30 fascinating facts about Australia that you never wanted to know
Everything you’ve previously heard about Australia is a lie. S’truth mate.
30. Australia is in Asia according to FIFA but so is Palestine but not Israel. Confusingly, Australia is in Europe according to Eurovision. The head of state of Australia is English. Australia is in a number of military alliances, pretty much all including the US. However, Australia is only an associate member of ASEAN. In summary, no one really wants them in their club, for reasons you’ll soon find out.
29. Australia was founded as a slave colony. Convicts were effectively slaves in the first 100 years after the formation of the colonies. No one talks about this.
28. There is a ongoing debate about Australia Day, which commemorates the colonization of the country by the English on January 26th 1788. Oddly, neither the Aborigines nor the convict slaves had a very good time of it in 1788, so it’s a mystery as to what is being celebrated.
27. In the Australian media it is common to hear the term “the lucky country”. This means it has relatively few people and a lot of mineral resources, allowing it to be the dumb country of lazy fat people. No one in Australia walks while on a travelator, even if they’re in a hurry.
26. Visitors are frightened of Australia’s snakes, spiders, sharks and crocodiles. But the most vicious biting thing in Australia is the paper wasp. Check it out.
25. Australia is completely divided with respect to football. The various colonies picked up or even invented different football codes for no good reason and it remains so today. As a result Australia is crap at international football.
24. Australians eat about 700 million chickens a year. That’s about 26 chickens per person per year, or one per person every two weeks. In that 2 weeks they spend on average $12 on the chook and $443 on gambling (a world record no less).
23. A typical pack of cigarettes costs $80 due to the highest tax ever imagined in the history of mankind. Inexplicably, no one complains or grows their own tobacco.
22. Even imported Mexican beer in Australia comes from China. Proving that Australians are the world’s second most gullible set of consumers behind the Chinese. Without China, Australians would have nothing to spend their money on. And yet, Australian politicians insist on continually aggravating the Chinese government.
21. All Australian politicians are corrupt (as well as stupid). This can be proven by the jobs they get after they leave office. For reasons unknown to anyone though the politicians like to pretend they aren’t corrupt.
20. Australia has compulsory voting in all elections and referendums. Residents are fined if they don’t vote. Inexplicably these fines are usually paid.
19. Australians drive on the left hand side of the road because the English do so. Nobody ever thought to correct this stupidity.
18. Although it’s the 6th largest country in the world, 90% of the landmass has no water and it not suitable for medium or dense urbanisation. Unless of course you come from the middle east or the levant, where water appears to be optional.
17. The Australian flag has the UK union jack in the top left corner. This will likely never change because Australians will never be able to agree upon a replacement.
16. Australia is the leading “nanny state” in the world. The hidden long-game objective is to export nanny state skills to China when they decide that noone’s feelings or body should ever get hurt, at any cost.
15. Immigration into Australia is running at almost 3% of the population per annum. Without this input of immigrants, the economy, which is almost entirely services based, would stall completely.
14. The truth is an anachronistic concept in Australia. People prefer fairy tales wrapped in fairy floss (cotton candy), and served up with disdain.
13. No cars are made in Australia, they are all imported. All 1 million plus of them a year.
12. Similarly no bicycles are made in Australia. Over 1 million are imported and sold each year. Typically they’re used once before rusting away in a garage, then land-filled 5 years later.
11. Actually nothing much is made in Australia. Despite the fact that just about everything worth noting was apparently invented in Australia, such as the Labradoodle, WiFi, polyamory, cockroach racing, stoned wallabies, and the ute. Mate.
10. Australians have a choice of up to 5 recycle bins. Despite this only aluminium gets recycled. The rest is land-filled and no one cares. Australians dutifully separate their rubbish each week.
9. Plastic straws were banned in Australia because of the issue of plastics in the oceans, despite the fact that all plastic waste in Australia goes to landfill.
8. Australians have congregated into half a dozen large cities and they refuse to create new large cities. Therefore they have the most expensive urban real estate in the world and some of the cheapest rural real estate.
7. Most Australians can’t surf or even swim in the surf because they live too far from a beach in their large cities. Similarly not a single Australian has ever read the constitution. The prevailing assumption is that it’s a confidence trick at best.
6. Shark attacks in Australia are on the rise because they stopped the extermination of sharks for “ecological reasons” (actually just to stop the Wokes from whining). Being attacked by a shark is still a very low risk though.
5. Ditto, crocodiles and snakes, but not spiders, yet.
4. Climate change will make everything worse according to Australian experts. Fires, storms, floods etc, they are all going to get worse. Noting these warnings are the desperate pleas of help from mostly autistic introverts that don’t understand error bars, Australians pretty much just ignore the experts.
3. The Australian media is on par with the worst in the world. It’s ongoing existence proves that Australians don’t care to think very often.
2. Australians are inordinately proud of Australian actors and musicians that get any measure of overseas success. Experts note this as a psychological disorder closely related to the hoarding syndrome as described in the DSM.
1. Australians love lists of facts (e.g. any article with a title that starts with how, why or 10), except this one. In fact, this list would be labelled un-Australian by an Australian politician. Australians are very bad at laughing at themselves.
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