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TELSTRA IS LYING

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Australians Love Smart Phones but Still Use PCs

A survey on Australians has brought to light some very interesting results. While we are addicted to mobile phones the PC is not dead. Given a clear choice of having either a smart phone or PC, 61 per cent said they would prefer a mobile phone. This leaves a significant 39 per cent still choosing their PCs. The market for PCs is stable. With PCs lasting a long time and manufacturers selling new systems with old chip versions there is still profit in the long term.

Obviously, people would like to have their smart phones and computers. Significantly, 70 per cent of respondents said they would still choose their cars over smart phones. Car addiction is still paramount. In a choice between phones, desktops and tablets, 50 per cent said they preferred their smart phones while 34 per cent chose their computers. Tablets got 16 per cent.

Australians do take their mobile phones everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Going to bed with a mobile is common as is taking it to the loo. People would have their smart phones on board when leaving the house on any trip. The figure of 34 per cent of users having the mobile as their main phone is really not that high. Note that a broadband connection needs a landline and most Australians still leave their household phone connected.

To do shopping, the majority said the mobile was not good on the Internet. The PC was more efficient and faster. A whopping nine out of ten said they had purchased goods on a PC. The tablet was also quite handy with seven out of ten buying online.

Despite companies pushing personalization of ads, a third of those surveyed said that did not like personal ads on their mobile. This is a dream option as ads provide the funding for the Internet generally. Like with free apps the ads are a nuisance but necessary.

Technology by Ty Buchanan

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The English Still Treat Aussies as Low-Class Dumb Asses

After more than a century of independence, we still have to put up with being stigmatized by the English as filthy colonials. This dates back to the time when England faced its first loss in the game of cricket to the ex-convict upstarts. An obviously "honorable" English woman actually burned the bails from the stumps in heartbreak at the humiliation.

Aussies can always put on a posh accent at a barbecue for a laugh at the poms. You see, an Aussie who adopts this accent, and some do particularly on the ABC, loses a few mates and wonders why. As Ian Chappell the famous Aussie cricketer said to many English opposition players, "Have you had your monthly bath yet?" Though we sweat a lot because of the hot climate Australians do not smell. A shower every morning is part of the culture.

The highfalutin Royal Geographical Society is treating Australians like dirt because a deal they had went bad. It holds a set of paintings by Thomas Baines done on his visit to Australia in 1855-57. There are 21 watercolor paintings in all, plus drawings.

Kerry Stokes of Western Australia haggled over the asking price; then the Royal Geographical Society accepted the offer. With the export licence approved the Society has reneged on the deal. It has now decided to sell the collection to any British buyer at a price 35 per cent lower.

To say the price reduction is due to currency fluctuation is a "cop out". The institution is clearly miffed at losing the collection to the land under whose name shall not be spoken. The English clearly still have a superiority complex today. Obviously, modernity has not enlightened them.

✴ Culture by Ty Buchanan ✴

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The 1967 Referendum to Give Aboriginals Equal Rights

I was in my twenties in 1967 when the referendum on giving Aboriginals the vote was held. Obviously, I must have voted, but I cannot remember anything at all about it nor the way I voted. Should I be ashamed about this? Well it seems many Australians do not remember a thing in regard to the referendum. It was nearly half a century ago.

Rarely does a yes vote to change the Constitution "get up". This to non-Australians means that few attempts to make a change have been successful. Of the 24 referendums held only four have got a majority yes vote. People from other countries would think it odd that an advanced country such as Australia had not given Aboriginals the vote decades before. However, think about the racial discrimination in the United States in the supposedly enlightened 1960s.

Other discrimination existed then. Young Australian men who were forcibly enlisted into the military to fight in the Vietnam War could not go into a pub and drink alcohol until they reached the age of 21. Most conscripts were in their teens. When they came home on leave they were condemned by society for fighting the wrong war, even though they did not want to fight at all.

Though the referendum was commonly assumed to be about giving Aboriginals the right to vote, they could already do this but seldom did. The referendum was to give Aboriginals all the rights that Caucasion Australians had. A yes vote gave them the pride and dignity of being accepted as "real" Australians. Before 1967 Aboriginals were a non-people. They had no real identity and were ignored by white society generally.

They got access to welfare and took it dismissively calling it "sit-down money". They began to openly express themselves for good or bad. Discrimination still exists against aboriginals today. The Northern Territory is controlled by the Federal government. Aboriginal men in the Northern Territory are forbidden to drink alcohol. Clearly, many white Australians still feels that Aboriginals are racially inferior and cannot handle alcohol. Go to a night club in the early hours of the morning and see the number of white Australians stunbling about completely out of their minds on alcohol.

Politics by Ty Buchanan

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Aussies No Longer Flock to London

The whole world changes all the time. Cultures alter at different speeds depending where you are on this planet. Faster communication is creating a "one world community' as many would say. However, cultures do differ between nations and ethnic groups.

Australia has gone through dramatic change, from being an outpost of the British Empire to independence and self governance. Once Australians saw themselves as British first and Australians second. Going back "home" for a holiday to see mother England was a dream for many. Even after Britain joined the European Community Australians flooded into London.

Today, Australians are "thin on the ground" in England. Work restrictions are killing off the attraction. You can only work if you are European. Working visas issued to Australians has halved since 2006. Only 10,000 Australian citizens actually reside in the UK. Businesses promoting Aussie travel to Britain have closed their doors and Internet sites. "Pub crawls" of the Australian parts of London such as Shepherd's Bush no longer operate. British pubs are also suffering because they cannot get Australian bar tenders who speak English well. Europeans just do not "cut the mustard".

Who is to blame. The British government is at fault putting visa restrictions on the valuable Aussie labour supply. Culturally, the British are closer to Australians than Europeans. Migration is going the other way now. More British and Irish are coming to live permanently in Australia. There are more employment opportunities in this advanced country, which oddly has more in common economically with primary producing developing nations. Digging out coal for the world pays well.

Migration by Ty Buchanan

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The Casual Aussie

In the modern world many types of behavior are tolerated. Angry people are allowed to run the streets chanting their violent slogans. Individuals are entitled to live the life of a hermit, barely communicating with anyone else. Saying that things have changed is too simplistic. The more things change the more they stay the same.

Some have said that Australia's new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is too familiar with all those around him, calling fellow members of cabinet by their nicknames. It has been said that this is new for Australia. This is nonsense. Australians quickly find the names of strangers and from the "get go" call them by their first names. I remember watching a talk on television some years ago and the American was really upset by the Australian, who was also being interviewed, for not addressing him as Mr "Smith".

Australia is an unusual country. It has a culture of bringing everyone to the same level. Honorifics have little place in such a culture. Judges for example are treated as just public servants. Other countries rank judges highly and ordinary people would not even attempt a jovial conversation with them. Australians can see no barrier.

In recent years Australia could be said to be moving in the other direction. The street barbecue is fading away and neighbors rarely talk to each other. I hope Australia does not go down the same road as Britain and France where false "upper-class' accents are adopted by those trying to move up the fixed societal ranking. No, let Australia be. It has a unique heritage and being different is a good thing.

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Conservation

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New Zealand Migration to Australia Is Not Bob Birrell's Problem

Hate the Kiwi seems to be quite widespread in Australia, though personally I have not experienced any bad feeling toward them. Indeed, most Australians welcome New Zealanders into society seeing them as ideal immigrants who can fit in immediately.

Bob Birrell, a Monash University demographer, says New Zealanders are the cause of the the recent jump in unemployment in Australia. He points out that New Zealanders holding temporary visas increased by 5.4 percent over a year. This is 1,620 of the 30,000 coming here. Considering the rise in unemployment was 0.6 per cent across the whole nation, New Zealanders working here could not possibly be responsible for all of this.

Surely, Kiwis bring some capital of their own and spend nearly all of their income here. Australia benefited a great deal economically by paying the fares here for European immigrants in the middle of the last century. These were mostly unskilled, poor people. New Zealander moving to this country should be no different.

The door has always been open for New zealanders to come here. It also works the other way. Australia can move to New Zealand very easily. It would be a pity if this partnership is damaged. Our history is intertwined. The ANZAC spirit is getting even stronger with the younger generation.

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Society