Talk:Australia

Name

May I ask why the name of Australia is mentioned twice in the infobox? "Commonwealth of Australia" then right below is "Australia". I don't understand this at all. Could someone clear this up please? If not, I think it should be removed as it is redundant. Nations United (talk) 06:24, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

One is the formal name while the other is the common name. --AussieLegend (talk) 06:48, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

It's happened because the dumb, unthinking country template has three places where you can stick the name, and innocent users have, logically enough, used them all. (Can anyone tell that I'm not a strong fan of templates?) We have native_name, conventional_long_name, and common_name, with absolutely no explanation of what those fields are for, nor the result of using them all. I know we should all preview our edits, but with silly, unexplained template entries to contend with, odd looking results like the one you're concerned about are inevitable. I am going to be bold and remove one of the entries. Let's see what happens. HiLo48 (talk) 06:53, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely agree. Also, if you look at every other country, the official name is the only name in the infobox. Australia should be no different. I definitely support the change. Nations United (talk) 07:00, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

"with absolutely no explanation of what those fields are for, nor the result of using them all" - There are most definitely explanations of what those fields are for at Template:Infobox country:

• native_name - Long-form name in native language
• conventional_long_name - Conventional English long-form
• common_name - Common English name (used as wikilink and to produce a default iso3166code)

Australia
ISO 3166 code	AU

The first two seem clear enough. The last is not as clear but it's fairly easy to work out what it does, which is to create various links in the infobox as well as the ISO 3166 code if not supplied at "|iso3166code". As for the effect of using them all, that's fairly obvious when you look at the displayed infobox. Nations United's assertion that "if you look at every other country, the official name is the only name in the infobox" that is most definitely not the case. --AussieLegend (talk) 09:14, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Most editors first (perhaps only) edit infoboxes by changing entries in those already in use. That's all I've ever done. How is one to even know that such explanations exist somewhere else? HiLo48 (talk) 11:24, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I suppose you can't know just from the template, but could probably if a dispute arose ask at some relevant noticeboard. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:46, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah yes, those noticeboards. Very handy, once you discover they exist, which I eventually did, by accident.... There are times when I think experienced editors need to have a think about how Wikipedia looks to newcomers. It's a very complicated entity. To criticise the newbies (and not so newbies) for not knowing the intricacies of it all is never going to make things better. HiLo48 (talk) 12:01, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I was a newbie not so long ago, and still don't consider myself that experienced. Complications are probably a necessary evil of an online encyclopaedia that can be edited by all, if only to keep sanity. As long as WP:BITE is observed, hopefully there will be little criticism of newbies (and not so newbies). Anyway, as for whether the duplication was needed in this infobox, perhaps not, especially as the article is called Australia. Might be worth making an inquiry on the Infobox talk page. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 12:11, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

@HiLo48 - Every infobox has its title on the first line. At the bottom of the page you're editing is a list of templates used in the article and clicking on the one that matches the infobox takes you to the documentation. It's simply a matter of looking around the page which you should always do if you're unsure of something. --AussieLegend (talk) 12:35, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Clearly it's not simple enough for those who messed it up on this article. Which, I want you to recall, wasn't me. I, in fact, was the one who fixed it. I have just been explaining why I think such problems arise. It's obviously not simple enough. HiLo48 (talk) 20:47, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

AussieLegend, Could you please show me a country where the infobox has the official and common name at the top like Australia? I'm certain that it does not exist. Nations United (talk) 20:51, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Nicaragua, but it's probably in a minority (I know I'm not Aussielegend, but I doubt you're only going to accept responses off him). Anoldtreeok (talk) 05:50, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Holy smoke batman - Nicaragua does it? we must do it too then. --Merbabu (talk) 05:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's not like Nicaragua is an obscure little country, but I Found some more: Argentina, Bolivia (Has 4 names), Brazil, East Timor, Japan, New Zealand, United Kingdom. However, I'm beginning to think that the one's I've shown here are relevant, as they are in most cases giving the countries name in the native language. Really the one's here are just any country I found with more than one name in the infobox. Anoldtreeok (talk) 05:59, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Not one of those sources are relevant. The other names there are the official name in the other languages of the country. None of them are common names because it's like saying the official name in that language. Hope you now understand what I'm asking for. Nations United (talk) 06:18, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I was halfway through typing that out when I realised you were complaining about redundancy not how much space is used up. But being the attention whore I am had to save what I did anyway. Anoldtreeok (talk) 06:28, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll throw it out there though that I disagree with the argument that it's the infobox's fault people add these parts. Sure, they may not add irrelevant or redundant parts if there wasn't a place to put them, but I think people should be aware of what things are for. Anoldtreeok (talk) 06:29, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

That's alright. Simple mistake; I've done it many times. Although, when you realized your mistake, you can always edit the page again and cross it out and right something else. Anyways, It doesn't seem to appear that anyone is really disagreeing with the change, so I think we can lave the discussion, unless anyone else has something else to say. Nations United (talk) 06:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Throwing in my support for one or the other. Not both. I'm 60-40 leaning towards "Commonwealth of Australia". (PS - generally speaking, I hate info boxes too, but that's not a battle I'd bother having) --Merbabu (talk) 07:28, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Also supporting "Commonwealth of Australia". "Australia" is already the name of the page, as well as the first word in the lead. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 07:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Pronunciation of "Australia"

The proper pronunciation of Australia should be ɒˈstreɪljə, not əˈstreɪljə/ (i.e. o-stray-lee-uh, not uh-stray-lee-uh). I think this is particularly relevant to Americans whose accent generally produces "aah-stray-lee-uh", when a correct IPA key would produce something closer to the correct pronunciation.

114.78.199.28 (talk) 04:02, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't know. I pronounce it more "A-Strayle-yah" or "Uh-Strayle-yah" with only 3 sylables. I think the way it is is accurate, but I could be wrong. Anoldtreeok (talk) 05:00, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

As an Australian, I always say it as 3 sylables, eg, A-Strayle-yah, and I think this is the main pronunciation here. I don't know any group that says it in 4 sylables, although I hear British people say Or-strayle-yah, and my Irish friends typically say Os-rail-yah and leave out the T altogeher. (obviously regional variations exist).--Dmol (talk) 05:23, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

As I always say, "Australia" rhymes with "failure" and "genitalia". Does anybody say fail-i-ya or jen-i-tail-i-ya? Someone being extremely precise and deliberately sounding out the syllables slowly might say o-stray-li-ya or jen-i-tail-i-ya, but outside that specific context, it'd be o-strayl-ya and jen-i-tail-ya. And always fail-ya. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 05:34, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with this. I always say and hear 'aw-strayl-yuh.' I would look funny at someone who said 'uh-strayl-yuh' or 'aw-stray-lee-uh.' My IPA transliteration would use the regular 'a' symbol though, because for me it's the same vowel as in 'father.' (aˈstreɪl'jə). 74.232.83.13 (talk) 20:59, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

But that's not the same vowel as "aw", which you mentioned first. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 21:13, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

You'd look weirdly at someone who says "Uh-Strayl-yuh"? I've always thought the "aw-strayl-yuh" pronunciation sounded weird. It always sounded to me like the way Americans would say it. Not that it's wrong, I've just never pronounced it that way. Anoldtreeok (talk) 23:35, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Ha ha - rhymes with "genetalia" and "failure". An alternative pronunciation is "Straya" as in "Slayer". On a serious note, I'm of no use with the IPA keys etc. sorry. --Merbabu (talk) 23:40, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

It should be "Os-tra-lee-ah" as your common Ostraleein would pronounce it.210.185.7.199 (talk) 12:51, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Correct English

"Comprising" in the first sentence should be "comprised of." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.106.108.15 (talk) 00:42, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

You think so? I'm quite comfortable with that construction. Perhaps we're from different age-groups (I'm old) or used to different versions of English. HiLo48 (talk) 01:46, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

"comprised of" is widely attacked as bad grammar. Not being a grammar nazi myself, it doesn't really bother me. But I don't see why we would choose to introduce grammar that a segment of the population considers wrong when we can keep everyone happy with "comprises" or "composed of". Hesperian 02:20, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

A whole is comprised of its parts. The parts comprise the whole. The first sentence in the article has it backwards. My age has nothing to do with it, and I am not a nazi. lol!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.106.108.15 (talk) 23:29, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree with you about comprised of and comprise, but the word you didn't like at the start of this thread was comprising. It still looks OK to me. HiLo48 (talk) 01:27, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Pictures

The MOS states "Avoid sandwiching text between two images that face each other." However, in my browser this article has a few cases of sandwiching.

• The History section has text sandwiched between the picture of Port Arthure and the caption of the map of routes.
• The Economy section has text sandwiched between both pictures
• The Culture section between the first two pictures (and I assume the second and third ones for larger browsers)

I'm not sure that they can be rearranged to fix this, so perhaps the only solution is to remove one or two? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 05:02, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't look too bad to me, only minor compared to some other articles. Personally I wouldn't get too pedantic about sandwiching, but I wouldn't object to any changes/removals if other editors thought the article would read/flow better. Anoldtreeok (talk) 05:23, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

There's always room for improvement. But I'm not too hung about these apparent small deviations from the guidelines. --Merbabu (talk) 09:23, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

promotion of a wine initiative?

i don't know when this snuck into the article, but the wine subsection now has two sentences on the Australia's First Families of Wine initiative. Where to start? It looks to me to breach WP:UNDUE, it has peacock language (eg "to highlight the quality and diversity of Australian wine"), it is a sales pitch, it breaches NOTNEWS, and appears, in short, to be sales hype that has been buttressed by a ridiculous number of inline cites, which themselves seem to highlight the fact that the text does not deserve to be there. The text also does not make sense in places: "showcasing a representative of its landmark wines..." and "former Hon Tony Burke MP" - I wonder if there might be copyvio beneath the surface as well? Can anyone give us some good reasons why these two sentences should not be deleted with extreme prejudice?! Cheers, hamiltonstone (talk) 04:56, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec) PS. Seems whole section was added in one hit here by an editor who has done a lot of good work on Aust wines and appears just to have got carried away on this occasion. hamiltonstone (talk) 05:09, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

A topic definitely of interest to me, but yes, clearly marketing, pure and simple. That's POV. It should go. HiLo48 (talk) 05:05, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Add maybe a sentence or two to the Cuisine section, perhaps move to Cuisine main page, though the way it is currently written it seems like it would belong in Economy Chipmunkdavis (talk) 06:08, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, I'm having a go at redistributing and editing material. hamiltonstone (talk) 09:13, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

English is not 'Legislatively Official', lets make that a little more clear

I propose the statement "Australia has no official language", be changed, the title "official" language is vague and the citation used to back it up has been taken out of context. I was just reading this article and was interested in the statement that English is not the official language of Australia. While this fact does not particularly surprise me, I am cautious of believing it's true. Now, I have no knowledge of whether there has ever been any legislation passed on this matter, nor whether the claim is true or false, but I think the statement warrants consideration.

let me clarify: In my opinion, the sentence cited to prove the claim has been taken out of context. the sentence: "English has no de jure status but it is so entrenched as the common language that it is de facto the official language as well as the national language", does not appear to imply that Australia has no 'Official' Language, it simply states (without any citation itself) that it has no status 'concerning law'. it does however state that it is the National Language. yet another vague title, yes, but I ask you to think, does it being the National language make it the official language? does not having legislation passed mean it is not Official?

I might also cite the Australian Courts of law. it is required that those facing prosecution in court either understand english or have a translator present so that they can understand.

to be concise, I propose the statement read something along the lines of 'Australia has no Legislated Official language'. I just feel the word 'Official' can be better understood if the statement follows those lines.

Lastly, I think this warrants suggestions for a better source citation, article thats actually cited doesn't focus on the issue at hand, though it does have a few more 'supported' statements that suggest english is not the Officially 'Legislated language', eg: "In 1987 the Federal Government adopted a National Policy on Languages, becoming the first English speaking country to have such a policy and the first in the world to have a multilingual languages policy" (CFAC 1994:29)." this may be found in the conclusion.

I hope you consider my suggestions and openly discuss them Cheers all Yungur (talk) 15:43, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd just like to point out that we've discussed the issue of language previously:

• Talk:Australia/Archive 15#Australian Official Language
• Talk:Australia/Archive 14#Official Language of Australia
• Talk:Australia/Archive 11#Language
• Talk:Australia/Archive 10#Official languages
• Talk:Australia/Archive 7#Languages

To summarise, "no Legislated Official" is redundant. --AussieLegend (talk) 08:33, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Update to 2010 GDP

Go to the list of countries by GDP (nominal)

update the GDP figures for both nominal and the less relevant PPP in the right hand side column and economy section

they currently show 2009 figures

the GDP figures for 2010 are now listed on the aforementioned articles.

Name

May I ask why the name of Australia is mentioned twice in the infobox? "Commonwealth of Australia" then right below is "Australia". I don't understand this at all. Could someone clear this up please? If not, I think it should be removed as it is redundant. Nations United (talk) 06:24, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

One is the formal name while the other is the common name. --AussieLegend (talk) 06:48, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

It's happened because the dumb, unthinking country template has three places where you can stick the name, and innocent users have, logically enough, used them all. (Can anyone tell that I'm not a strong fan of templates?) We have native_name, conventional_long_name, and common_name, with absolutely no explanation of what those fields are for, nor the result of using them all. I know we should all preview our edits, but with silly, unexplained template entries to contend with, odd looking results like the one you're concerned about are inevitable. I am going to be bold and remove one of the entries. Let's see what happens. HiLo48 (talk) 06:53, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely agree. Also, if you look at every other country, the official name is the only name in the infobox. Australia should be no different. I definitely support the change. Nations United (talk) 07:00, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

"with absolutely no explanation of what those fields are for, nor the result of using them all" - There are most definitely explanations of what those fields are for at Template:Infobox country:

• native_name - Long-form name in native language
• conventional_long_name - Conventional English long-form
• common_name - Common English name (used as wikilink and to produce a default iso3166code)

Australia
ISO 3166 code	AU

The first two seem clear enough. The last is not as clear but it's fairly easy to work out what it does, which is to create various links in the infobox as well as the ISO 3166 code if not supplied at "|iso3166code". As for the effect of using them all, that's fairly obvious when you look at the displayed infobox. Nations United's assertion that "if you look at every other country, the official name is the only name in the infobox" that is most definitely not the case. --AussieLegend (talk) 09:14, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Most editors first (perhaps only) edit infoboxes by changing entries in those already in use. That's all I've ever done. How is one to even know that such explanations exist somewhere else? HiLo48 (talk) 11:24, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I suppose you can't know just from the template, but could probably if a dispute arose ask at some relevant noticeboard. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:46, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah yes, those noticeboards. Very handy, once you discover they exist, which I eventually did, by accident.... There are times when I think experienced editors need to have a think about how Wikipedia looks to newcomers. It's a very complicated entity. To criticise the newbies (and not so newbies) for not knowing the intricacies of it all is never going to make things better. HiLo48 (talk) 12:01, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I was a newbie not so long ago, and still don't consider myself that experienced. Complications are probably a necessary evil of an online encyclopaedia that can be edited by all, if only to keep sanity. As long as WP:BITE is observed, hopefully there will be little criticism of newbies (and not so newbies). Anyway, as for whether the duplication was needed in this infobox, perhaps not, especially as the article is called Australia. Might be worth making an inquiry on the Infobox talk page. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 12:11, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

@HiLo48 - Every infobox has its title on the first line. At the bottom of the page you're editing is a list of templates used in the article and clicking on the one that matches the infobox takes you to the documentation. It's simply a matter of looking around the page which you should always do if you're unsure of something. --AussieLegend (talk) 12:35, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Clearly it's not simple enough for those who messed it up on this article. Which, I want you to recall, wasn't me. I, in fact, was the one who fixed it. I have just been explaining why I think such problems arise. It's obviously not simple enough. HiLo48 (talk) 20:47, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

AussieLegend, Could you please show me a country where the infobox has the official and common name at the top like Australia? I'm certain that it does not exist. Nations United (talk) 20:51, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Nicaragua, but it's probably in a minority (I know I'm not Aussielegend, but I doubt you're only going to accept responses off him). Anoldtreeok (talk) 05:50, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Holy smoke batman - Nicaragua does it? we must do it too then. --Merbabu (talk) 05:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's not like Nicaragua is an obscure little country, but I Found some more: Argentina, Bolivia (Has 4 names), Brazil, East Timor, Japan, New Zealand, United Kingdom. However, I'm beginning to think that the one's I've shown here are relevant, as they are in most cases giving the countries name in the native language. Really the one's here are just any country I found with more than one name in the infobox. Anoldtreeok (talk) 05:59, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Not one of those sources are relevant. The other names there are the official name in the other languages of the country. None of them are common names because it's like saying the official name in that language. Hope you now understand what I'm asking for. Nations United (talk) 06:18, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I was halfway through typing that out when I realised you were complaining about redundancy not how much space is used up. But being the attention whore I am had to save what I did anyway. Anoldtreeok (talk) 06:28, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll throw it out there though that I disagree with the argument that it's the infobox's fault people add these parts. Sure, they may not add irrelevant or redundant parts if there wasn't a place to put them, but I think people should be aware of what things are for. Anoldtreeok (talk) 06:29, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

That's alright. Simple mistake; I've done it many times. Although, when you realized your mistake, you can always edit the page again and cross it out and right something else. Anyways, It doesn't seem to appear that anyone is really disagreeing with the change, so I think we can lave the discussion, unless anyone else has something else to say. Nations United (talk) 06:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Throwing in my support for one or the other. Not both. I'm 60-40 leaning towards "Commonwealth of Australia". (PS - generally speaking, I hate info boxes too, but that's not a battle I'd bother having) --Merbabu (talk) 07:28, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Also supporting "Commonwealth of Australia". "Australia" is already the name of the page, as well as the first word in the lead. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 07:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Pronunciation of "Australia"

The proper pronunciation of Australia should be ɒˈstreɪljə, not əˈstreɪljə/ (i.e. o-stray-lee-uh, not uh-stray-lee-uh). I think this is particularly relevant to Americans whose accent generally produces "aah-stray-lee-uh", when a correct IPA key would produce something closer to the correct pronunciation.

114.78.199.28 (talk) 04:02, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't know. I pronounce it more "A-Strayle-yah" or "Uh-Strayle-yah" with only 3 sylables. I think the way it is is accurate, but I could be wrong. Anoldtreeok (talk) 05:00, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

As an Australian, I always say it as 3 sylables, eg, A-Strayle-yah, and I think this is the main pronunciation here. I don't know any group that says it in 4 sylables, although I hear British people say Or-strayle-yah, and my Irish friends typically say Os-rail-yah and leave out the T altogeher. (obviously regional variations exist).--Dmol (talk) 05:23, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

As I always say, "Australia" rhymes with "failure" and "genitalia". Does anybody say fail-i-ya or jen-i-tail-i-ya? Someone being extremely precise and deliberately sounding out the syllables slowly might say o-stray-li-ya or jen-i-tail-i-ya, but outside that specific context, it'd be o-strayl-ya and jen-i-tail-ya. And always fail-ya. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 05:34, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with this. I always say and hear 'aw-strayl-yuh.' I would look funny at someone who said 'uh-strayl-yuh' or 'aw-stray-lee-uh.' My IPA transliteration would use the regular 'a' symbol though, because for me it's the same vowel as in 'father.' (aˈstreɪl'jə). 74.232.83.13 (talk) 20:59, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

But that's not the same vowel as "aw", which you mentioned first. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 21:13, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

You'd look weirdly at someone who says "Uh-Strayl-yuh"? I've always thought the "aw-strayl-yuh" pronunciation sounded weird. It always sounded to me like the way Americans would say it. Not that it's wrong, I've just never pronounced it that way. Anoldtreeok (talk) 23:35, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Ha ha - rhymes with "genetalia" and "failure". An alternative pronunciation is "Straya" as in "Slayer". On a serious note, I'm of no use with the IPA keys etc. sorry. --Merbabu (talk) 23:40, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

It should be "Os-tra-lee-ah" as your common Ostraleein would pronounce it.210.185.7.199 (talk) 12:51, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Correct English

"Comprising" in the first sentence should be "comprised of." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.106.108.15 (talk) 00:42, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

You think so? I'm quite comfortable with that construction. Perhaps we're from different age-groups (I'm old) or used to different versions of English. HiLo48 (talk) 01:46, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

"comprised of" is widely attacked as bad grammar. Not being a grammar nazi myself, it doesn't really bother me. But I don't see why we would choose to introduce grammar that a segment of the population considers wrong when we can keep everyone happy with "comprises" or "composed of". Hesperian 02:20, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

A whole is comprised of its parts. The parts comprise the whole. The first sentence in the article has it backwards. My age has nothing to do with it, and I am not a nazi. lol!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.106.108.15 (talk) 23:29, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree with you about comprised of and comprise, but the word you didn't like at the start of this thread was comprising. It still looks OK to me. HiLo48 (talk) 01:27, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Pictures

The MOS states "Avoid sandwiching text between two images that face each other." However, in my browser this article has a few cases of sandwiching.

• The History section has text sandwiched between the picture of Port Arthure and the caption of the map of routes.
• The Economy section has text sandwiched between both pictures
• The Culture section between the first two pictures (and I assume the second and third ones for larger browsers)

I'm not sure that they can be rearranged to fix this, so perhaps the only solution is to remove one or two? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 05:02, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't look too bad to me, only minor compared to some other articles. Personally I wouldn't get too pedantic about sandwiching, but I wouldn't object to any changes/removals if other editors thought the article would read/flow better. Anoldtreeok (talk) 05:23, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

There's always room for improvement. But I'm not too hung about these apparent small deviations from the guidelines. --Merbabu (talk) 09:23, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

promotion of a wine initiative?

i don't know when this snuck into the article, but the wine subsection now has two sentences on the Australia's First Families of Wine initiative. Where to start? It looks to me to breach WP:UNDUE, it has peacock language (eg "to highlight the quality and diversity of Australian wine"), it is a sales pitch, it breaches NOTNEWS, and appears, in short, to be sales hype that has been buttressed by a ridiculous number of inline cites, which themselves seem to highlight the fact that the text does not deserve to be there. The text also does not make sense in places: "showcasing a representative of its landmark wines..." and "former Hon Tony Burke MP" - I wonder if there might be copyvio beneath the surface as well? Can anyone give us some good reasons why these two sentences should not be deleted with extreme prejudice?! Cheers, hamiltonstone (talk) 04:56, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec) PS. Seems whole section was added in one hit here by an editor who has done a lot of good work on Aust wines and appears just to have got carried away on this occasion. hamiltonstone (talk) 05:09, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

A topic definitely of interest to me, but yes, clearly marketing, pure and simple. That's POV. It should go. HiLo48 (talk) 05:05, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Add maybe a sentence or two to the Cuisine section, perhaps move to Cuisine main page, though the way it is currently written it seems like it would belong in Economy Chipmunkdavis (talk) 06:08, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, I'm having a go at redistributing and editing material. hamiltonstone (talk) 09:13, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

English is not 'Legislatively Official', lets make that a little more clear

I propose the statement "Australia has no official language", be changed, the title "official" language is vague and the citation used to back it up has been taken out of context. I was just reading this article and was interested in the statement that English is not the official language of Australia. While this fact does not particularly surprise me, I am cautious of believing it's true. Now, I have no knowledge of whether there has ever been any legislation passed on this matter, nor whether the claim is true or false, but I think the statement warrants consideration.

let me clarify: In my opinion, the sentence cited to prove the claim has been taken out of context. the sentence: "English has no de jure status but it is so entrenched as the common language that it is de facto the official language as well as the national language", does not appear to imply that Australia has no 'Official' Language, it simply states (without any citation itself) that it has no status 'concerning law'. it does however state that it is the National Language. yet another vague title, yes, but I ask you to think, does it being the National language make it the official language? does not having legislation passed mean it is not Official?

I might also cite the Australian Courts of law. it is required that those facing prosecution in court either understand english or have a translator present so that they can understand.

to be concise, I propose the statement read something along the lines of 'Australia has no Legislated Official language'. I just feel the word 'Official' can be better understood if the statement follows those lines.

Lastly, I think this warrants suggestions for a better source citation, article thats actually cited doesn't focus on the issue at hand, though it does have a few more 'supported' statements that suggest english is not the Officially 'Legislated language', eg: "In 1987 the Federal Government adopted a National Policy on Languages, becoming the first English speaking country to have such a policy and the first in the world to have a multilingual languages policy" (CFAC 1994:29)." this may be found in the conclusion.

I hope you consider my suggestions and openly discuss them Cheers all Yungur (talk) 15:43, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd just like to point out that we've discussed the issue of language previously:

• Talk:Australia/Archive 15#Australian Official Language
• Talk:Australia/Archive 14#Official Language of Australia
• Talk:Australia/Archive 11#Language
• Talk:Australia/Archive 10#Official languages
• Talk:Australia/Archive 7#Languages

To summarise, "no Legislated Official" is redundant. --AussieLegend (talk) 08:33, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Update to 2010 GDP

Go to the list of countries by GDP (nominal)

update the GDP figures for both nominal and the less relevant PPP in the right hand side column and economy section

they currently show 2009 figures

the GDP figures for 2010 are now listed on the aforementioned articles.