands are unpopulated and a very long way from Australia so we really don't need to cater for them. --AussieLegend (talk) 09:25, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, people on Norfolk Island are often quite keen to not be considered Australians. Many are descended from the Bounty mutineers, who have had nothing to do with Australia historically. But it is part of the country, they use Australian currency and are supported in many ways by Australia, so the time zone should probably be considered an Australian one. HiLo48 (talk) 10:51, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

If we include Australian Antarctic Territory, I calculate the range starting at UTC +3 (45°E), although I notice that Time in Australia#External territories doesn't include this complete range - presumably because we don't have a station right on the edge. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:18, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Let's take a step back. First of all, Hawaii is as much a US state as California, so of course it is included in the range. Note that the Northern Marianas and U.S. Virgin Islands, both of which elect non-voting delegates to Congress, are not included in the range. Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands are not included in Britain's range, and France's various overseas departments aren't included at France. That said, the real question is how much the fact that Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island are populated and physically close to Australia matters versus the fact that their political position is significantly different from NT and the ACT. Mine own view is that it really doesn't matter because Australia's time zone situation is so complicated. -Rrius (talk) 12:55, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps a simple "Various" would suffice? I♦A 13:59, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

The population of Antarctica is negligible, and non-permanent (they get rotated after a few years max - I once knew a guy with the bureau of meteorology (hi Dave) who got rotated from Antarctica to Cairns - that's a bit of a contrast). So I think by the Heard and MacDonald Island principles outlined by AussieLegend above, we really need to eliminate Antarctica from consideration as well. However, the more I think about it, I think Norfolk and Lord Howe need to also come out of consideration, too. They are listed under 'anomolies' under the Time in Australia article. TheBustopher (talk) 01:09, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Australia has free tv (meaning not 3 commercial channels)

Hey, australia now has free tv (digital). The article says it has sbs, abc and 3 commercial channels. I live in Melbourne and we now have like 15 channels including sbs and abc, not to mention sbs 2 and 3 and abc 1,2 and 3!!!! Can someone fix this??!! 182.12.56.154 (talk) Kolin —Preceding undated comment added 17:11, 2 April 2012 (UTC).

Australia has always had free TV, in both analogue and digital form. Despite the plethora of channels available, I have 23 digital and 7 analogue here, they're all owned by one of public broadcasters or one of the three commercial networks so the article, which refers to networks and not channels, is correct. --AussieLegend (talk) 18:06, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

population density

In reference to the info box on the right side of the article, specifically: "- Density 2.8/km2, 7.3/sq mi"
A mile is longer than a kilometer, thus a square mile is bigger than a square kilometer. Consequently, should the density per square mile not be lower than the density per square kilometer? Of course I might misunderstand the intention of the data, any clarification is welcome. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.169.201.86 (talk) 10:36, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Think it through :) More people can fit in a square mile than in a square kilometre, so the density for a square mile will be bigger than that of a square kilometre. I♦A 10:40, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, there are 2.59 square kilometres in a square mile, so if there are 2.8 people per square kilometre, then there are 2.59 x 2.8, or 2.752 people per square mile. --AussieLegend (talk) 12:52, 4 April 2012 (UTC)