Talk:Australia

Australia a Continent???

This aritcle states that Australia is a continent. Forgive me for saying this, but there are only 7 continents in the world which consist of Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America, Antarctica, and Oceania. Therefore, Australia is not a continent and stating such in this article is false. Australia is nation within Oceania. --Yoganate79 (talk) 02:40, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Please see the first sentence of the Continent article and its supporting citation. Nick-D (talk) 02:44, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

As well as the numerous discussions about this very issue in the Talk page archives. Oceania is not a continent. It is a region. --AussieLegend (talk) 06:47, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Australia is the continent in the list you give, not Oceania, most of which is small island nations. --Dmol (talk) 08:01, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Having been involved in s similar discussion on this page, I'd like to suggest to Yoganate that he leaves it alone. "Continent" is a poorly defined term, which you can pretty much let mean what you want. So just let those editors continent themselves with their inaccuracy. Australians have been taught in school that "Australia is the largest island and the smallest continent", and pretty much everyone who edits this page believes that to be an important part of the red white and blue running through their veins. Leave alone that a goodly amount of what gets taught in school is bullshit: "Australia is the only place where marsupials are found" or "Australia was one of the first countries to have universal suffrage" occur immediately as examples. It appears to bother these editors not one whit that this argument leaves Tasmania, New Guinea, and most of Indonesia unattached to any continent. Moreover it appears to bother noone that this entire set of statements predates continental plate theory, Or that this statement was made as the protectorate of New Guinea was a part of Australia. One might as well write the whole article from the point of view of 1960s historians, with the noble attempts at integration of the poor abo kids into generous white families. However seeing as the statement about continents is absolutely unbased in any reality, and its just a throwaway line, its probably not worth it to argue over such a triviality. Except that its location in the first paragraph it gives the reader the impression that the scholarship for the whole article will be as slipshod. AKAF (talk) 15:10, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I remember you. You were the editor who claimed that the Australian Government's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website was an advertsing website and not a reliable source.[1] Welcome back and please remember, should you choose to present any arguments, rather than just attack the editors of this article and Australians in general, some civility will result in your comments gaining a better response than the incivility that you've just demonstrated. --AussieLegend (talk) 16:06, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Here's the truth about the government: they have departments whose purpose is to promote some aspect of Australia to the country and overseas (ie "Advertising", for some value of that word). And yes, the department of foreign affairs and trade is not a reliable reference for the same reason that an autobiography is not the authoritative guide to a person's life. In fact most government departments are not good references for an article about that department's government, and should be regarded as a primary source for the purposes of citing. So you'll excuse me if I find referencing such a site to be at best disingenuous. AKAF (talk) 08:18, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Australia is simply a country. If Australia was a continent, would it make sense to call Fiji, Australia? Oceania represents all of the countries while Australia usually implies to the country and if you use it as a continent, the other countries are not having their fair share of representation. For example, just because China is the biggest country (population wise) in Asia, doesn't mean you call the whole continent "China". Go to Australia (continent). On the map it shows only Australia highlighted. Now, go to Oceania. All of Oceania is highligted.--KRajaratnam1 (talk) 21:57, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree broadly with AKAF. Australia the Island is not the same as Australia the Nation (Commonwealth of Australia), which is also not the same as Australia the Continent. The Island is just that, the mainland only. It may be the world's largest, so the statement that "Australia is the world's largest island" is roughly correct, but more accurately would be better stated as "the Commonwealth of Australia contains the world's largest island". However the Nation is an 'artificial' (human-created political) division, which is the Island, plus Tasmania and smaller scattered islands - it is not the same as the Continent. The Continent would be the landmass including the Continental Shelf (ie) The Island, plus Tasmania, plus New Guinea (plus smaller surrounding islands). It is only happenstance that the Nation makes up (>80%) of the Continent. It is incorrect to state that the (Commonwealth of) Australia is the world's smallest (or anything) continent, as the Continent also includes the Nations of Papua New Guinea & (part of) Indonesia.

As for Oceania (or Australasia), these are also 'artificial' constructs, used to split the world into broad divisions, but Oceania is just a human-created division, rather than one that has any basis in geological features, or plate tectonics.

I can't be bothered to change the article, as I know someone will revert it within seconds, but maybe a paragraph under Geography could be added mentioning the conflicting viewpoints about the Nation's Island/Continent status, with references (there plenty supporting most viewpoints). The opening paragraph **should not** state that it is a Continent as an incontravertable fact, when this is heavily disputed.

As for Aussie people stating 'this is what I was taught in school', consider both the usage of the 'island continent' term as a lie-to-children and as a synecdoche. 'And we all know teachers can never be wrong, can they ? The Yeti (talk) 14:36, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Continent discussions - for future reference

Past "Is Australia a continent?" and "Australia is not a continent" discussions, and related topics, may be found at:

• Talk:Australia/Archive 3#In Australasia or only country in a continent
• Talk:Australia/Archive 3#Excessive categories
• Talk:Australia/Archive 4#The whole continent?
• Talk:Australia/Archive 5#Australia or its commonwealth
• Talk:Australia/Archive 6#Island
• Talk:Australia/Archive 8#Landmass
• Talk:Australia/Archive 13#Australia is not a continent
• Talk:Australia/Archive 14#Australia is the only continent occupied by a single country
• Talk:Australia/Archive 14#Is Australia a country or a continent?
• Talk:Australia/Archive 14#Australian Continent

I could have sworn it's been discussed more than that. --AussieLegend (talk) 09:15, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Not to mention virtually the entire Talk page here:

• Talk:Australia (continent). The Yeti (talk) 16:54, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

It really is quite sad that Australians are brainwashed and uneducated to think that their country is one of the classical continents found on earth. My question is, if Australia is considered a continent, then what continent does New Zealand belong to then? In any case, Greenland should also be classified as a continent then too. Let's classify Long Island, Cuba, Japan, and the British Isles their own continents too. --Yoganate79 (talk) 01:52, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me? Brainwashed and uneducated? How insulting! Bidgee (talk) 01:57, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Exactly australia has better education systems than america. At least we can go to school without getting shot.

Australia a continent yes but australia is the figurehead of australasia a.k.a. oceania new zealand, papua new guinea and that fall under that continent.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.171.106.175 (talk • contribs)

Australasia is not "a.k.a." Oceania, it's a region of Oceania. Neither are continents. --AussieLegend (talk) 09:16, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Countries do not have to belong to a continent. Sorting out which continent the Maldives is located would be tricky. Furthermore, Australia is not a third world country with a tyrannical government. It terms of public brainwashing and lack of education, I'd encourage you to visit someday, and see if your comment is justified. ∗ \ / (⁂) 11:46, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Continents are a matter of convention. In some countries, they count five continents: America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania. In the U.S., we use different definitions and count seven continents: North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica. Many nations do not consider Antarctica because it’s not a naturally populated region. Continents are a convention and one convention is as good as another. In the U.S. view, Australia (not Oceania) is a continent. Greenland, by the way, is considered an island and not part of any continent. —Stephen (talk) 23:23, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

remains a Commonwealth realm

Do Editors think it is appropriate to say in the opening para that Australia "remains a Commonwealth realm"? Shouldn't the article say Australia is a "constitutional monarchy" - as that term is used in the UK article and Canada's. This is being discussed on Talk:United Kingdom. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 11:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I support using the "Constitutional monarchy" description in the opening para:

1. Redking7 (talk) 11:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
2. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:25, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
3. Slac speak up! 04:52, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
4. --Michael Johnson (talk) 07:30, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
5. Night w (talk) 06:13, 22 April 2009 (UTC) (P.S. I also don't think it's a big deal).
6. [Insert your username here]

I support using the Commonwealth realm" description in the opening para

1. [Insert your username here]

Comments/Questions I need more detail in why should it be changed, whats more widely used (Commonwealth realm or Constitutional monarchy) in Australia (not just within the Commonwealth). Bidgee (talk) 11:52, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd also like to know why it should be changed. I should point out that Wikipedia works on consensus, not voting, so the polls here and at Talk:United Kingdom are premature. It's not appropriate to make a post on one article's talk page and declare consensus at another, which is what prompted Bidgee's reversion.[2] You need to actually discuss the issue before consensus can be reached and this particular matter needs to be discussed here. --AussieLegend (talk) 12:26, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Have a look at Talk:United Kingdom - its being discussed there too (more editors are involved on that page). Regards. Redking7 (talk) 21:59, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

The discussion at Talk:United Kingdom is about use at United Kingdom, not here. As I indicated on your talk page,[3] any consensus achieved at Talk:United Kingdom does not immediately become applicable here. You need to discuss the issue here, not there and explain why the change should occur here. --AussieLegend (talk) 01:19, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I support the reference. However, the purpose of it is to get across that when the colonies federated in 1901, the new country did not "go it alone" as a republic, but continued to be part of the Commonwealth (or Empire as it was then) and continued to acknowledge the British monarch as its monarch. It's also a constitutional monarchy of course, but maybe the purpose of this reference to Commonwealth realms could be spelled out a little more explicitly. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:52, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Constitutional monarchy is a widely understood term. Commonwealth realm is a term not used in Australia, is not widely understood, and is not as descriptive as constitutional monarchy. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:30, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but just saying it remained/became a constitutional monarchy could mean that it set up its own monarchy, distinct from the British monarchy. We need to communicate the continuity of Australia's allegiance to the British monarchy between pre-1901 and post-1901. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:51, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

What do the sources say? I'm and Australian, and I can't say that I've ever seen a description of Australia as being a 'Commonwealth realm'. A Google search of 'Australia Commonwealth realm' doesn't produce any reliable-looking sources in the first couple of pages of results ([4]), and the Queen's website states that "Australia is a constitutional monarchy with The Queen as Sovereign": [5], though Australia is in the drop down list of 'Commonwealth realms' at the top of the page. Nick-D (talk) 07:59, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Well I've found this (Paper crown when Charles takes reign) which seems to point that Australia is a Commonwealth realm but again I request for more detailed information with sources before I can make a decision. Bidgee (talk) 08:15, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Why can't both have a place in the lead? Here is a suggestion:

“ For around 40,000 years before European settlement commenced in the late 18th century, the Australian mainland and Tasmania were inhabited by around 250 individual nations of indigenous Australians. After sporadic visits by fishermen from the immediate north, and European discovery by Dutch explorers in 1606, the eastern half of Australia was claimed by the British in 1770 and initially settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales, founded on 26 January 1788. The population grew steadily in the following years; the continent was explored, and during the 19th century another five largely self-governing Crown Colonies were established. On 1 January 1901, the six colonies became a federation, and the Commonwealth of Australia was formed.

The Commonweath is a constitutional monarchy with strong liberal democratic traditions. As a Commonwealth realm, Australia's monarch is Elizabeth II. The population is just over 21.7 million, with approximately 60% concentrated in and around the mainland state capitals of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide. The nation's capital city is Canberra, located in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).

”

It is just one possibility. -Rrius (talk) 03:29, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree, I don't see why it should be a case of one or the other. I think your suggestion is an excellent way of incorporating both truths. --AussieLegend (talk) 03:44, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

For the information of RedKing, "Commonwealth Realm" is a *very* infrequently used term in Australia, even in constitutional law circles (my constitutional law textbook didn't mention it once). "Constitutional monarchy" is vastly more common; I would even go so far to say that this is an imported Canadism, like "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition" (never used in any official context in Australia). Slac speak up! 02:27, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

We are, nevertheless, both things. We're a constitutional monarchy because we're governed by a constitution and we have a monarch (regardless of who that monarch is); but because the monarch happens to be Elizabeth II, we're also a Commonwealth realm. Not all constitutional monarchies are Commonwealth realms, but all Commonwealth realms are constitutional monarchies. -- JackofOz (talk) 05:13, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Well Australia is many things, but we don't have to include them all in the opening paragraph. Commonwealth realm may be an accurate description, but it is not one that strikes me as being commonly used in relation to Australia. I'm not fussed, but I can't see the point of including it. --Michael Johnson (talk) 07:30, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

It may not be particularly often used in Australia, but if we write the article using only terms that are frequently used in Australia, it would be of less value to international readers. There seems little point in having an article called Commonwealth realm without mentioning - not just in that article but also in this one - that Australia is such an animal. -- JackofOz (talk) 12:06, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Can't it just say ...maintained a stable liberal democracy and a constitutional monarchy within the Commonwealth. (or something similar and better phrased)? Why not use both terms and get rid of that vague "political system" term? Night w (talk) 06:20, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

citation needed

The article is currently a FA, but how come it still has [citation needed] templates in a few sections? Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 09:04, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Because it is a high visibility article that is edited by a hell of a lot of people, making it difficult to maintain at FA standard for any length of time. This was featured in June 2005. It probably doesn't deserve to be featured now. Hesperian 01:22, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

The FA criteria probably wasn't as strict back then. Although I must admit I was a bit surprised when i saw that is was a FA. Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 09:41, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

What about removing the info? That normally sparks a reaction - hopefully to find the cite. --Merbabu (talk) 23:01, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Well there's a thought! Never thought about it that way. Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 09:56, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Category "Liberal democracies"

I think there is no more absolute consensus that Australia is a liberal democracy beacuse of strict Internet censorship. Therefore I will remove this article from category Category:Liberal democracies. —ilaiho (talk) 17:53, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

User:AussieLegend undid my edit, saying there is only one censored website. According to some recent news and that Wikipedia article, I have understood that there is much more irresponsible censorship than "one censored website". Anyway, this categorization is not very important for me. —ilaiho (talk) 17:07, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand all censor the internet, and remain on the category Category:Liberal democracies. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:05, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The idea that the government's censorship regime disqualifies Australia as a liberal democracy is absurd (as much as I may detest its planned internet filter scheme). Plenty of liberal democracies have more stringent censorship than Scandinavian countries (in fact, most do). Slac speak up! 04:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, the ludicrous internet filtering proposal is currently a trial and is not (yet) an actual reality. Secondly, as the article on Liberal democracy points out, all such political structures do contain specific limits on specific freedoms. Every liberal democracy contains some internet restrictions on (for example) child pornography. As the article on the topic makes clear, the core of a liberal democracy is not any particular social law but the citizens elective rights, including free and fair elections and a competitive political system. Euryalus (talk) 09:47, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

How can a country with the Queen as a state head be a democracy??? And liberal??? Sorry but it doesn't work together. Monarchy is not a democracy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.69.27.220 (talk) 06:22, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Australia is a representative democracy. The head of state is the queen, represented by the govenor general. however australia remains a democracy because we elect our parliamentarians, and our executive government is formed by elected parliamentarians, and the governor general acts on the advice of our elected officials - hence, democracy. The simple "monarchy cannot be a democracy" is absurd. Perhaps you are suggesting that the UK, Canada, New Zealand are also in the list of non-democracies? Yili2943 (talk) 07:38, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Demography

Under the demography section, the information that only 70 aboriginal languages still exist is incorrect. According to the 2005 Ethnologue, which is the most authoritative linguistics survey, there are 280 recorded aboriginal languages, 238 still spoken and 42 extinct. I don't know how to change this since the article is protected. Also, there is no source for the claim that an indigenous language is the main language for 50,000 people. Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/. Claritarejoice (talk) 17:55, 23 March 2009 (UTC) Claritarejoice

Australia Interactive Map

I suggest the Link below containing Google Interactive Map of Australia . http://www.all-maps.info/2009/03/australia-map.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kewaga (talk • contribs) 14:20, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Business Address?

Can you please add Australia's business address to this article. It is 1601 MASSACHUSETTS AVE NW C/O AUSTRALIAN EMBASSY WASHINGTON DC 20036 and Australis's company number is 0000805157. Source - http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-idea?CIK=0000805157&action=getcompany

Umm, no, I don't think so. --Michael Johnson (talk) 01:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that Australia is also well known as the ' Down Under ' and the ' Wide Brown ' . Lejon (talk) 04:49, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Never heard of Wide Brown. Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 09:57, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

What are they teaching kids at school these days?

I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of drought and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror

The wide brown land for me!

If you say you've never heard of that..... --AussieLegend (talk) 10:31, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I think you're emphasising the wrong part of the poem. 'Sunburnt country' is the common rhetoric. E.g Sunbeam, Sunblest are all traditional Australian business icons. No such thing as Brownbeam toasters or Brownblest bread. Yili2943 (talk) 07:40, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea, but maybe we should post it to America's business address. Um, what's the US' business address? The US business address is being moved to Shanghai, right?--Merbabu (talk) 10:35, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Nah, it's somewhere in Calcutta. -Rrius (talk) 12:34, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Except that they've moved it lock stock and barrel to some place called Kolkata, apparently. Just don't tell the Yanks.  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 09:16, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Australia?Austria?

Maybe we should put a

Not to be confused with Austria.

here.People often make such mistake.Especially non-English native user like me.囧--半弯不直男 (talk) 13:54, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Developed country?

The statement: "Technologically advanced and industrialised, Australia is a prosperous multicultural country and has good results in many international comparisons of national performance such as health care, life expectancy, quality-of-life, human development, public education, economic freedom, and the protection of civil liberties and political rights." is quite misleading.

First - Australia has very poor internet network comparing to many countries in the world. Secondly, a country with slow and in some instances still not electrified trians cannot be technologically advanced. Industraliazed also is misleading - a country that is predominantly a primary producer, that doesn't manufacture even one bicycle, TV etc - cannot be called industrialized.

Multicultural? - just because there are many migrants - it doesn;t mean it is multicultural - when de facto it is an English colony which enforces English language at schools and English way of life.

Freedom with internet censorship cannot coexist. Democracy while still monarchy? Do you remember Whitlam Government??? Is this a democracy when the monarch can dissolve a government within one day????

Health care with long queues to emergecy units, and long queues for basic public health services such as dentist (usually people wait 2-3 years) is not at the top of the world.

Life expectancy - especially is local Aboriginal communities is very low.

Human development - still no bill of rights.

Public education - very low, no foreign languages at school, ranking very low in maths among other countries.

Hope you can amend this sentence and be true about Australia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.129.17.160 (talk) 01:45, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Woah--where do you live??? Australia has a higher percentage of Internet users per capita than Japan, the UK, the US, France... AWA Limited manufactures televisions and, I don't know about bicycles, but haven you ever heard of Holden?

The government doesn't enforce English culture--freedom of religion and society is guaranteed in the constitution and you only have to walk down a city street to notice multiculturalism. I live down the road from a mosque. And just because the GovGen can exercise dismissal powers (that have only ever been used in an emergency), doesn't mean she can impose direct rule--the people choose the government. On the Democracy Index, Australia is ranked among the top 10 most democratic countries in the world (alongside seven other monarchies) by The Economist.

I don't know where you line up for your health care provider, but is it not free? It's very expensive in most countries. Check this research, which ranks Australia's health care system above that of both Canada and the US. As for average life expectancy, Australia is ranked 5th by the UN. So it's not low "especially" in Aboriginal communities, just specifically in those communities.

Did you go to the "Developed country" page before you Wikilinked it for this section's title? Australia is ranked 4th...

We don't live in the Dark Ages down here...but I think you knew that, and were just ranting. If you're not happy with the level of freedom and development in Australia, then move to Scandinavia. Oh...but they're all monarchies....

Night w (talk) 07:29, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Anon commenter, it might help to consider issues of geography. Australia has about the same population as Sweden, Denmark, and Norway combined, spread across roughly ten times the land area. This has a lot of influence on what's practical for infrastructure projects (e.g. rail and communications). --GenericBob (talk) 23:49, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

[removed remainder of thread, which had ceased to be even tenuously related to how to improve the article. Hesperian 04:42, 24 April 2009 (UTC)]

ref improve or remove

The following three lines are from the article:

• Australia willingly participated in World War I. [Ref: Bean, C. Ed. (1941). Volume I - The Story of Anzac: the first phase, First World War Official Histories, Eleventh Edition.]

Not supported by linked page, is Bean 1941 the reference? Conscription suggests that the inhabitants of 'Australia' were less enthusiastic!

• Many Australians regard the defeat of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs) at Gallipoli as the birth of the nation—its first major military action. ["Rudd angered by Gallipoli remarks". BBC News. 1 November 2008. Retrieved 2 November 2008.]

This swiped text is from a BBC article that contrasts the views of a former Prime Minister with the current one. Should we add ",... and many don't"?

• The Kokoda Track Campaign is regarded by many as an analogous nation-defining event during World War II.

Uncited! Analogous?

– cygnis insignis 05:33, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I added the appropriate cites from the recent scholarship, especially for Kakoda see Hank Nelson, 'Gallipoli, Kokoda and the Making of National Identity', J of Australian Studies online Rjensen (talk) 14:03, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

More likely, WP:FAR YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 05:35, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the 3 dot points. I also suspect that FAR may be in order. The risk is that once the FA status is questioned or removed, attempts to improve it could go the other wasy - ie, all bets are off and nothing is sacred. As major changes to the culture section over the last few months suggested, I suspect the article could lapse into a state of even less quality. At least the current FA status is a way to hold off decrease in article quality. Hmmmm --Merbabu (talk) 06:35, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I disagree will all three dot points.

• Supporting participation in the war and supporting conscription are two entirely separate issues. It is possible, and indeed highly likely than many people who opposed conscription (including servicing soldiers who voted) still supported Australia's participation in the war, with volunteer enlistment. This is neither contradictory or unusual. The war effort was popular and bipartisan and tested through elections. Casting Australia as an unwilling participant is historical revisionism. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 01:27, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
• No, the fact that "many don't" is obvious from the "Many Australians..." rather than "Most Australians..." or All Australians ..." This is nit-picking.
• The Kokoda campaign was put forward by Keating as an new and better "Gallipoli" Sources for this should be easy to find. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 01:27, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Let's not go too FAR :) There are many fine editors active there, but this is a the top priority article for a wikiproject with some of the best. cygnis insignis 13:09, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, if preventative action is taken it will be all fine and dandy, like when I pre-emptively referenced flag of Australia last year. There is a problem that if people make a lot of ad hoc edits the prose can become disjointed likke a list of trivia though. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 01:13, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

anon edits

it seems every single one needs to be reverted because of vandalism. can we get this page locked again? Rehumanist (talk) 12:58, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Sporting Achievements

How about a section on Australia's many Sporting Achievements?

Also mention at the top of the article: Australia is a prosperous multicultural country and has excellent results in many international comparisons of national performance such as...

For such a small population they do extremely well and their culture is very sport orientated.

Esp:

Cricket (incl first team to beat England)

Olympics

Tennis (incl first to win all grand slams in one year)

Swimming

Rugby —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.16.182.28 (talk) 22:53, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Using words like prosperous, excellent and they do extremely well should not be used in an encyclopedia. If your idea is taken up only the facts should be put forward and whether it is deemed to be excellent or not is left up to the reader. Jack forbes (talk) 23:00, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Biology

Little/nothing is noted on the iology of Australia. I suggest the following be noted:- Kraft, G.T. 2007. Algae of Australia: Marine Benthic Algae of Lord Howe Island nd the Southern Great Barrier Reef, 1. Green Algae. ABRAS, Canberra, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, Australia. ISBN 9780643094421.Osborne 16:45, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Untitled

Ethnic groups listed wrongly. latest census states 3.5% aboriginal and 11% asian. also states other groups not listed. change it or remove it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.104.142.162 (talk) 09:27, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Do you have a citation from a reliable source? --AussieLegend (talk) 09:49, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Ethnic Groups

the ethnic groups listed at the side of the page are incorrect according to the latest census. it states that aboriginals make up 3.5%, asians make up 11% white 84.5% and other 1%. change it please!!! or remove it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.104.142.162 (talk) 04:28, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

You have stated something very similar previously (see above) and I asked you then if you had a citation from a reliable source so that we could use it to change the information but so far you haven't provided one. There's not much that can be done until your claim can be verified.

Please note that when adding new sections to talk pages you should add the section to the end, not the beginning of the talk page. --AussieLegend (talk) 05:03, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Seconding AL's comments. 3.5% Aboriginal is way over the ABS estimate (2.6% IIRC), so you're definitely going to need a good source for this one. --GenericBob (talk) 07:12, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

The updated stats are even worse. I don't know where the CIA got that information from but anyone who lives in Australia knows that the population is far more diverse than that. Unfortunately I have no supportive material or alternate statistics. The 'other' category should not mention 'Aboriginals' as the majority of 'other' nationalities are sure to be of Italian, Eastern European etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.243.128.239 (talk) 03:16, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

cite: http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/bb8db737e2af84b8ca2571780015701e/636F496B2B943F12CA2573D200109DA9?opendocument 10.8% asian, 2.6% aboriginal, 1.9% other (mixed race) , european/australian 81.2% ... (aboriginal stat on en.wikipedia.org/wiki/indigenous_australians) other ethnicities from census link above. change please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ajnprior (talk • contribs) 06:42, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm looking at that page and I can't find anywhere on it that gives figures of "10.8% Asian", "81.2% European/Australian", or "1.9% other (mixed race)". We had a long discussion a few months back about the pitfalls of trying to derive such figures from the published data - see Talk:Australia/Archive_14 for the details. --GenericBob (talk) 11:04, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

what i did there is added up all the asian countries under the asian heading, added up all the european countries + the "australian" ethnic group. you see there are not totals, i simply added the ethnicities under asian eg chinese, korean and added the groups under european eg. australian, british, italian... etc etc..

i have edited it using these stats by which i have added up the euro, asian, etc countries (we can tell what ethnic group each country is counted as because they come under those headings eg. asian on the page) and used these, as well as taking the 2006 census figure on aboriginal population (seen on page for australian abooriginies (and referenced). this 2006 census data which i used to add it up is surely much more reliable than this 10 year old rough estimate by CIA factbook which is not backed up at all by the census data. i am of course talking about the reported ethnic groups table right at the bottom of the page http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/bb8db737e2af84b8ca2571780015701e/636F496B2B943F12CA2573D200109DA9?opendocument .. and i have combined the middle eastern and asian ethnicities together when adding, to fit in with the other countries and CIA stats, where middle eastern is lumped in with asians. the atat for aboriginals can be accessed by simply going to the bureau of statistics site, and typing "australia" into 2006 census data quickstats. it is also referenced in the aboriginal article.

please do not change these figures as they come from the recent census data, and are clearly a lot more accurate than the rough estimations made by CIA and have been the same in their factbook for at least 9 years. thankyou.

You have been informed more than once about the consensus, and the reasons for that consensus. Synthesis of this type is not allowed in Wikipedia, and is mathematically doubtful in any case. Further discussion is in the archives which are linked above. AKAF (talk) 14:26, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, it's not an "ethnic groups" table, it's an "ancestry" table - as has been discussed previously (see archive), the ABS identifies ancestry as only one of several factors that determine ethnicity.

Second... "european/australian 81.2%... i have added up the euro, asian, etc countries" - are you sure that's what you did? That table lists Australian at 37.1%, English 31.6%, Irish 9.1%, and Scottish 7.6% - just those four add to more than 82% even before you look at the smaller groups. If you check the archives, or just read the footnotes on that table, you may see why this approach isn't valid (and why adding up the 'Asian' categories also doesn't work). --GenericBob (talk) 09:55, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Hello, I would like to also state that shouldn't it be European instead of White cause of the fact even the police force in Australia uses the term European instead of White now why can't it be changed in the ethnic group fact on the Australia page rather

Cymruman (talk) 07:58, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

The source specifically states "white" and that's what we've agreed to use. --AussieLegend (talk) 08:20, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Multi-Cultist

For over a decade multicultist doctrine has came under increasing criticism from may parts of Australian society.

for example:

Andrew Robb, then Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, told a conference in November 2006 that some Australians worried the term "multicultural" had been transformed by interest groups into a philosophy that put "allegiances to original culture ahead of national loyalty, a philosophy which fosters separate development, a federation of ethnic cultures, not one community". He added: "A community of separate cultures fosters a rights mentality, rather than a responsibilities mentality. It is divisive. It works against quick and effective integration."

The Australian citizenship test commenced in October 2007 for all new citizens between the ages of 18 and 60.

Plans have been brought in for a English language test.

In January 2007 the Howard Government removed the word "multicultural" from the name of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, changing its name to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

Therefore, to simply state in this article that Australia is pro multicultist is completely out of date with the facts of today. I believe some mention of the changing of attitudes (including governments) to the theory must be included here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.114.32.252 (talk) 13:00, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Misspelled word in the politics section

Seeing as that I cannot edit this article, I'd like to point out that at the bottom of the politics section, in the last sentence, "enrollment" is misspelled. NavJ7 (talk) 01:25, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Wiktionary says that 'enrolment' is the correct spelling in UK English, so I'm guessing that that is the correct spelling in Australian English as well, which this article should use per WP:ENGVAR. AlexiusHoratius 01:30, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Well according to my Australian spell checker it's enrolment. Bidgee (talk) 01:54, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

The Australian Electoral Commission spells it "enrolment" too.[6] Euryalus (talk) 04:37, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Largest Island - what about Antartica?

I'm slightly nervous about asking this after the continent debate, but if Australia is an Island Continent, why isn't Antartica? In which case, isn't Antartica a larger island? Apepper (talk) 21:37, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Antarctica isn't a single island. Underneath the ice covering Antarctica is a number of smaller islands. According to the Antarctica article, the area of the land masses is only 280,000 km² (110,000 sq mi). --AussieLegend (talk) 22:54, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

It's more than that - that figure of 280,000 km² (2% of the total listed area) refers to ice-free land, i.e. the relatively small parts of landmass where you can see rock. Most of the landmass above sea level is covered by ice and so not included in that figure. Eyeballing this plot, I'd hazard a guess that somewhere about a half to a third of the total (14 million km²) is land above sea level. Most of that above-sea-level area is contiguous but not all, so the largest single landmass would still be a bit smaller than mainland Australia. Which is still smaller than mainland North-and-South America and Africa/Eurasia, both of which could technically be considered islands, but I guess we have to stop somewhere.

On a side note, besides the issue of ice and islands, map projection issues can also make Antarctica look bigger than it is - cylindrical projections are probably the most popular way to create rectangular maps, and they perform very badly near the poles. --GenericBob (talk) 00:33, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - that explains it; I feel a little relieved! 12:58, 3 June 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.84.106.37 (talk)

If Australia is an island, then why aren't the Americas or the combined landmass of Eurasia and Africa? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.233.84.84 (talk) 11:15, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

It's a "world's tallest midget" thing. --GenericBob (talk) 02:41, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Racism

I think it is time to open new section about 'Racism' in Australia. We have enough of data by now and it is clear it's an important part. We should list the White Policy, Aboriginal Stolen Generations, Extermination of the Aboriginals in Tasmania, Killing of Chinese in Gold Rush time, Cronulla Beach Riots, recent Attacks on Indians etc and talk in general about the dominination of the Anglo-saxons (government) and systematic marginalization of non-Anglo-saxon migrants in Australia. What do you think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Homo hi (talk • contribs) 00:29, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Interesting that a post about racism singles out "Anglo-Saxons". Every country has its racists, Anglo Saxon or whoever, but that does not equate to a racist country. Further I think that generic bob's post below sums up the problems with the above suggestion very well.--Merbabu (talk) 06:40, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia. We already have an entire category of articles on Racism in Australia, and within that category you will find articles on all the topics you mention. And without trying to downplay the seriousness of recent events, what is particularly special about Australia in this respect? I think you could find similar, and indeed in many cases more serious incidents in pretty much any country you want to look at. --Michael Johnson (talk) 01:03, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Before getting into this, I'd strongly encourage reading WP:SYNTH - if you're new here (or even if you're not), this is something of a tricky area, and it's very easy to end up putting a lot of work into something that doesn't follow WP's rules on 'original research'. In brief, if you want to say something like "Incident A and Incident B demonstrate a pattern of systematic racism in Australia", it's not enough just to produce sources to show that those two incidents happened - you need to find a reliable source that draws that particular conclusion from those two incidents. (And if there's a substantial weight of reliable sources that disagree with that conclusion, that also needs to be noted.) You might look at individual dots and think they look like an elephant, but WP is not the place to join those dots. --GenericBob (talk) 02:24, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

In addition to the category mentioned above, we already have a separate article - Racism in Australia. It could do with some work, but as its specifically focused on the topic you're interested in its probably the right place for you to start. Euryalus (talk) 03:20, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Maybe a section on "Racism in Australia" maybe bit of a push right now, but certainly a section of "Race Relations in Australia" is well justified given the long history of race issues in Australia along with recent events (although somewhat isolated) of racist violence in Australia. 71.198.231.7 (talk) 07:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• Write a draft in a sandbox or as a subpage of this talk page first? Tony (talk) 06:37, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• Tony's right. If you don't know how to make a subpage then click on this link to start the subpage. AKAF (talk) 05:49, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

"How could a society which would like to think of itself as civilised allow a human being to be transported in the way that this man was". Thus wrote the coroner in reference to the horrendous death last year of the aboriginal man at the hands of the WA prison system. Last night's Four Corners leaves no doubt in my mind that a section on Racism in Australia is required. Tony (talk) 18:07, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Population

The population stats in the infobox, are quite wrong. The actual number is more than 21,800,000 rather than the 21,700,000 number which is stated on the page. Australia is also ranked 53rd in the world rather than 51st as also stated.

Shows that Australia has the 53rd highest population

Shows the current estimated population of Australia

I am going to change Australia's rank from 51st to 53rd but I would recommed that the actual population is changed by someone else (besides me). De Mattia (talk) 01:09, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

The population figure that you're speaking of is not the actual population. As is indicated next to the figure, it's only a "2009 estimate". As can be seen by the citation provided with the figure, it's an estimate as of 28 March 2009. The reason that it is now over 21.8 million is that the population increases by about 1 person every (as of now) 84 seconds. When the estimate was provided it was increasing by 1 person every 90 seconds. Even the 21.8 million figure is not an actual figure, it's only an estimate. --AussieLegend (talk) 01:33, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

So shall we leave it as 'Australia 53rd highest population and then just leave the current population as it is'. De Mattia (talk) 02:41, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Listing Australia as the "n'th highest population" should ideally be sourced to a reliable source that states that ranking, not by comparing the figures for different countries in Wikipedia - some will be more up-to-date than others, and they may not all be calculated using the same definitions, so comparing stats from Wikipedia is unreliable. --GenericBob (talk) 14:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Why the navbox on monarchies?

I'm baffled as to why the mostly useful links in the navbox at the bottom are bloated by a humungous tree of links to the world's monarchies. This does not concern whether one is an Australian monarchist or not; rather, it's a matter of dilution by irrelevant material. Why, I ask you, are we speciallly linked to countries such as Kuwait, Brunei and Swaziland, just because they happen to have "monarchies" of a sort (although totally different from our constitutional monarchy). I see a link to the "Monarchies" category at the very bottom, too. Why is that not enough?

I suggest that we remove the elaborate, unnecessary navbox bloat. Any objections? Tony (talk) 12:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

The navboxes are collapsed for me, leaving the only direct link the one you mention at the bottom of the page. The box you are talking about is inside two layers of collapse, meaning that I would really want to have exactly that information to click on it. Are they not collapsing correctly for all browsers? AKAF (talk) 13:14, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, AKAF. My point is: why is it there in the first place? There's a category link at the bottom. Apart from the clutter and lack of relevance, there's the issue that it may convey the message that the monarchies of Kuwait, Brunei, Swaziland, Thailand, Denmark, etc, are similar to the Australian situation. They are not. Why are we making such a big deal out of this false relationship? Tony (talk) 13:22, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

For me the whole lot of navboxes takes up approximately the same space as one point item of the bibliography. I don't think the map of the english-speaking world is worth much either, and that takes about the same amount of space. The members of the commonwealth, or English-speaking countries or members of Oceania are also dissimilar in many ways to Australia, so why particularly the box on monarchies? I won't defend any of the navboxes, but I can't get too excited about it. AKAF (talk) 17:46, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

• It's not space, it's relevance and the potential to mislead. Tony (talk) 06:36, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Australia is a monarchy so a navbox listing monarchies seems relevant and I don't see how it's misleading. If you really want to get rid of it, nominate the navbox for deletion. --AussieLegend (talk) 07:14, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

What is the relevance with the Kuwaiti and Swaziland monarchies? Why is that not misleading, if not downright irrelevant? Tony (talk) 07:16, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

The relevance is that they are monarchies. As the name implies it's a navigation box, used to allow easy navigation between articles with some commonality. The relevance here is not necessarily to Australia, it's to monarchies. You need to look at the big picture and not limit your view to how another article relates to Australia. You need to also look at how Australia relates to other articles. --AussieLegend (talk) 07:50, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, while we're at it, let's have a list of continents paraded in the navbox; and a list of countries in which there are endemic marsupials (a few in South America, I believe). And a list of countries in which traffic is driven on the left; and of federal jurisdications; and .... Tony (talk) 13:24, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I once ran for federal parliament and one potential voter expressed concern that the current MP had helped some chicken farmers employ some Korean chicken sexers because the locals were incredibly inept at the job. He argued that if we let in Korean chicken sexers then we could find ourselves flooded with Korean bus drivers, Korean pizza delivery boys, Korean doctors and so on. Well, no, that wasn't going to happen then and what you've suggested won't happen here. There are degrees. A country being a monarchy is somewhat more significant that what you seem to think could be the case. --AussieLegend (talk) 13:52, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• False analogy: the Korean chicker sexers were useful. A monarchy section is misleading. You haven't responded to my question concerning the relevance of the Kuwaiti monarchy to Our Lovely Queen. Tony (talk) 14:48, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

There's no monarchy section involved. We're talking about a hidden monarchy navbox and who said that the Kuwaiti monarchy has to be relevent to your lovely queen? As I said, you need to look at the big picture. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:04, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Look at the big picture and ignore the details? Prescription for sloppy writing at the level of the clause? Tony (talk) 15:36, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

You've missed the point. As I stated earlier, you shouldn't limit your view to how another article relates to Australia. You need to also look at how Australia relates to other articles. If there is a navbox that is in the articles of the other countries that are monarchies, it's reasonable for that navbox to also be here. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:50, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Royal anthem

Remove royal anthem from right hand box? it is not any longer in use since the year 1976 and i cannot think of one australian who is aware of such an anthem. put it back as a footnote as it was before. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ajnprior (talk • contribs) 06:44, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

The Royal Anthem is only used on certain occasions but it is used and while you may have known anyone who knows it, there are a lot of people who do. I'm one of them. --AussieLegend (talk) 07:08, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

AL, whether you use it is immaterial; what matters is its relevance to the infobox. Is it used, then, when a state governor or the governer-general is in attendance? Tony (talk) 07:14, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I never said that I used it. I said it is used. Its relevance is that it's an official anthem of Australia. Excluding it is misleading because it gives the impression that we only have one anthem. We don't. We have two and the story of how Advance Australia Fair replaced God Save the Queen as the national anthem is an important part of Australian history. --AussieLegend (talk) 08:03, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

This is an old discussion and the consensus then was to leave it out. Putting it in essentially gives it equal prominence with the National Anthem (as one of the first bits of info in the article). This is undue weight and was excluded for that reason. Indeed, that is why the note (N1) is there. --Merbabu (talk) 08:09, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank god for that. Tony (talk) 08:47, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

While there are no doubt Australian groups or individuals who sing "God Save the Queen" as part of ceremonial events or organisational meetings, I cannot think of any official (ie. government) occasion that it is used. Can anyone else?

In the absence of any official use, it should certainly be removed from the infobox as its presence implies a status it doesn't have. The story of the transition to Advance Australia Fair is indeed worth recording, but in the main body of the article or at Advance Australia Fair. -- Euryalus (talk) 09:38, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I believe God save the Queen was used at the last Royal visit but I can't find a source to back it up. This explains more http://www.dfat.gov.au/facts/nat_anthem.html Bidgee (talk) 09:51, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• "While there are no doubt Australian groups or individuals who sing "God Save the Queen" as part of ceremonial events or organisational meetings"—five-minute soft roll on the kettle-drum while they stand up in their zimmer frames? Tony (talk) 10:02, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Some of the comments above demonstrate an amazing lack of understanding as to the purpose and use of the royal anthem. The royal anthem is reserved for use on occasions where a member of the royal family is present. When the Queen is present at an official engagement the royal anthem is played at the beginning and the national anthem is played at the end. At all other occasions the national anthem is played. The reason that we don't see God Save the Queen performed more is simply because the Queen isn't here that often. If she did decide to frequent Australia more you'd hear it a lot more. Despite the infrequency of use of God Save the Queen, both songs have equal status as Australia's anthems. --AussieLegend (talk) 10:37, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, to a point. Per the reference Bidgee gives above, God Save the Queen (GSTQ) is the Royal Anthem and played at public engagements at which a member of the Royal Family is present. This is arguably the same courtesy displayed to any head of state (if the Russian president flew in for a cermeony, no doubt the Russian national anthem would be played), but GSTQ's designation of "Royal Anthem" is indeed backed by the source.

However the same source makes clear the two anthems do not have equal status - one is the national anthem of Australia and the other is for once-in-a-decade use to mark the physical presence of the monarch or family. The source cannot reasonably be construed to suggest GTSQ is an equal alternative in Australian national life to Advance Australia Fair.

So the argument about the infobox becomes a slightly different one - does recording both anthems give the false perception they are both natonal anthems of Australia? Does it give undue weight to the comparatively minor role GTSQ plays in Australian national life or ceremony? I don't personally have a strong view on this, but if inclusion of GTSQ in the infobox would mislead readers we should leave it out. If consensus is people will readily understand the role and context of a Royal anthem, then by all means put it in. Euryalus (talk) 10:52, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

The proclamation issued by then Governor-General Sir Ninian Stephen on 19 April 1984 gave neither song any greater status than the other. It merely stated when each was to be used and clarified the wording of the new national anthem. One could easily argue that the royal anthem has a greater status because it is only to be used on "special" occasions, but claiming that either has a higher status than the other is original research. I should probably point out that I am a long time Advance Australia Fair supporter. I used to get into trouble at school when I wouldn't stand for God Save the Queen because I believed that Adance Australia Fair should be our national anthem. I'm a little biased towards that song because a letter from P.D. McCormick to my grandfather, explaining how he came to write Advance Australia Fair, is part of the national collection in the National Library but here I have to be neutral and being neutral means accepting that neither song has a greater status than the other. One is the national anthem for everyday use (just like the old clunker that you use to pick up the kids from school and get the groceries) while the other is the royal anthem, reserved for special occasions (like the Lamborghini that you only trot out on weekends), but neither is more important than the other. --AussieLegend (talk) 11:21, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Let me get this right: the horse-woman—Camilla Hyphen Thingo—puts on a flying visit to the colonies, and out comes God Save the Queen. Yes? Tony (talk) 13:21, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I can see where you're going with this. Nice try but you might care to note that the song is titled "God Save the Queen", not "God Save Crapzilla". It's about the position, not the person. I asume that if Miss Universe was a member of the royal family you'd have less problems. --AussieLegend (talk) 13:46, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Fewer problems? ... I see that God Save Our Lovely Queen (which is a hymn, not a song) rears its head only when a member of the royal family is present; not when the very officers who constitutionally represent OLQ are present. There's something very strange about insisting on its flashing-light appearance right up in the infobox under the national anthem, as though it's as significant. Tony (talk) 14:53, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

"God Save Our Lovely Queen "? I think you're losing sight of the neutral position that you should be trying to maintain. --AussieLegend (talk) 14:59, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Her name is Camilla Parker-Bowles (or, now I check that article, it was until 2005 when she married Charles). I don't care either way how we indicate the status of GSTQ, but arguments along the lines of "ha ha look at the horsey woman with the funny name" belong in the playground, not here. --GenericBob (talk) 00:40, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I have no objections to the Royal Anthem not being in the infobox, because for 99.99% of the time it may as well not exist, so it really is undue weight. But Aussie Legend is spot on with his facts about its formal designation and how it came about. I'm surprised we all seem to have forgotten so quickly the controversy over its use at the opening ceremony of the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, which the Queen attended. The games organisers decided that Advance Australia Fair and only that song would be sung (by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa). Many people including John Howard had a problem with this, as they considered it was disrespectful to the Queen given that the Royal Anthem was available and was supposed to be used for precisely this sort of occasion. In the end, a few bars of it were sung, then the music morphed into AAF - see [7]. But that was probably the last time it was sung in Australia at any kind of public event. Who knows, it might be the last ever. -- JackofOz (talk) 03:54, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Nope, the Oodnawhosiwhatsit Senior Citizen's Association stand (Jaffa spillages notwithstanding) and belt it out weekly in front of a pic of Her Maj. It will live on. Tony (talk) 05:28, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

On reflection I support including it in the infobox. A quick flick through similar articles listed here shows the Royal Anthem is recorded in the infobox for many nations, and there does not seem to be widespread confusion about what it means. Some are considerably more obscure than God Save the Queen, but their listing nonetheless tells us something notable about the country concerned. This use is precisely why the infobox contains a Royal Anthem field - if there is opposition to the inclusion of Royal Anthems due to on undue weight, surely the correct course is to amend the infobox template itself to achieve a universal rule, rather than removing it from this article alone.

I appreciate that others see this differently - at present there seems not to be consensus either way, so new opinions are more than welcome. Euryalus (talk) 05:44, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

A bit off the point but I never found out who Elizabeth actually was at the Commonwealth Games - was she there as the Queen of the UK , the Queen of Australia or as the Head of the Commonwealth ? If she was there as the latter then playing ' God save the Queen ' was quite a faux pas . Lejon

Interesting point. She was probably wearing all 3 hats. Or all 17, come to think of it. Thank God she can afford to employ a good milliner. If she shook hands with the Barbadian team, she was Queen of Barbados, etc. When she met Howard, she was Queen of Australia. At the official opening, she would have been Head of the Commonwealth. Quite a busy lady. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:40, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

GDP figures in infobox

They are US dollars, aren't they? This needs to be said. Tony (talk) 11:15, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Well-meant cn tags unnecessary?

Aaronclick's recent edits: I can see only one tag that is vaguely required (compulsory voting, if the link doesn't satisfy that purpose). Tony (talk) 03:39, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I think that the tags are reasonable - as this is an FA, everything should be covered by a citation. Nick-D (talk) 03:45, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

While there should be a high standard of referencing in an FA, the edits did seem to have at least an element of simply throwing in tags without really considering if they were necessary. --Merbabu (talk) 03:48, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

"Everything should be covered"—I can't agree with that prescription, since it would lead to a forest of citation numbers, mostly unnecessary. In particular, where there are explicit references in the text (Section 51 of the Constitution), or links to articles that will contain or lead directly to the sources, there appears little reason to clutter. Tony (talk) 04:04, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

In response to Merbabu's {{cn}} tag, that's always been my understanding of how Featured article criterion 1c is interpreted - articles which goes to a FAC with any uncited text normally run into problems. Nick-D (talk) 04:05, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

• No, I can assure you that FACs with forests of trivial citations (it becomes a lazy way of avoiding proper judgement as to relevance, contentiousness, common-knowledge factor) are complained about. I have opposed extreme examples, because they fail the "professional" requirement. Tony (talk) 04:31, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

OK. I do think that most of the tags are OK though. It would have been nice for Aaronclick to have explained his reasoning or added some sources though. Nick-D (talk) 05:10, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not too sure who Aaronclick is.. :) Although he probably should have posted here earlier but he didn't so we'll have to move on.

I believe the are necessary as the article isn't very well referenced and I was hoping for a bit of action on fixing these issues but instead it has unfortunately caused a debate on whether the templates are needed. If you have a look through the Wikipedia:Featured article criteria the article fails 1c along with 2c. Looks at Mumbai for example, it recently was removed as a FA after a FAR partly due to citation concern. The article has just passed a GAN and is cited very well. If the article was now nominated for FAR a lot of work would have be done if it was to remain a FA. Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 11:20, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Judging by the rate of the WP:URFA being booted off to FAR, about 60% of the remaining 2005 articles might be sent to FAR in teh second half of hte year, which might mean that around 6 of the Aussie FAs in that list will be in the firing line. On the issue of content, some of the lists of notable singers/actors and sportspeople might only attract trouble or recentism, eg polls of sports pundits for Australia's greatest Olympians usually rate Betty Cuthbert, Herb Elliott, Marjorie Jackson, Shirley Strickland higher than Freeman. Maybe three individual gold medals might be a better metric (this would give Thorpe, Gould, Rose, Fraser and a few others) etc although there are more events in the modern era. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:55, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

The Link Fairy is at it

I've just removed some of the lowest-value links I've ever seen ("English"?) ... Um ... we're reading it now. I see many repeat links of states and cities through the article. Why is "international comparisons of national performance" linked to somewhere else within the article—as though it's not defensive enough to even mention it in the lead? Tony (talk) 13:44, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Can we please update link 47 "Australia's Size Compared"? It has moved to http://www.ga.gov.au/education/geoscience-basics/dimensions/aus-size-compared.jsp. SydBrklyn (talk) 15:25, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Grammatical Changes

I have made some slight grammatical changes to the 'Ethnic Groups' section at the top of the page. For example, when you are referring to an ethnic group as 'White' or 'Other', you must use capital letters. If you were referring to an entity or colour as 'White' or 'Other', it would be a different story. I changed this so it would be correct. The same goes for Dollars. If you are referring to Australian Dollars or US Dollars, you use capital letters. However, if you were saying "I want twenty dollars!", you wouldn't need to do so. Again, I changed this so it would be correct. Also, in the list of ethnic groups, I have deleted unneeded commas. You do not need commas in a list. --Billsta1 (talk) 10:42, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

• As in White people, White Americans, White African etc - makes sense to me.--VS ^talk 10:47, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

The cited source specifically says "white 92%, Asian 7%, aboriginal and other 1%" and consensus was reached, after an incredibly lengthy discussion that dwarfed War and Peace, to state the ethnicities exactly as stated in the citation. As for dollars, the correct link to Australian dollar is not Australian Dollar. --AussieLegend (talk) 11:27, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Aussie Legend - perhaps you could please point to the discussion (in the archives) so that Billsta who I believe is meaning well by his edits can learn the history. I am asking because I'd rather see a newbie assisted to understand the history of articles etc and learn why we do the things we do and why discussion helps. With thanks.--VS ^talk 11:47, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Start reading here and continue through all 25,097 words or until you seriously consider suicide. There are also several relevant edit summaries to read. --AussieLegend (talk) 11:58, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks buddy - I pre-empted at his talk page that you would assist. And no, not a hateful bone in my body but sometimes it's good to remember we were all new once, and that being new you can be right technically (in terms of grammar say) but wrong in terms of history or quotations. Best wishes.--VS ^talk 12:03, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Continent, country and island

... is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the mainland, which is both the world's smallest continent and the world's largest island, the island of Tasmania, and numerous other islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the only area of land simultaneously considered a continent, a country and an island.

There's something wrong with the above. First, we're saying the mainland is a continent and an island. OK, so far. Then we're saying the whole country, including Tasmania, is a continent and an island. That's where it goes wrong. The whole country is not an island. It consists of one very large island (the mainland), one large island (Tasmania), and numerous smaller islands (Groote Eylandt, Kangaroo, Melville, Lord Howe, etc etc). Even if we changed the 2nd sentence to "It is the only area of land simultaneously considered a continent and a country", it's still not right because Australia is not just one area of land, but many areas of land, separated by water. I'm removing the offending sentence. -- JackofOz (talk) 09:04, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

"Australia" refers to the country, the continent and the mainland so the claims are essentially correct. The solution is not deletion, a minor rewording is all that necessary. --AussieLegend (talk) 09:18, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Always happy to discuss. I see you've changed "It is the only area of land ..." to "Australia is the only place ...". I still can't see how it can possibly be correct. The sticking point is that Australia is not an island; it is many islands. We say as much in the previous sentence, where we separately identify the mainland as an island, Tasmania as another island, and the the numerous other islands as ... well, other islands. Then in the next sentence we refer to them all collectively as "an island". It doesn't wash. Would we refer to Japan or Indonesia as "an island"? Hardly. Australia is like them in this respect. The mainland is an island, but the mainland is not all of Australia (just ask a Tasmanian). -- JackofOz (talk) 12:12, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

The trick here is not to be overly precise. Above you've said "one large island (Tasmania)" but technically, Tasmania isn't one large island any more than Australia is. It's a number of islands. The same is true for most named islands but we accept all those places to be individual islands and we don't quibble over the fact that each island is actually one large with many small islands. Even authoritative sources like Geoscience Australia aren't so pedantic. When people refer to Australia the island, they're talking about the mainland. This used to be a big sticking point with Tasmanians when I was at school in the '60s and '70s. Maps of Australia often excluded Tasmania specifically because of that. When you went to the shop to buy a plastic stencil of Australia, it rarely included Tasmania. As for the continent, well that's still an ongoing issue. There are various arguments that the continent is the mainland only, the mainland and Tasmania or all the islands on the continental shelf (which includes the mainland, Tasmania and New Guinea). Japan and Indonesia are different to Oz. Japan clearly consists of a central core of several larger, roughly similar size islands with several thousand smaller and generally less known islands, while Indonesia consists of over 17,000 islands strung out over a large area with several larger islands dotted throughout the area. Australia is dominated by the mainland, which makes up about 98.75% of the country, a much higher ratio than for either Japan or Indonesia. The other islands, excepting Tasmania, that make up Australia only count for 0.4% of the country. Even Tasmania only represents just over 0.8%.--AussieLegend (talk) 14:16, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't call what I'm on about being "overly precise" or "pedantic". This is the introduction to a major article. If we start out with a fairly gross inaccuracy, we may as well give up.

When people refer to Australia the island, they're talking about the mainland. That's exactly my point. We are not talking in the lede about just the mainland but the entire nation of Australia. It's fine to use loose language in a tourism campaign, calling Australia "The island nation" or whatever, but we're an encyclopedia. I also remember the plastic cutouts, and the kerfuffle at the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games when Tasmania temporarily ceased to exist. Are we basing our standards on that sort of "accuracy"? Regardless of the fact that our mainland massively dominates, we can no more refer to our nation as "an island" than we can refer to Japan or Indonesia as "an island". Imagine the reaction from the Northern Irelanders if we called the United Kingdom "an island". The way I see it is:

Place	Continent	Island	Country
Tasmania (mainland)	No	Yes	No
Tasmania (state)	No	No	No
Mainland of Australia	Maybe(1)	Yes	No
Australia	Maybe(1)	No	Yes

(1) Depends on the definition. Australia (continent) says it includes New Guinea, but there are a number of serious issues with that. Lord Howe Island, an integral part of Australia (country), would probably not fit into any definition of Australia (continent).

-- JackofOz (talk) 21:48, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

This article is about the Commonwealth of Australia, the nation, not the island, not the Continent. The lead paragraph blurs these together, which is incorrect. The Nation (political entity) should not claim it is a continent (geography/geology), and so the paragraph should be re-written. The nation may contain the world's largest island, but is not the world's largest island, as that excludes Tasmania, etc. The 'continent' claim is debatable (see list of discussions at top of page), and so should not claim catagorically that it is a continent, as this is POV without the balancing opposite POV mentioned. The article needs to address this. The Yeti (talk) 02:42, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I should have made myself more clear. This is not simply an article about the nation. It is a general overview of Australia, which includes Australia the nation, Australia the continent, Australia the island, etc. When people want to find something about Australia, this is generally the first article they come to. As the umbrella article for all things Australia, it's entirely appropriate to include generalised information about Australia in the introduction. More detailed information is included in the relevant articles. Although there is some debate, none of the claims are particularly controversial. Australia is considered by many to be the largest island, smallest continent and only continent occupied by a single country and all of these claims are uniquely relevant to Australia the country. --AussieLegend (talk) 03:23, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Your interpretation of what this article is about is wrong. Firstly, read the opening lines! :

This article is about the country. ...

Australia,... officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the mainland, which is both the world's smallest continent and the world's largest island,...

These clearly and unequivocally state the article is about the country. And then goes into stating the whole country is the continent. The title Commonwealth of Australia redirects here too. Wrong, wrong, wrong. If wikipedia is to be accurate, it must not make fundamental errors like this.

The article must split/separate the political entity (nation) and the geography/geology of the island and of the continent.

Secondly "when people come to Australia", I would reckon 90% of them are looking for the country, so the lead paragraph should not have inaccurate statements confusing the nation with the island & with the continent.

Thirdly "Although there is some debate, none of the claims are particularly controversial. Australia is considered by many to be the largest island, smallest continent and only continent occupied by a single country and all of these claims are uniquely relevant to Australia the country" is just irrelevant - Controversy has nothing to do with accuracy, and the relevant point, which you've admitted, is that there is "some debate". The article must reflect that debate, and to quote my entry above, else "this is POV without the balancing opposite POV mentioned." Just because many believe it to be all three things, a) even if they do, many believe the opposite. The article is reflecting just one side. b) just beacuse many believe something, does not mean its true.

When I have time, I will address these errors in the article itself. The Yeti (talk) 10:28, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Aussie Legend, I'm very curious about this entity you refer to as "Australia, the island". Just exactly where is it and what does it look like? If you're referring to the mainland, that place is a very large part of "Australia", but it is not "Australia". This is like referring to the island of Great Britain as "the United Kingdom". -- JackofOz (talk) 13:02, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Where are you from Jack? Are you really from the mythical Land of Oz as your username indicates? Just exactly where is Oz and what does it look like? I can't find it on a map. Is it anywhere near Australia? I think that what both you and The Yeti are missing is that the concept that Australia is an island, a continent and the only continent occupied by a single country is not a new concept, it's been around for many, many years and is widely accepted. That's probably why it was added to the article in the first place. If you want to be pedantic, it may technically be contradictory but it is only a general statement, as statements in the lead of an article this size have to be. The issue you both seem to have a problem grasping is that the definitions of an island and a continent, and the differences between them, aren't black and white. If they were, then there'd be no discussion about whether Australia was an island or not, or whether the Australian continent consisted of the mainland, the mainland and Tasmania or everything on the Australian continental shelf. There'd also be no discussions about whether the continent is the only continent occupied by a single country. It's just accepted that these things are true, just as it's accepted without great debate that the sun rises in the east, the sky is blue, Jack from Oz is Jack from Australia and "The Yeti" isn't really a yeti. If you really feel the need to explain in great detail why the statement isn't true, then add an explanatory section to the article, but don't be surprised if somebody else deletes your explanation as unnecessary. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:33, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I think AussieLegend that it is you missing concepts in two crucial ways. Firstly Australia the political man-made entity, is completely different to Australia the landmass (whether it be an island, islands, or continent). The entry, which states in the very first line it is about the country, is therefore about the political entity. The article cannot therefore also lay claim the the landmass, as, as you have admitted, this is different. It doesn't matter that, by happenstance of history, the nation occupies 90% (or even, from your POV, 100%) of the landmass, or that you, other Aussies, or even the Australian government, think they are the whole island/continent, as they are many who doubt the statement that Australia the country occupies the whole continent. What is accepted as 'fact' in Australia isn't necessarily accepted elsewhere in the world. Even the Aussie government can be wrong ! (compare the government of Morocco, which believes it owns the Western Sahara, despite this being disputed by many other nations.)

The second concept you're missing is the balanced POV - this is a policy of Wikipedia. Read W:NPOV#Neutral_point_of_view, which very clearly states what's needed in bold type - the article does not address the opposing POV, and violates Wiki policy. Attempts to remove such balancing POVs are a serious breach of Wiki policy, and have consequences. The Yeti (talk) 17:04, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Education

In the Demography section the article states "School attendance is compulsory throughout Australia". This is incorrect. Education is compulsory in Australia, however, home-schooling is accepted as Education. Also, in many rural parts of Australia, the School of the Air operates (school via CB radio), as well as Distance Education (correspondence school). Some research on Australia's education system would improve this article.

http://www.hea.asn.au/

http://www.distance.vic.edu.au/about/abtover.htm

http://www.assoa.nt.edu.au/

--Gladrim (talk) 21:20, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Home schooling is attending school, as is participating in the School of The Air (which does not use CB radio). A school doesn't have to be a physical entity that a student attends. That said, maybe "School education" as used in the last paragraph of the section titled "Primary and secondary schooling" on the DFAT Website might be better. --AussieLegend (talk) 03:48, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Socceroos

Should not be listed as one of Australia's strong teams.

• Have only made made WC twice. In 1974, lost 2-0 for GDR, 3-0 to FRG, 0-0 to Chile. In 2006, beat JPN 3-1, lost 2-0 to BRA and ITA and drew 2-2 with CRO. Best result, final 16.
• Asia Cup, Best result quarterfinals
• Best ever ranking 16, but that was a spike, before that was 29th but not even consistently in top 30
• Australia cannot be considered strong. Other countries such as Brazil and Spain have all their players in the major Champions League teams. Some of Australia's First XI don't even play for a first division team in a small European club. How many Australian players would even come close to getting into a 25-man squad from Spain or Brazil?
• Other teams consistently in top 5 in the world and have won World Cups/Championships multiple times.

YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:55, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Health

No information on health care for Australia. I would be interested if someone could please add it. 118.208.198.149 (talk) 09:15, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Health care in Australia --10:49, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

religion

Always tricky on wikipedia to add figures on religious adherence..which I just did (again) on this page on Australia --quoting the census 2001 and 2006 results. If these are outdated, I would like to see more recent figures. Ruud64 (talk) 20:33, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Currency of the data is not the issue, the table cincludes specific data that is more suited to Religion in Australia (where it is already located) rather than here which, by necessity, must remain essentially an overview document about Australia. --AussieLegend (talk) 01:50, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll just come out and say it...

This article is a dog's breakfast. Can we just delete it all and start over?--Rehumanist (talk) 06:25, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Sure. Feel free to draft up something and when you're done, let us know. --AussieLegend (talk) 07:09, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

But please don't touch the current "breakfast" until you've finished your new draft and we've had a look at it.--VirtualSteve ^{need admin support?} 08:30, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Australia as Continent and Island

I have read the current discussions and several of the archived ones and there are may misconceptions and misunderstandings about geographic terms/nomenclature. I will only address the one referenced above.

The difference between an island and a continent are not unrelated. The criterion of size is the primary, but not the only, characteristic that determines what is an island and what is a continent.

Australia was once classified as an island ( see Lancelot and Gray; 'The Civil Service Geography: Being a Manual of Geography, General and Politcal ), but once it was classified as a continent, for reasons of size, biodiversity, geophysics, etc., it lost its status as the largest island and became the smallest continent. Greenland [Kalaallit Nunaat], which is a "continental island" of North America, acquired the title of largest island. An island is not simply a landmass completely surrounded by water, but is also a landmass smaller than a continent (see any geography text book, Davis Joyce; Why Greenland is an Island, Australia is Not- and Japan is Up for Grabs ). This has been established convention for over a century.

I am aware in common usage of describing Australia as an “island continent” , but this is a purely descriptive term and is not:

• based on the nomenclature used in physical geography;
• or consistent with the Australian government’s listing of islands (Geoscience Australia lists Tasmania as the largest island);

Besides, if this claim were to be upheld, thus violating established nomenclature, then Antarctica would be the largest island, not Australia. So Australia cannot be both an island and a continent and I am removing that claim in the opening paragraph. Gary Joseph (talk) 11:21, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Australia a Continent???

This aritcle states that Australia is a continent. Forgive me for saying this, but there are only 7 continents in the world which consist of Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America, Antarctica, and Oceania. Therefore, Australia is not a continent and stating such in this article is false. Australia is nation within Oceania. --Yoganate79 (talk) 02:40, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Please see the first sentence of the Continent article and its supporting citation. Nick-D (talk) 02:44, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

As well as the numerous discussions about this very issue in the Talk page archives. Oceania is not a continent. It is a region. --AussieLegend (talk) 06:47, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Australia is the continent in the list you give, not Oceania, most of which is small island nations. --Dmol (talk) 08:01, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Having been involved in s similar discussion on this page, I'd like to suggest to Yoganate that he leaves it alone. "Continent" is a poorly defined term, which you can pretty much let mean what you want. So just let those editors continent themselves with their inaccuracy. Australians have been taught in school that "Australia is the largest island and the smallest continent", and pretty much everyone who edits this page believes that to be an important part of the red white and blue running through their veins. Leave alone that a goodly amount of what gets taught in school is bullshit: "Australia is the only place where marsupials are found" or "Australia was one of the first countries to have universal suffrage" occur immediately as examples. It appears to bother these editors not one whit that this argument leaves Tasmania, New Guinea, and most of Indonesia unattached to any continent. Moreover it appears to bother noone that this entire set of statements predates continental plate theory, Or that this statement was made as the protectorate of New Guinea was a part of Australia. One might as well write the whole article from the point of view of 1960s historians, with the noble attempts at integration of the poor abo kids into generous white families. However seeing as the statement about continents is absolutely unbased in any reality, and its just a throwaway line, its probably not worth it to argue over such a triviality. Except that its location in the first paragraph it gives the reader the impression that the scholarship for the whole article will be as slipshod. AKAF (talk) 15:10, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I remember you. You were the editor who claimed that the Australian Government's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website was an advertsing website and not a reliable source.[8] Welcome back and please remember, should you choose to present any arguments, rather than just attack the editors of this article and Australians in general, some civility will result in your comments gaining a better response than the incivility that you've just demonstrated. --AussieLegend (talk) 16:06, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Here's the truth about the government: they have departments whose purpose is to promote some aspect of Australia to the country and overseas (ie "Advertising", for some value of that word). And yes, the department of foreign affairs and trade is not a reliable reference for the same reason that an autobiography is not the authoritative guide to a person's life. In fact most government departments are not good references for an article about that department's government, and should be regarded as a primary source for the purposes of citing. So you'll excuse me if I find referencing such a site to be at best disingenuous. AKAF (talk) 08:18, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Australia is simply a country. If Australia was a continent, would it make sense to call Fiji, Australia? Oceania represents all of the countries while Australia usually implies to the country and if you use it as a continent, the other countries are not having their fair share of representation. For example, just because China is the biggest country (population wise) in Asia, doesn't mean you call the whole continent "China". Go to Australia (continent). On the map it shows only Australia highlighted. Now, go to Oceania. All of Oceania is highligted.--KRajaratnam1 (talk) 21:57, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree broadly with AKAF. Australia the Island is not the same as Australia the Nation (Commonwealth of Australia), which is also not the same as Australia the Continent. The Island is just that, the mainland only. It may be the world's largest, so the statement that "Australia is the world's largest island" is roughly correct, but more accurately would be better stated as "the Commonwealth of Australia contains the world's largest island". However the Nation is an 'artificial' (human-created political) division, which is the Island, plus Tasmania and smaller scattered islands - it is not the same as the Continent. The Continent would be the landmass including the Continental Shelf (ie) The Island, plus Tasmania, plus New Guinea (plus smaller surrounding islands). It is only happenstance that the Nation makes up (>80%) of the Continent. It is incorrect to state that the (Commonwealth of) Australia is the world's smallest (or anything) continent, as the Continent also includes the Nations of Papua New Guinea & (part of) Indonesia.

As for Oceania (or Australasia), these are also 'artificial' constructs, used to split the world into broad divisions, but Oceania is just a human-created division, rather than one that has any basis in geological features, or plate tectonics.

I can't be bothered to change the article, as I know someone will revert it within seconds, but maybe a paragraph under Geography could be added mentioning the conflicting viewpoints about the Nation's Island/Continent status, with references (there plenty supporting most viewpoints). The opening paragraph **should not** state that it is a Continent as an incontravertable fact, when this is heavily disputed.

As for Aussie people stating 'this is what I was taught in school', consider both the usage of the 'island continent' term as a lie-to-children and as a synecdoche. 'And we all know teachers can never be wrong, can they ? The Yeti (talk) 14:36, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Continent discussions - for future reference

Past "Is Australia a continent?" and "Australia is not a continent" discussions, and related topics, may be found at:

• Talk:Australia/Archive 3#In Australasia or only country in a continent
• Talk:Australia/Archive 3#Excessive categories
• Talk:Australia/Archive 4#The whole continent?
• Talk:Australia/Archive 5#Australia or its commonwealth
• Talk:Australia/Archive 6#Island
• Talk:Australia/Archive 8#Landmass
• Talk:Australia/Archive 13#Australia is not a continent
• Talk:Australia/Archive 14#Australia is the only continent occupied by a single country
• Talk:Australia/Archive 14#Is Australia a country or a continent?
• Talk:Australia/Archive 14#Australian Continent

I could have sworn it's been discussed more than that. --AussieLegend (talk) 09:15, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Not to mention virtually the entire Talk page here:

• Talk:Australia (continent). The Yeti (talk) 16:54, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

It really is quite sad that Australians are brainwashed and uneducated to think that their country is one of the classical continents found on earth. My question is, if Australia is considered a continent, then what continent does New Zealand belong to then? In any case, Greenland should also be classified as a continent then too. Let's classify Long Island, Cuba, Japan, and the British Isles their own continents too. --Yoganate79 (talk) 01:52, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me? Brainwashed and uneducated? How insulting! Bidgee (talk) 01:57, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Exactly australia has better education systems than america. At least we can go to school without getting shot.

Australia a continent yes but australia is the figurehead of australasia a.k.a. oceania new zealand, papua new guinea and that fall under that continent.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.171.106.175 (talk • contribs)

Australasia is not "a.k.a." Oceania, it's a region of Oceania. Neither are continents. --AussieLegend (talk) 09:16, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Countries do not have to belong to a continent. Sorting out which continent the Maldives is located would be tricky. Furthermore, Australia is not a third world country with a tyrannical government. It terms of public brainwashing and lack of education, I'd encourage you to visit someday, and see if your comment is justified. ∗ \ / (⁂) 11:46, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Continents are a matter of convention. In some countries, they count five continents: America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania. In the U.S., we use different definitions and count seven continents: North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica. Many nations do not consider Antarctica because it’s not a naturally populated region. Continents are a convention and one convention is as good as another. In the U.S. view, Australia (not Oceania) is a continent. Greenland, by the way, is considered an island and not part of any continent. —Stephen (talk) 23:23, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

remains a Commonwealth realm

Do Editors think it is appropriate to say in the opening para that Australia "remains a Commonwealth realm"? Shouldn't the article say Australia is a "constitutional monarchy" - as that term is used in the UK article and Canada's. This is being discussed on Talk:United Kingdom. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 11:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I support using the "Constitutional monarchy" description in the opening para:

1. Redking7 (talk) 11:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
2. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:25, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
3. Slac speak up! 04:52, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
4. --Michael Johnson (talk) 07:30, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
5. Night w (talk) 06:13, 22 April 2009 (UTC) (P.S. I also don't think it's a big deal).
6. [Insert your username here]

I support using the Commonwealth realm" description in the opening para

1. [Insert your username here]

Comments/Questions I need more detail in why should it be changed, whats more widely used (Commonwealth realm or Constitutional monarchy) in Australia (not just within the Commonwealth). Bidgee (talk) 11:52, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd also like to know why it should be changed. I should point out that Wikipedia works on consensus, not voting, so the polls here and at Talk:United Kingdom are premature. It's not appropriate to make a post on one article's talk page and declare consensus at another, which is what prompted Bidgee's reversion.[9] You need to actually discuss the issue before consensus can be reached and this particular matter needs to be discussed here. --AussieLegend (talk) 12:26, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Have a look at Talk:United Kingdom - its being discussed there too (more editors are involved on that page). Regards. Redking7 (talk) 21:59, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

The discussion at Talk:United Kingdom is about use at United Kingdom, not here. As I indicated on your talk page,[10] any consensus achieved at Talk:United Kingdom does not immediately become applicable here. You need to discuss the issue here, not there and explain why the change should occur here. --AussieLegend (talk) 01:19, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I support the reference. However, the purpose of it is to get across that when the colonies federated in 1901, the new country did not "go it alone" as a republic, but continued to be part of the Commonwealth (or Empire as it was then) and continued to acknowledge the British monarch as its monarch. It's also a constitutional monarchy of course, but maybe the purpose of this reference to Commonwealth realms could be spelled out a little more explicitly. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:52, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Constitutional monarchy is a widely understood term. Commonwealth realm is a term not used in Australia, is not widely understood, and is not as descriptive as constitutional monarchy. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:30, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but just saying it remained/became a constitutional monarchy could mean that it set up its own monarchy, distinct from the British monarchy. We need to communicate the continuity of Australia's allegiance to the British monarchy between pre-1901 and post-1901. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:51, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

What do the sources say? I'm and Australian, and I can't say that I've ever seen a description of Australia as being a 'Commonwealth realm'. A Google search of 'Australia Commonwealth realm' doesn't produce any reliable-looking sources in the first couple of pages of results ([11]), and the Queen's website states that "Australia is a constitutional monarchy with The Queen as Sovereign": [12], though Australia is in the drop down list of 'Commonwealth realms' at the top of the page. Nick-D (talk) 07:59, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Well I've found this (Paper crown when Charles takes reign) which seems to point that Australia is a Commonwealth realm but again I request for more detailed information with sources before I can make a decision. Bidgee (talk) 08:15, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Why can't both have a place in the lead? Here is a suggestion:

“ For around 40,000 years before European settlement commenced in the late 18th century, the Australian mainland and Tasmania were inhabited by around 250 individual nations of indigenous Australians. After sporadic visits by fishermen from the immediate north, and European discovery by Dutch explorers in 1606, the eastern half of Australia was claimed by the British in 1770 and initially settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales, founded on 26 January 1788. The population grew steadily in the following years; the continent was explored, and during the 19th century another five largely self-governing Crown Colonies were established. On 1 January 1901, the six colonies became a federation, and the Commonwealth of Australia was formed.

The Commonweath is a constitutional monarchy with strong liberal democratic traditions. As a Commonwealth realm, Australia's monarch is Elizabeth II. The population is just over 21.7 million, with approximately 60% concentrated in and around the mainland state capitals of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide. The nation's capital city is Canberra, located in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).

”

It is just one possibility. -Rrius (talk) 03:29, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree, I don't see why it should be a case of one or the other. I think your suggestion is an excellent way of incorporating both truths. --AussieLegend (talk) 03:44, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

For the information of RedKing, "Commonwealth Realm" is a *very* infrequently used term in Australia, even in constitutional law circles (my constitutional law textbook didn't mention it once). "Constitutional monarchy" is vastly more common; I would even go so far to say that this is an imported Canadism, like "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition" (never used in any official context in Australia). Slac speak up! 02:27, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

We are, nevertheless, both things. We're a constitutional monarchy because we're governed by a constitution and we have a monarch (regardless of who that monarch is); but because the monarch happens to be Elizabeth II, we're also a Commonwealth realm. Not all constitutional monarchies are Commonwealth realms, but all Commonwealth realms are constitutional monarchies. -- JackofOz (talk) 05:13, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Well Australia is many things, but we don't have to include them all in the opening paragraph. Commonwealth realm may be an accurate description, but it is not one that strikes me as being commonly used in relation to Australia. I'm not fussed, but I can't see the point of including it. --Michael Johnson (talk) 07:30, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

It may not be particularly often used in Australia, but if we write the article using only terms that are frequently used in Australia, it would be of less value to international readers. There seems little point in having an article called Commonwealth realm without mentioning - not just in that article but also in this one - that Australia is such an animal. -- JackofOz (talk) 12:06, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Can't it just say ...maintained a stable liberal democracy and a constitutional monarchy within the Commonwealth. (or something similar and better phrased)? Why not use both terms and get rid of that vague "political system" term? Night w (talk) 06:20, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

citation needed

The article is currently a FA, but how come it still has [citation needed] templates in a few sections? Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 09:04, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Because it is a high visibility article that is edited by a hell of a lot of people, making it difficult to maintain at FA standard for any length of time. This was featured in June 2005. It probably doesn't deserve to be featured now. Hesperian 01:22, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

The FA criteria probably wasn't as strict back then. Although I must admit I was a bit surprised when i saw that is was a FA. Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 09:41, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

What about removing the info? That normally sparks a reaction - hopefully to find the cite. --Merbabu (talk) 23:01, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Well there's a thought! Never thought about it that way. Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 09:56, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Category "Liberal democracies"

I think there is no more absolute consensus that Australia is a liberal democracy beacuse of strict Internet censorship. Therefore I will remove this article from category Category:Liberal democracies. —ilaiho (talk) 17:53, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

User:AussieLegend undid my edit, saying there is only one censored website. According to some recent news and that Wikipedia article, I have understood that there is much more irresponsible censorship than "one censored website". Anyway, this categorization is not very important for me. —ilaiho (talk) 17:07, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand all censor the internet, and remain on the category Category:Liberal democracies. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:05, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The idea that the government's censorship regime disqualifies Australia as a liberal democracy is absurd (as much as I may detest its planned internet filter scheme). Plenty of liberal democracies have more stringent censorship than Scandinavian countries (in fact, most do). Slac speak up! 04:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, the ludicrous internet filtering proposal is currently a trial and is not (yet) an actual reality. Secondly, as the article on Liberal democracy points out, all such political structures do contain specific limits on specific freedoms. Every liberal democracy contains some internet restrictions on (for example) child pornography. As the article on the topic makes clear, the core of a liberal democracy is not any particular social law but the citizens elective rights, including free and fair elections and a competitive political system. Euryalus (talk) 09:47, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

How can a country with the Queen as a state head be a democracy??? And liberal??? Sorry but it doesn't work together. Monarchy is not a democracy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.69.27.220 (talk) 06:22, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Australia is a representative democracy. The head of state is the queen, represented by the govenor general. however australia remains a democracy because we elect our parliamentarians, and our executive government is formed by elected parliamentarians, and the governor general acts on the advice of our elected officials - hence, democracy. The simple "monarchy cannot be a democracy" is absurd. Perhaps you are suggesting that the UK, Canada, New Zealand are also in the list of non-democracies? Yili2943 (talk) 07:38, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Demography

Under the demography section, the information that only 70 aboriginal languages still exist is incorrect. According to the 2005 Ethnologue, which is the most authoritative linguistics survey, there are 280 recorded aboriginal languages, 238 still spoken and 42 extinct. I don't know how to change this since the article is protected. Also, there is no source for the claim that an indigenous language is the main language for 50,000 people. Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/. Claritarejoice (talk) 17:55, 23 March 2009 (UTC) Claritarejoice

Australia Interactive Map

I suggest the Link below containing Google Interactive Map of Australia . http://www.all-maps.info/2009/03/australia-map.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kewaga (talk • contribs) 14:20, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Business Address?

Can you please add Australia's business address to this article. It is 1601 MASSACHUSETTS AVE NW C/O AUSTRALIAN EMBASSY WASHINGTON DC 20036 and Australis's company number is 0000805157. Source - http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-idea?CIK=0000805157&action=getcompany

Umm, no, I don't think so. --Michael Johnson (talk) 01:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that Australia is also well known as the ' Down Under ' and the ' Wide Brown ' . Lejon (talk) 04:49, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Never heard of Wide Brown. Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 09:57, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

What are they teaching kids at school these days?

I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of drought and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror

The wide brown land for me!

If you say you've never heard of that..... --AussieLegend (talk) 10:31, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I think you're emphasising the wrong part of the poem. 'Sunburnt country' is the common rhetoric. E.g Sunbeam, Sunblest are all traditional Australian business icons. No such thing as Brownbeam toasters or Brownblest bread. Yili2943 (talk) 07:40, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea, but maybe we should post it to America's business address. Um, what's the US' business address? The US business address is being moved to Shanghai, right?--Merbabu (talk) 10:35, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Nah, it's somewhere in Calcutta. -Rrius (talk) 12:34, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Except that they've moved it lock stock and barrel to some place called Kolkata, apparently. Just don't tell the Yanks.  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 09:16, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Australia?Austria?

Maybe we should put a

Not to be confused with Austria.

here.People often make such mistake.Especially non-English native user like me.囧--半弯不直男 (talk) 13:54, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Developed country?

The statement: "Technologically advanced and industrialised, Australia is a prosperous multicultural country and has good results in many international comparisons of national performance such as health care, life expectancy, quality-of-life, human development, public education, economic freedom, and the protection of civil liberties and political rights." is quite misleading.

First - Australia has very poor internet network comparing to many countries in the world. Secondly, a country with slow and in some instances still not electrified trians cannot be technologically advanced. Industraliazed also is misleading - a country that is predominantly a primary producer, that doesn't manufacture even one bicycle, TV etc - cannot be called industrialized.

Multicultural? - just because there are many migrants - it doesn;t mean it is multicultural - when de facto it is an English colony which enforces English language at schools and English way of life.

Freedom with internet censorship cannot coexist. Democracy while still monarchy? Do you remember Whitlam Government??? Is this a democracy when the monarch can dissolve a government within one day????

Health care with long queues to emergecy units, and long queues for basic public health services such as dentist (usually people wait 2-3 years) is not at the top of the world.

Life expectancy - especially is local Aboriginal communities is very low.

Human development - still no bill of rights.

Public education - very low, no foreign languages at school, ranking very low in maths among other countries.

Hope you can amend this sentence and be true about Australia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.129.17.160 (talk) 01:45, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Woah--where do you live??? Australia has a higher percentage of Internet users per capita than Japan, the UK, the US, France... AWA Limited manufactures televisions and, I don't know about bicycles, but haven you ever heard of Holden?

The government doesn't enforce English culture--freedom of religion and society is guaranteed in the constitution and you only have to walk down a city street to notice multiculturalism. I live down the road from a mosque. And just because the GovGen can exercise dismissal powers (that have only ever been used in an emergency), doesn't mean she can impose direct rule--the people choose the government. On the Democracy Index, Australia is ranked among the top 10 most democratic countries in the world (alongside seven other monarchies) by The Economist.

I don't know where you line up for your health care provider, but is it not free? It's very expensive in most countries. Check this research, which ranks Australia's health care system above that of both Canada and the US. As for average life expectancy, Australia is ranked 5th by the UN. So it's not low "especially" in Aboriginal communities, just specifically in those communities.

Did you go to the "Developed country" page before you Wikilinked it for this section's title? Australia is ranked 4th...

We don't live in the Dark Ages down here...but I think you knew that, and were just ranting. If you're not happy with the level of freedom and development in Australia, then move to Scandinavia. Oh...but they're all monarchies....

Night w (talk) 07:29, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Anon commenter, it might help to consider issues of geography. Australia has about the same population as Sweden, Denmark, and Norway combined, spread across roughly ten times the land area. This has a lot of influence on what's practical for infrastructure projects (e.g. rail and communications). --GenericBob (talk) 23:49, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

[removed remainder of thread, which had ceased to be even tenuously related to how to improve the article. Hesperian 04:42, 24 April 2009 (UTC)]

ref improve or remove

The following three lines are from the article:

• Australia willingly participated in World War I. [Ref: Bean, C. Ed. (1941). Volume I - The Story of Anzac: the first phase, First World War Official Histories, Eleventh Edition.]

Not supported by linked page, is Bean 1941 the reference? Conscription suggests that the inhabitants of 'Australia' were less enthusiastic!

• Many Australians regard the defeat of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs) at Gallipoli as the birth of the nation—its first major military action. ["Rudd angered by Gallipoli remarks". BBC News. 1 November 2008. Retrieved 2 November 2008.]

This swiped text is from a BBC article that contrasts the views of a former Prime Minister with the current one. Should we add ",... and many don't"?

• The Kokoda Track Campaign is regarded by many as an analogous nation-defining event during World War II.

Uncited! Analogous?

– cygnis insignis 05:33, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I added the appropriate cites from the recent scholarship, especially for Kakoda see Hank Nelson, 'Gallipoli, Kokoda and the Making of National Identity', J of Australian Studies online Rjensen (talk) 14:03, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

More likely, WP:FAR YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 05:35, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the 3 dot points. I also suspect that FAR may be in order. The risk is that once the FA status is questioned or removed, attempts to improve it could go the other wasy - ie, all bets are off and nothing is sacred. As major changes to the culture section over the last few months suggested, I suspect the article could lapse into a state of even less quality. At least the current FA status is a way to hold off decrease in article quality. Hmmmm --Merbabu (talk) 06:35, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I disagree will all three dot points.

• Supporting participation in the war and supporting conscription are two entirely separate issues. It is possible, and indeed highly likely than many people who opposed conscription (including servicing soldiers who voted) still supported Australia's participation in the war, with volunteer enlistment. This is neither contradictory or unusual. The war effort was popular and bipartisan and tested through elections. Casting Australia as an unwilling participant is historical revisionism. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 01:27, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
• No, the fact that "many don't" is obvious from the "Many Australians..." rather than "Most Australians..." or All Australians ..." This is nit-picking.
• The Kokoda campaign was put forward by Keating as an new and better "Gallipoli" Sources for this should be easy to find. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 01:27, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Let's not go too FAR :) There are many fine editors active there, but this is a the top priority article for a wikiproject with some of the best. cygnis insignis 13:09, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, if preventative action is taken it will be all fine and dandy, like when I pre-emptively referenced flag of Australia last year. There is a problem that if people make a lot of ad hoc edits the prose can become disjointed likke a list of trivia though. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 01:13, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

anon edits

it seems every single one needs to be reverted because of vandalism. can we get this page locked again? Rehumanist (talk) 12:58, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Sporting Achievements

How about a section on Australia's many Sporting Achievements?

Also mention at the top of the article: Australia is a prosperous multicultural country and has excellent results in many international comparisons of national performance such as...

For such a small population they do extremely well and their culture is very sport orientated.

Esp:

Cricket (incl first team to beat England)

Olympics

Tennis (incl first to win all grand slams in one year)

Swimming

Rugby —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.16.182.28 (talk) 22:53, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Using words like prosperous, excellent and they do extremely well should not be used in an encyclopedia. If your idea is taken up only the facts should be put forward and whether it is deemed to be excellent or not is left up to the reader. Jack forbes (talk) 23:00, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Biology

Little/nothing is noted on the iology of Australia. I suggest the following be noted:- Kraft, G.T. 2007. Algae of Australia: Marine Benthic Algae of Lord Howe Island nd the Southern Great Barrier Reef, 1. Green Algae. ABRAS, Canberra, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, Australia. ISBN 9780643094421.Osborne 16:45, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Untitled

Ethnic groups listed wrongly. latest census states 3.5% aboriginal and 11% asian. also states other groups not listed. change it or remove it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.104.142.162 (talk) 09:27, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Do you have a citation from a reliable source? --AussieLegend (talk) 09:49, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Ethnic Groups

the ethnic groups listed at the side of the page are incorrect according to the latest census. it states that aboriginals make up 3.5%, asians make up 11% white 84.5% and other 1%. change it please!!! or remove it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.104.142.162 (talk) 04:28, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

You have stated something very similar previously (see above) and I asked you then if you had a citation from a reliable source so that we could use it to change the information but so far you haven't provided one. There's not much that can be done until your claim can be verified.

Please note that when adding new sections to talk pages you should add the section to the end, not the beginning of the talk page. --AussieLegend (talk) 05:03, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Seconding AL's comments. 3.5% Aboriginal is way over the ABS estimate (2.6% IIRC), so you're definitely going to need a good source for this one. --GenericBob (talk) 07:12, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

The updated stats are even worse. I don't know where the CIA got that information from but anyone who lives in Australia knows that the population is far more diverse than that. Unfortunately I have no supportive material or alternate statistics. The 'other' category should not mention 'Aboriginals' as the majority of 'other' nationalities are sure to be of Italian, Eastern European etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.243.128.239 (talk) 03:16, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

cite: http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/bb8db737e2af84b8ca2571780015701e/636F496B2B943F12CA2573D200109DA9?opendocument 10.8% asian, 2.6% aboriginal, 1.9% other (mixed race) , european/australian 81.2% ... (aboriginal stat on en.wikipedia.org/wiki/indigenous_australians) other ethnicities from census link above. change please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ajnprior (talk • contribs) 06:42, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm looking at that page and I can't find anywhere on it that gives figures of "10.8% Asian", "81.2% European/Australian", or "1.9% other (mixed race)". We had a long discussion a few months back about the pitfalls of trying to derive such figures from the published data - see Talk:Australia/Archive_14 for the details. --GenericBob (talk) 11:04, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

what i did there is added up all the asian countries under the asian heading, added up all the european countries + the "australian" ethnic group. you see there are not totals, i simply added the ethnicities under asian eg chinese, korean and added the groups under european eg. australian, british, italian... etc etc..

i have edited it using these stats by which i have added up the euro, asian, etc countries (we can tell what ethnic group each country is counted as because they come under those headings eg. asian on the page) and used these, as well as taking the 2006 census figure on aboriginal population (seen on page for australian abooriginies (and referenced). this 2006 census data which i used to add it up is surely much more reliable than this 10 year old rough estimate by CIA factbook which is not backed up at all by the census data. i am of course talking about the reported ethnic groups table right at the bottom of the page http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/bb8db737e2af84b8ca2571780015701e/636F496B2B943F12CA2573D200109DA9?opendocument .. and i have combined the middle eastern and asian ethnicities together when adding, to fit in with the other countries and CIA stats, where middle eastern is lumped in with asians. the atat for aboriginals can be accessed by simply going to the bureau of statistics site, and typing "australia" into 2006 census data quickstats. it is also referenced in the aboriginal article.

please do not change these figures as they come from the recent census data, and are clearly a lot more accurate than the rough estimations made by CIA and have been the same in their factbook for at least 9 years. thankyou.

You have been informed more than once about the consensus, and the reasons for that consensus. Synthesis of this type is not allowed in Wikipedia, and is mathematically doubtful in any case. Further discussion is in the archives which are linked above. AKAF (talk) 14:26, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, it's not an "ethnic groups" table, it's an "ancestry" table - as has been discussed previously (see archive), the ABS identifies ancestry as only one of several factors that determine ethnicity.

Second... "european/australian 81.2%... i have added up the euro, asian, etc countries" - are you sure that's what you did? That table lists Australian at 37.1%, English 31.6%, Irish 9.1%, and Scottish 7.6% - just those four add to more than 82% even before you look at the smaller groups. If you check the archives, or just read the footnotes on that table, you may see why this approach isn't valid (and why adding up the 'Asian' categories also doesn't work). --GenericBob (talk) 09:55, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Hello, I would like to also state that shouldn't it be European instead of White cause of the fact even the police force in Australia uses the term European instead of White now why can't it be changed in the ethnic group fact on the Australia page rather

Cymruman (talk) 07:58, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

The source specifically states "white" and that's what we've agreed to use. --AussieLegend (talk) 08:20, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Multi-Cultist

For over a decade multicultist doctrine has came under increasing criticism from may parts of Australian society.

for example:

Andrew Robb, then Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, told a conference in November 2006 that some Australians worried the term "multicultural" had been transformed by interest groups into a philosophy that put "allegiances to original culture ahead of national loyalty, a philosophy which fosters separate development, a federation of ethnic cultures, not one community". He added: "A community of separate cultures fosters a rights mentality, rather than a responsibilities mentality. It is divisive. It works against quick and effective integration."

The Australian citizenship test commenced in October 2007 for all new citizens between the ages of 18 and 60.

Plans have been brought in for a English language test.

In January 2007 the Howard Government removed the word "multicultural" from the name of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, changing its name to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

Therefore, to simply state in this article that Australia is pro multicultist is completely out of date with the facts of today. I believe some mention of the changing of attitudes (including governments) to the theory must be included here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.114.32.252 (talk) 13:00, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Misspelled word in the politics section

Seeing as that I cannot edit this article, I'd like to point out that at the bottom of the politics section, in the last sentence, "enrollment" is misspelled. NavJ7 (talk) 01:25, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Wiktionary says that 'enrolment' is the correct spelling in UK English, so I'm guessing that that is the correct spelling in Australian English as well, which this article should use per WP:ENGVAR. AlexiusHoratius 01:30, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Well according to my Australian spell checker it's enrolment. Bidgee (talk) 01:54, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

The Australian Electoral Commission spells it "enrolment" too.[13] Euryalus (talk) 04:37, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Largest Island - what about Antartica?

I'm slightly nervous about asking this after the continent debate, but if Australia is an Island Continent, why isn't Antartica? In which case, isn't Antartica a larger island? Apepper (talk) 21:37, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Antarctica isn't a single island. Underneath the ice covering Antarctica is a number of smaller islands. According to the Antarctica article, the area of the land masses is only 280,000 km² (110,000 sq mi). --AussieLegend (talk) 22:54, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

It's more than that - that figure of 280,000 km² (2% of the total listed area) refers to ice-free land, i.e. the relatively small parts of landmass where you can see rock. Most of the landmass above sea level is covered by ice and so not included in that figure. Eyeballing this plot, I'd hazard a guess that somewhere about a half to a third of the total (14 million km²) is land above sea level. Most of that above-sea-level area is contiguous but not all, so the largest single landmass would still be a bit smaller than mainland Australia. Which is still smaller than mainland North-and-South America and Africa/Eurasia, both of which could technically be considered islands, but I guess we have to stop somewhere.

On a side note, besides the issue of ice and islands, map projection issues can also make Antarctica look bigger than it is - cylindrical projections are probably the most popular way to create rectangular maps, and they perform very badly near the poles. --GenericBob (talk) 00:33, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - that explains it; I feel a little relieved! 12:58, 3 June 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.84.106.37 (talk)

If Australia is an island, then why aren't the Americas or the combined landmass of Eurasia and Africa? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.233.84.84 (talk) 11:15, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

It's a "world's tallest midget" thing. --GenericBob (talk) 02:41, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Racism

I think it is time to open new section about 'Racism' in Australia. We have enough of data by now and it is clear it's an important part. We should list the White Policy, Aboriginal Stolen Generations, Extermination of the Aboriginals in Tasmania, Killing of Chinese in Gold Rush time, Cronulla Beach Riots, recent Attacks on Indians etc and talk in general about the dominination of the Anglo-saxons (government) and systematic marginalization of non-Anglo-saxon migrants in Australia. What do you think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Homo hi (talk • contribs) 00:29, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Interesting that a post about racism singles out "Anglo-Saxons". Every country has its racists, Anglo Saxon or whoever, but that does not equate to a racist country. Further I think that generic bob's post below sums up the problems with the above suggestion very well.--Merbabu (talk) 06:40, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia. We already have an entire category of articles on Racism in Australia, and within that category you will find articles on all the topics you mention. And without trying to downplay the seriousness of recent events, what is particularly special about Australia in this respect? I think you could find similar, and indeed in many cases more serious incidents in pretty much any country you want to look at. --Michael Johnson (talk) 01:03, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Before getting into this, I'd strongly encourage reading WP:SYNTH - if you're new here (or even if you're not), this is something of a tricky area, and it's very easy to end up putting a lot of work into something that doesn't follow WP's rules on 'original research'. In brief, if you want to say something like "Incident A and Incident B demonstrate a pattern of systematic racism in Australia", it's not enough just to produce sources to show that those two incidents happened - you need to find a reliable source that draws that particular conclusion from those two incidents. (And if there's a substantial weight of reliable sources that disagree with that conclusion, that also needs to be noted.) You might look at individual dots and think they look like an elephant, but WP is not the place to join those dots. --GenericBob (talk) 02:24, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

In addition to the category mentioned above, we already have a separate article - Racism in Australia. It could do with some work, but as its specifically focused on the topic you're interested in its probably the right place for you to start. Euryalus (talk) 03:20, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Maybe a section on "Racism in Australia" maybe bit of a push right now, but certainly a section of "Race Relations in Australia" is well justified given the long history of race issues in Australia along with recent events (although somewhat isolated) of racist violence in Australia. 71.198.231.7 (talk) 07:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• Write a draft in a sandbox or as a subpage of this talk page first? Tony (talk) 06:37, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• Tony's right. If you don't know how to make a subpage then click on this link to start the subpage. AKAF (talk) 05:49, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

"How could a society which would like to think of itself as civilised allow a human being to be transported in the way that this man was". Thus wrote the coroner in reference to the horrendous death last year of the aboriginal man at the hands of the WA prison system. Last night's Four Corners leaves no doubt in my mind that a section on Racism in Australia is required. Tony (talk) 18:07, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Population

The population stats in the infobox, are quite wrong. The actual number is more than 21,800,000 rather than the 21,700,000 number which is stated on the page. Australia is also ranked 53rd in the world rather than 51st as also stated.

Shows that Australia has the 53rd highest population

Shows the current estimated population of Australia

I am going to change Australia's rank from 51st to 53rd but I would recommed that the actual population is changed by someone else (besides me). De Mattia (talk) 01:09, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

The population figure that you're speaking of is not the actual population. As is indicated next to the figure, it's only a "2009 estimate". As can be seen by the citation provided with the figure, it's an estimate as of 28 March 2009. The reason that it is now over 21.8 million is that the population increases by about 1 person every (as of now) 84 seconds. When the estimate was provided it was increasing by 1 person every 90 seconds. Even the 21.8 million figure is not an actual figure, it's only an estimate. --AussieLegend (talk) 01:33, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

So shall we leave it as 'Australia 53rd highest population and then just leave the current population as it is'. De Mattia (talk) 02:41, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Listing Australia as the "n'th highest population" should ideally be sourced to a reliable source that states that ranking, not by comparing the figures for different countries in Wikipedia - some will be more up-to-date than others, and they may not all be calculated using the same definitions, so comparing stats from Wikipedia is unreliable. --GenericBob (talk) 14:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Why the navbox on monarchies?

I'm baffled as to why the mostly useful links in the navbox at the bottom are bloated by a humungous tree of links to the world's monarchies. This does not concern whether one is an Australian monarchist or not; rather, it's a matter of dilution by irrelevant material. Why, I ask you, are we speciallly linked to countries such as Kuwait, Brunei and Swaziland, just because they happen to have "monarchies" of a sort (although totally different from our constitutional monarchy). I see a link to the "Monarchies" category at the very bottom, too. Why is that not enough?

I suggest that we remove the elaborate, unnecessary navbox bloat. Any objections? Tony (talk) 12:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

The navboxes are collapsed for me, leaving the only direct link the one you mention at the bottom of the page. The box you are talking about is inside two layers of collapse, meaning that I would really want to have exactly that information to click on it. Are they not collapsing correctly for all browsers? AKAF (talk) 13:14, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, AKAF. My point is: why is it there in the first place? There's a category link at the bottom. Apart from the clutter and lack of relevance, there's the issue that it may convey the message that the monarchies of Kuwait, Brunei, Swaziland, Thailand, Denmark, etc, are similar to the Australian situation. They are not. Why are we making such a big deal out of this false relationship? Tony (talk) 13:22, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

For me the whole lot of navboxes takes up approximately the same space as one point item of the bibliography. I don't think the map of the english-speaking world is worth much either, and that takes about the same amount of space. The members of the commonwealth, or English-speaking countries or members of Oceania are also dissimilar in many ways to Australia, so why particularly the box on monarchies? I won't defend any of the navboxes, but I can't get too excited about it. AKAF (talk) 17:46, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

• It's not space, it's relevance and the potential to mislead. Tony (talk) 06:36, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Australia is a monarchy so a navbox listing monarchies seems relevant and I don't see how it's misleading. If you really want to get rid of it, nominate the navbox for deletion. --AussieLegend (talk) 07:14, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

What is the relevance with the Kuwaiti and Swaziland monarchies? Why is that not misleading, if not downright irrelevant? Tony (talk) 07:16, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

The relevance is that they are monarchies. As the name implies it's a navigation box, used to allow easy navigation between articles with some commonality. The relevance here is not necessarily to Australia, it's to monarchies. You need to look at the big picture and not limit your view to how another article relates to Australia. You need to also look at how Australia relates to other articles. --AussieLegend (talk) 07:50, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, while we're at it, let's have a list of continents paraded in the navbox; and a list of countries in which there are endemic marsupials (a few in South America, I believe). And a list of countries in which traffic is driven on the left; and of federal jurisdications; and .... Tony (talk) 13:24, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I once ran for federal parliament and one potential voter expressed concern that the current MP had helped some chicken farmers employ some Korean chicken sexers because the locals were incredibly inept at the job. He argued that if we let in Korean chicken sexers then we could find ourselves flooded with Korean bus drivers, Korean pizza delivery boys, Korean doctors and so on. Well, no, that wasn't going to happen then and what you've suggested won't happen here. There are degrees. A country being a monarchy is somewhat more significant that what you seem to think could be the case. --AussieLegend (talk) 13:52, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• False analogy: the Korean chicker sexers were useful. A monarchy section is misleading. You haven't responded to my question concerning the relevance of the Kuwaiti monarchy to Our Lovely Queen. Tony (talk) 14:48, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

There's no monarchy section involved. We're talking about a hidden monarchy navbox and who said that the Kuwaiti monarchy has to be relevent to your lovely queen? As I said, you need to look at the big picture. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:04, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Look at the big picture and ignore the details? Prescription for sloppy writing at the level of the clause? Tony (talk) 15:36, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

You've missed the point. As I stated earlier, you shouldn't limit your view to how another article relates to Australia. You need to also look at how Australia relates to other articles. If there is a navbox that is in the articles of the other countries that are monarchies, it's reasonable for that navbox to also be here. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:50, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Royal anthem

Remove royal anthem from right hand box? it is not any longer in use since the year 1976 and i cannot think of one australian who is aware of such an anthem. put it back as a footnote as it was before. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ajnprior (talk • contribs) 06:44, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

The Royal Anthem is only used on certain occasions but it is used and while you may have known anyone who knows it, there are a lot of people who do. I'm one of them. --AussieLegend (talk) 07:08, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

AL, whether you use it is immaterial; what matters is its relevance to the infobox. Is it used, then, when a state governor or the governer-general is in attendance? Tony (talk) 07:14, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I never said that I used it. I said it is used. Its relevance is that it's an official anthem of Australia. Excluding it is misleading because it gives the impression that we only have one anthem. We don't. We have two and the story of how Advance Australia Fair replaced God Save the Queen as the national anthem is an important part of Australian history. --AussieLegend (talk) 08:03, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

This is an old discussion and the consensus then was to leave it out. Putting it in essentially gives it equal prominence with the National Anthem (as one of the first bits of info in the article). This is undue weight and was excluded for that reason. Indeed, that is why the note (N1) is there. --Merbabu (talk) 08:09, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank god for that. Tony (talk) 08:47, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

While there are no doubt Australian groups or individuals who sing "God Save the Queen" as part of ceremonial events or organisational meetings, I cannot think of any official (ie. government) occasion that it is used. Can anyone else?

In the absence of any official use, it should certainly be removed from the infobox as its presence implies a status it doesn't have. The story of the transition to Advance Australia Fair is indeed worth recording, but in the main body of the article or at Advance Australia Fair. -- Euryalus (talk) 09:38, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I believe God save the Queen was used at the last Royal visit but I can't find a source to back it up. This explains more http://www.dfat.gov.au/facts/nat_anthem.html Bidgee (talk) 09:51, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• "While there are no doubt Australian groups or individuals who sing "God Save the Queen" as part of ceremonial events or organisational meetings"—five-minute soft roll on the kettle-drum while they stand up in their zimmer frames? Tony (talk) 10:02, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Some of the comments above demonstrate an amazing lack of understanding as to the purpose and use of the royal anthem. The royal anthem is reserved for use on occasions where a member of the royal family is present. When the Queen is present at an official engagement the royal anthem is played at the beginning and the national anthem is played at the end. At all other occasions the national anthem is played. The reason that we don't see God Save the Queen performed more is simply because the Queen isn't here that often. If she did decide to frequent Australia more you'd hear it a lot more. Despite the infrequency of use of God Save the Queen, both songs have equal status as Australia's anthems. --AussieLegend (talk) 10:37, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, to a point. Per the reference Bidgee gives above, God Save the Queen (GSTQ) is the Royal Anthem and played at public engagements at which a member of the Royal Family is present. This is arguably the same courtesy displayed to any head of state (if the Russian president flew in for a cermeony, no doubt the Russian national anthem would be played), but GSTQ's designation of "Royal Anthem" is indeed backed by the source.

However the same source makes clear the two anthems do not have equal status - one is the national anthem of Australia and the other is for once-in-a-decade use to mark the physical presence of the monarch or family. The source cannot reasonably be construed to suggest GTSQ is an equal alternative in Australian national life to Advance Australia Fair.

So the argument about the infobox becomes a slightly different one - does recording both anthems give the false perception they are both natonal anthems of Australia? Does it give undue weight to the comparatively minor role GTSQ plays in Australian national life or ceremony? I don't personally have a strong view on this, but if inclusion of GTSQ in the infobox would mislead readers we should leave it out. If consensus is people will readily understand the role and context of a Royal anthem, then by all means put it in. Euryalus (talk) 10:52, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

The proclamation issued by then Governor-General Sir Ninian Stephen on 19 April 1984 gave neither song any greater status than the other. It merely stated when each was to be used and clarified the wording of the new national anthem. One could easily argue that the royal anthem has a greater status because it is only to be used on "special" occasions, but claiming that either has a higher status than the other is original research. I should probably point out that I am a long time Advance Australia Fair supporter. I used to get into trouble at school when I wouldn't stand for God Save the Queen because I believed that Adance Australia Fair should be our national anthem. I'm a little biased towards that song because a letter from P.D. McCormick to my grandfather, explaining how he came to write Advance Australia Fair, is part of the national collection in the National Library but here I have to be neutral and being neutral means accepting that neither song has a greater status than the other. One is the national anthem for everyday use (just like the old clunker that you use to pick up the kids from school and get the groceries) while the other is the royal anthem, reserved for special occasions (like the Lamborghini that you only trot out on weekends), but neither is more important than the other. --AussieLegend (talk) 11:21, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Let me get this right: the horse-woman—Camilla Hyphen Thingo—puts on a flying visit to the colonies, and out comes God Save the Queen. Yes? Tony (talk) 13:21, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I can see where you're going with this. Nice try but you might care to note that the song is titled "God Save the Queen", not "God Save Crapzilla". It's about the position, not the person. I asume that if Miss Universe was a member of the royal family you'd have less problems. --AussieLegend (talk) 13:46, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Fewer problems? ... I see that God Save Our Lovely Queen (which is a hymn, not a song) rears its head only when a member of the royal family is present; not when the very officers who constitutionally represent OLQ are present. There's something very strange about insisting on its flashing-light appearance right up in the infobox under the national anthem, as though it's as significant. Tony (talk) 14:53, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

"God Save Our Lovely Queen "? I think you're losing sight of the neutral position that you should be trying to maintain. --AussieLegend (talk) 14:59, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Her name is Camilla Parker-Bowles (or, now I check that article, it was until 2005 when she married Charles). I don't care either way how we indicate the status of GSTQ, but arguments along the lines of "ha ha look at the horsey woman with the funny name" belong in the playground, not here. --GenericBob (talk) 00:40, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I have no objections to the Royal Anthem not being in the infobox, because for 99.99% of the time it may as well not exist, so it really is undue weight. But Aussie Legend is spot on with his facts about its formal designation and how it came about. I'm surprised we all seem to have forgotten so quickly the controversy over its use at the opening ceremony of the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, which the Queen attended. The games organisers decided that Advance Australia Fair and only that song would be sung (by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa). Many people including John Howard had a problem with this, as they considered it was disrespectful to the Queen given that the Royal Anthem was available and was supposed to be used for precisely this sort of occasion. In the end, a few bars of it were sung, then the music morphed into AAF - see [14]. But that was probably the last time it was sung in Australia at any kind of public event. Who knows, it might be the last ever. -- JackofOz (talk) 03:54, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Nope, the Oodnawhosiwhatsit Senior Citizen's Association stand (Jaffa spillages notwithstanding) and belt it out weekly in front of a pic of Her Maj. It will live on. Tony (talk) 05:28, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

On reflection I support including it in the infobox. A quick flick through similar articles listed here shows the Royal Anthem is recorded in the infobox for many nations, and there does not seem to be widespread confusion about what it means. Some are considerably more obscure than God Save the Queen, but their listing nonetheless tells us something notable about the country concerned. This use is precisely why the infobox contains a Royal Anthem field - if there is opposition to the inclusion of Royal Anthems due to on undue weight, surely the correct course is to amend the infobox template itself to achieve a universal rule, rather than removing it from this article alone.

I appreciate that others see this differently - at present there seems not to be consensus either way, so new opinions are more than welcome. Euryalus (talk) 05:44, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

A bit off the point but I never found out who Elizabeth actually was at the Commonwealth Games - was she there as the Queen of the UK , the Queen of Australia or as the Head of the Commonwealth ? If she was there as the latter then playing ' God save the Queen ' was quite a faux pas . Lejon

Interesting point. She was probably wearing all 3 hats. Or all 17, come to think of it. Thank God she can afford to employ a good milliner. If she shook hands with the Barbadian team, she was Queen of Barbados, etc. When she met Howard, she was Queen of Australia. At the official opening, she would have been Head of the Commonwealth. Quite a busy lady. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:40, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

GDP figures in infobox

They are US dollars, aren't they? This needs to be said. Tony (talk) 11:15, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Well-meant cn tags unnecessary?

Aaronclick's recent edits: I can see only one tag that is vaguely required (compulsory voting, if the link doesn't satisfy that purpose). Tony (talk) 03:39, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I think that the tags are reasonable - as this is an FA, everything should be covered by a citation. Nick-D (talk) 03:45, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

While there should be a high standard of referencing in an FA, the edits did seem to have at least an element of simply throwing in tags without really considering if they were necessary. --Merbabu (talk) 03:48, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

"Everything should be covered"—I can't agree with that prescription, since it would lead to a forest of citation numbers, mostly unnecessary. In particular, where there are explicit references in the text (Section 51 of the Constitution), or links to articles that will contain or lead directly to the sources, there appears little reason to clutter. Tony (talk) 04:04, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

In response to Merbabu's {{cn}} tag, that's always been my understanding of how Featured article criterion 1c is interpreted - articles which goes to a FAC with any uncited text normally run into problems. Nick-D (talk) 04:05, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

• No, I can assure you that FACs with forests of trivial citations (it becomes a lazy way of avoiding proper judgement as to relevance, contentiousness, common-knowledge factor) are complained about. I have opposed extreme examples, because they fail the "professional" requirement. Tony (talk) 04:31, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

OK. I do think that most of the tags are OK though. It would have been nice for Aaronclick to have explained his reasoning or added some sources though. Nick-D (talk) 05:10, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not too sure who Aaronclick is.. :) Although he probably should have posted here earlier but he didn't so we'll have to move on.

I believe the are necessary as the article isn't very well referenced and I was hoping for a bit of action on fixing these issues but instead it has unfortunately caused a debate on whether the templates are needed. If you have a look through the Wikipedia:Featured article criteria the article fails 1c along with 2c. Looks at Mumbai for example, it recently was removed as a FA after a FAR partly due to citation concern. The article has just passed a GAN and is cited very well. If the article was now nominated for FAR a lot of work would have be done if it was to remain a FA. Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 11:20, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Judging by the rate of the WP:URFA being booted off to FAR, about 60% of the remaining 2005 articles might be sent to FAR in teh second half of hte year, which might mean that around 6 of the Aussie FAs in that list will be in the firing line. On the issue of content, some of the lists of notable singers/actors and sportspeople might only attract trouble or recentism, eg polls of sports pundits for Australia's greatest Olympians usually rate Betty Cuthbert, Herb Elliott, Marjorie Jackson, Shirley Strickland higher than Freeman. Maybe three individual gold medals might be a better metric (this would give Thorpe, Gould, Rose, Fraser and a few others) etc although there are more events in the modern era. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:55, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

The Link Fairy is at it

I've just removed some of the lowest-value links I've ever seen ("English"?) ... Um ... we're reading it now. I see many repeat links of states and cities through the article. Why is "international comparisons of national performance" linked to somewhere else within the article—as though it's not defensive enough to even mention it in the lead? Tony (talk) 13:44, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Can we please update link 47 "Australia's Size Compared"? It has moved to http://www.ga.gov.au/education/geoscience-basics/dimensions/aus-size-compared.jsp. SydBrklyn (talk) 15:25, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Grammatical Changes

I have made some slight grammatical changes to the 'Ethnic Groups' section at the top of the page. For example, when you are referring to an ethnic group as 'White' or 'Other', you must use capital letters. If you were referring to an entity or colour as 'White' or 'Other', it would be a different story. I changed this so it would be correct. The same goes for Dollars. If you are referring to Australian Dollars or US Dollars, you use capital letters. However, if you were saying "I want twenty dollars!", you wouldn't need to do so. Again, I changed this so it would be correct. Also, in the list of ethnic groups, I have deleted unneeded commas. You do not need commas in a list. --Billsta1 (talk) 10:42, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

• As in White people, White Americans, White African etc - makes sense to me.--VS ^talk 10:47, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

The cited source specifically says "white 92%, Asian 7%, aboriginal and other 1%" and consensus was reached, after an incredibly lengthy discussion that dwarfed War and Peace, to state the ethnicities exactly as stated in the citation. As for dollars, the correct link to Australian dollar is not Australian Dollar. --AussieLegend (talk) 11:27, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Aussie Legend - perhaps you could please point to the discussion (in the archives) so that Billsta who I believe is meaning well by his edits can learn the history. I am asking because I'd rather see a newbie assisted to understand the history of articles etc and learn why we do the things we do and why discussion helps. With thanks.--VS ^talk 11:47, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Start reading here and continue through all 25,097 words or until you seriously consider suicide. There are also several relevant edit summaries to read. --AussieLegend (talk) 11:58, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks buddy - I pre-empted at his talk page that you would assist. And no, not a hateful bone in my body but sometimes it's good to remember we were all new once, and that being new you can be right technically (in terms of grammar say) but wrong in terms of history or quotations. Best wishes.--VS ^talk 12:03, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Continent, country and island

... is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the mainland, which is both the world's smallest continent and the world's largest island, the island of Tasmania, and numerous other islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the only area of land simultaneously considered a continent, a country and an island.

There's something wrong with the above. First, we're saying the mainland is a continent and an island. OK, so far. Then we're saying the whole country, including Tasmania, is a continent and an island. That's where it goes wrong. The whole country is not an island. It consists of one very large island (the mainland), one large island (Tasmania), and numerous smaller islands (Groote Eylandt, Kangaroo, Melville, Lord Howe, etc etc). Even if we changed the 2nd sentence to "It is the only area of land simultaneously considered a continent and a country", it's still not right because Australia is not just one area of land, but many areas of land, separated by water. I'm removing the offending sentence. -- JackofOz (talk) 09:04, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

"Australia" refers to the country, the continent and the mainland so the claims are essentially correct. The solution is not deletion, a minor rewording is all that necessary. --AussieLegend (talk) 09:18, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Always happy to discuss. I see you've changed "It is the only area of land ..." to "Australia is the only place ...". I still can't see how it can possibly be correct. The sticking point is that Australia is not an island; it is many islands. We say as much in the previous sentence, where we separately identify the mainland as an island, Tasmania as another island, and the the numerous other islands as ... well, other islands. Then in the next sentence we refer to them all collectively as "an island". It doesn't wash. Would we refer to Japan or Indonesia as "an island"? Hardly. Australia is like them in this respect. The mainland is an island, but the mainland is not all of Australia (just ask a Tasmanian). -- JackofOz (talk) 12:12, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

The trick here is not to be overly precise. Above you've said "one large island (Tasmania)" but technically, Tasmania isn't one large island any more than Australia is. It's a number of islands. The same is true for most named islands but we accept all those places to be individual islands and we don't quibble over the fact that each island is actually one large with many small islands. Even authoritative sources like Geoscience Australia aren't so pedantic. When people refer to Australia the island, they're talking about the mainland. This used to be a big sticking point with Tasmanians when I was at school in the '60s and '70s. Maps of Australia often excluded Tasmania specifically because of that. When you went to the shop to buy a plastic stencil of Australia, it rarely included Tasmania. As for the continent, well that's still an ongoing issue. There are various arguments that the continent is the mainland only, the mainland and Tasmania or all the islands on the continental shelf (which includes the mainland, Tasmania and New Guinea). Japan and Indonesia are different to Oz. Japan clearly consists of a central core of several larger, roughly similar size islands with several thousand smaller and generally less known islands, while Indonesia consists of over 17,000 islands strung out over a large area with several larger islands dotted throughout the area. Australia is dominated by the mainland, which makes up about 98.75% of the country, a much higher ratio than for either Japan or Indonesia. The other islands, excepting Tasmania, that make up Australia only count for 0.4% of the country. Even Tasmania only represents just over 0.8%.--AussieLegend (talk) 14:16, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't call what I'm on about being "overly precise" or "pedantic". This is the introduction to a major article. If we start out with a fairly gross inaccuracy, we may as well give up.

When people refer to Australia the island, they're talking about the mainland. That's exactly my point. We are not talking in the lede about just the mainland but the entire nation of Australia. It's fine to use loose language in a tourism campaign, calling Australia "The island nation" or whatever, but we're an encyclopedia. I also remember the plastic cutouts, and the kerfuffle at the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games when Tasmania temporarily ceased to exist. Are we basing our standards on that sort of "accuracy"? Regardless of the fact that our mainland massively dominates, we can no more refer to our nation as "an island" than we can refer to Japan or Indonesia as "an island". Imagine the reaction from the Northern Irelanders if we called the United Kingdom "an island". The way I see it is:

Place	Continent	Island	Country
Tasmania (mainland)	No	Yes	No
Tasmania (state)	No	No	No
Mainland of Australia	Maybe(1)	Yes	No
Australia	Maybe(1)	No	Yes

(1) Depends on the definition. Australia (continent) says it includes New Guinea, but there are a number of serious issues with that. Lord Howe Island, an integral part of Australia (country), would probably not fit into any definition of Australia (continent).

-- JackofOz (talk) 21:48, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

This article is about the Commonwealth of Australia, the nation, not the island, not the Continent. The lead paragraph blurs these together, which is incorrect. The Nation (political entity) should not claim it is a continent (geography/geology), and so the paragraph should be re-written. The nation may contain the world's largest island, but is not the world's largest island, as that excludes Tasmania, etc. The 'continent' claim is debatable (see list of discussions at top of page), and so should not claim catagorically that it is a continent, as this is POV without the balancing opposite POV mentioned. The article needs to address this. The Yeti (talk) 02:42, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I should have made myself more clear. This is not simply an article about the nation. It is a general overview of Australia, which includes Australia the nation, Australia the continent, Australia the island, etc. When people want to find something about Australia, this is generally the first article they come to. As the umbrella article for all things Australia, it's entirely appropriate to include generalised information about Australia in the introduction. More detailed information is included in the relevant articles. Although there is some debate, none of the claims are particularly controversial. Australia is considered by many to be the largest island, smallest continent and only continent occupied by a single country and all of these claims are uniquely relevant to Australia the country. --AussieLegend (talk) 03:23, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Your interpretation of what this article is about is wrong. Firstly, read the opening lines! :

This article is about the country. ...

Australia,... officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the mainland, which is both the world's smallest continent and the world's largest island,...

These clearly and unequivocally state the article is about the country. And then goes into stating the whole country is the continent. The title Commonwealth of Australia redirects here too. Wrong, wrong, wrong. If wikipedia is to be accurate, it must not make fundamental errors like this.

The article must split/separate the political entity (nation) and the geography/geology of the island and of the continent.

Secondly "when people come to Australia", I would reckon 90% of them are looking for the country, so the lead paragraph should not have inaccurate statements confusing the nation with the island & with the continent.

Thirdly "Although there is some debate, none of the claims are particularly controversial. Australia is considered by many to be the largest island, smallest continent and only continent occupied by a single country and all of these claims are uniquely relevant to Australia the country" is just irrelevant - Controversy has nothing to do with accuracy, and the relevant point, which you've admitted, is that there is "some debate". The article must reflect that debate, and to quote my entry above, else "this is POV without the balancing opposite POV mentioned." Just because many believe it to be all three things, a) even if they do, many believe the opposite. The article is reflecting just one side. b) just beacuse many believe something, does not mean its true.

When I have time, I will address these errors in the article itself. The Yeti (talk) 10:28, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Aussie Legend, I'm very curious about this entity you refer to as "Australia, the island". Just exactly where is it and what does it look like? If you're referring to the mainland, that place is a very large part of "Australia", but it is not "Australia". This is like referring to the island of Great Britain as "the United Kingdom". -- JackofOz (talk) 13:02, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Where are you from Jack? Are you really from the mythical Land of Oz as your username indicates? Just exactly where is Oz and what does it look like? I can't find it on a map. Is it anywhere near Australia? I think that what both you and The Yeti are missing is that the concept that Australia is an island, a continent and the only continent occupied by a single country is not a new concept, it's been around for many, many years and is widely accepted. That's probably why it was added to the article in the first place. If you want to be pedantic, it may technically be contradictory but it is only a general statement, as statements in the lead of an article this size have to be. The issue you both seem to have a problem grasping is that the definitions of an island and a continent, and the differences between them, aren't black and white. If they were, then there'd be no discussion about whether Australia was an island or not, or whether the Australian continent consisted of the mainland, the mainland and Tasmania or everything on the Australian continental shelf. There'd also be no discussions about whether the continent is the only continent occupied by a single country. It's just accepted that these things are true, just as it's accepted without great debate that the sun rises in the east, the sky is blue, Jack from Oz is Jack from Australia and "The Yeti" isn't really a yeti. If you really feel the need to explain in great detail why the statement isn't true, then add an explanatory section to the article, but don't be surprised if somebody else deletes your explanation as unnecessary. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:33, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I think AussieLegend that it is you missing concepts in two crucial ways. Firstly Australia the political man-made entity, is completely different to Australia the landmass (whether it be an island, islands, or continent). The entry, which states in the very first line it is about the country, is therefore about the political entity. The article cannot therefore also lay claim the the landmass, as, as you have admitted, this is different. It doesn't matter that, by happenstance of history, the nation occupies 90% (or even, from your POV, 100%) of the landmass, or that you, other Aussies, or even the Australian government, think they are the whole island/continent, as they are many who doubt the statement that Australia the country occupies the whole continent. What is accepted as 'fact' in Australia isn't necessarily accepted elsewhere in the world. Even the Aussie government can be wrong ! (compare the government of Morocco, which believes it owns the Western Sahara, despite this being disputed by many other nations.)

The second concept you're missing is the balanced POV - this is a policy of Wikipedia. Read W:NPOV#Neutral_point_of_view, which very clearly states what's needed in bold type - the article does not address the opposing POV, and violates Wiki policy. Attempts to remove such balancing POVs are a serious breach of Wiki policy, and have consequences. The Yeti (talk) 17:04, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Education

In the Demography section the article states "School attendance is compulsory throughout Australia". This is incorrect. Education is compulsory in Australia, however, home-schooling is accepted as Education. Also, in many rural parts of Australia, the School of the Air operates (school via CB radio), as well as Distance Education (correspondence school). Some research on Australia's education system would improve this article.

http://www.hea.asn.au/

http://www.distance.vic.edu.au/about/abtover.htm

http://www.assoa.nt.edu.au/

--Gladrim (talk) 21:20, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Home schooling is attending school, as is participating in the School of The Air (which does not use CB radio). A school doesn't have to be a physical entity that a student attends. That said, maybe "School education" as used in the last paragraph of the section titled "Primary and secondary schooling" on the DFAT Website might be better. --AussieLegend (talk) 03:48, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Socceroos

Should not be listed as one of Australia's strong teams.

• Have only made made WC twice. In 1974, lost 2-0 for GDR, 3-0 to FRG, 0-0 to Chile. In 2006, beat JPN 3-1, lost 2-0 to BRA and ITA and drew 2-2 with CRO. Best result, final 16.
• Asia Cup, Best result quarterfinals
• Best ever ranking 16, but that was a spike, before that was 29th but not even consistently in top 30
• Australia cannot be considered strong. Other countries such as Brazil and Spain have all their players in the major Champions League teams. Some of Australia's First XI don't even play for a first division team in a small European club. How many Australian players would even come close to getting into a 25-man squad from Spain or Brazil?
• Other teams consistently in top 5 in the world and have won World Cups/Championships multiple times.

YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:55, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Health

No information on health care for Australia. I would be interested if someone could please add it. 118.208.198.149 (talk) 09:15, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Health care in Australia --10:49, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

religion

Always tricky on wikipedia to add figures on religious adherence..which I just did (again) on this page on Australia --quoting the census 2001 and 2006 results. If these are outdated, I would like to see more recent figures. Ruud64 (talk) 20:33, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Currency of the data is not the issue, the table cincludes specific data that is more suited to Religion in Australia (where it is already located) rather than here which, by necessity, must remain essentially an overview document about Australia. --AussieLegend (talk) 01:50, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll just come out and say it...

This article is a dog's breakfast. Can we just delete it all and start over?--Rehumanist (talk) 06:25, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Sure. Feel free to draft up something and when you're done, let us know. --AussieLegend (talk) 07:09, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

But please don't touch the current "breakfast" until you've finished your new draft and we've had a look at it.--VirtualSteve ^{need admin support?} 08:30, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Australia as Continent and Island

I have read the current discussions and several of the archived ones and there are may misconceptions and misunderstandings about geographic terms/nomenclature. I will only address the one referenced above.

The difference between an island and a continent are not unrelated. The criterion of size is the primary, but not the only, characteristic that determines what is an island and what is a continent.

Australia was once classified as an island ( see Lancelot and Gray; 'The Civil Service Geography: Being a Manual of Geography, General and Politcal ), but once it was classified as a continent, for reasons of size, biodiversity, geophysics, etc., it lost its status as the largest island and became the smallest continent. Greenland [Kalaallit Nunaat], which is a "continental island" of North America, acquired the title of largest island. An island is not simply a landmass completely surrounded by water, but is also a landmass smaller than a continent (see any geography text book, Davis Joyce; Why Greenland is an Island, Australia is Not- and Japan is Up for Grabs ). This has been established convention for over a century.

I am aware in common usage of describing Australia as an “island continent” , but this is a purely descriptive term and is not:

• based on the nomenclature used in physical geography;
• or consistent with the Australian government’s listing of islands (Geoscience Australia lists Tasmania as the largest island);

Besides, if this claim were to be upheld, thus violating established nomenclature, then Antarctica would be the largest island, not Australia. So Australia cannot be both an island and a continent and I am removing that claim in the opening paragraph. Gary Joseph (talk) 11:21, 13 August 2009 (UTC)