Category: Australasia

We were having an interesting conversation at Sunday lunch yesterday about the ‘aboriginal problem’ in Australia. There were no aboriginies present, so it was a one-sided view, but worth noting down as it does represent the thinking of some more recent immigrants. The older generation agreed that the aboriginies that they knew 30 years ago… Continue reading The ‘Aboriginal Problem’

One of the things I’ve missed most about Australia is the thriving music scene and the ease of getting tickets to high quality concerts at short notice. Last night I went with Lyn (the daughter of the house) and a few of her friends to see the Idea of North at the Basement. Imagine an… Continue reading The Idea of North

While I was in Perth, we watched a TV show called Cool Aid that measured the comparative environmental impact of our lifestyles. It went a bit far, talking about seas rising by 6m, which is far beyond realistic limits for the forseeable future, but showing the impact our actions have on greenhouse gases was interesting… Continue reading Cool Aid

I’ve just returned from my trip to Western Australia, so I’m now able to claim having been to all states and territories in this massive country. As expected, it’s extremely open and hot, but I guess I wasn’t expecting it to be so flat or well forested. The heat and forest work together to make… Continue reading The Last State

Tim and Chris, the couple I’ve been staying with in Perth, took me out surfing a few times over the weekend. It’s been about 20 years since the first and last time I tried, so I was happy to catch the second wave I tried and to standup (briefly) on that same wave. Of course,… Continue reading Surfing

I’m in Perth – finally having travelled to each of Australia’s states and territories. On the way over, I saw a couple of amazing sights from the plane. The first was the coast of the Great Australian Bight. Cloudless, the picture was of a strong blue ocean meeting forrest in a sharp edge. The dark… Continue reading Aboriginal Landscape

This is a long overdue post. Australia has been in drought for many years and I’ve had frequent reports from my parents and friends to say that stored water is down to a couple of months for major population centres. You can see from the Sydney Water website that we use nearly 1500 Megalitres per… Continue reading Broken Drought?

Every year Australian filmmakers of all ages and experience compete in the short film festival Tropfest. We watched the 16 finalists a couple of nights ago and as usual, a couple stood out for me. One, The Story of Ned, was a quirky animation where the characters are stories and the main character has some… Continue reading Tropfest

I was having a conversation with my mate’s mum the other day about aboriginies. She talked about how poorly they fit into society (by which she means white society) and gave the example of one man in a settlement neighbouring their town west of Sydney who had to leave. Apparently he’d been doing his best… Continue reading Stolen Generation

I’m staying with a christian Lebanese Australian friend at the moment and am having trouble dealing with the anti-Muslim sentiment from his parents’ generation. The younger generation are very open-minded, but my friend’s mother and aunt are adamant that Muslims are breeding up to take over Australia. It’s not all Muslims, they concede, but the… Continue reading Muslim Domination?