According to the SMH. there is still a lingering culture of anti-intellectualism in Australia. Our levels of education are lower than in other countries. John Howard and the federal coalition are fuelling this sentiment, or at least taking advantage of it, especially in education reform (the 'history wars'). The Labor party also has a negative view of academics.

One of my relatives teaches a foreign language in a small town. A lot of the parents tell their children that it's OK not to bother with that class because they are never going to use it anyway. But the world is getter smaller very quickly.

When issues like science and politics cross, there is often strong antagonism towards input from scientists. I have seen this a lot in the marine park debate from fishing lobbies.

I'm trying out the poll feature with this thread.

When I was in high school I wasn't sure whether I wanted to go straight onto Uni or start earning money. Then at the end of grade 11 I spent a QLD summer picking water melons, which pretty much made my mind up for me. There's nothing like poverty or hard work  to make people value an education. I've noticed it too how children of recent immigrants tend to put more effort into school. I guess we need to impart some more Australian Values onto them so they stop making us look dumb.

It's funny, with all this talk of a baby boom I can't find a nice graph of our fertility rate anywhere. I did find a table of births per 1000 people, which indicates our birth rate is actually going down:

Crude Birth and Death Rates for Selected Countries
(per 1,000 population)
  Birth rate                                                          Death rate   
Country  2006 2005 2004 1990  1985  1980  1975  2006 2005 2004 1990  1985  1980  1975
Australia  12.1 12.3 12.4 15.4  15.7  15.3  16.9         7.5 7.4 7.4 7.0  7.5  7.4  7.9

source:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004395.html

Dang ... I responded to that and I'm not an Ozzie ... 

Do you think that'll seriously skew your results, FD? 

PS: It's me, Uno ... I forgot my username and/or password.  I'm having it re-sent to me ...  otherwise, can you help? 

What many don't realise is that our Public Education System (run by the left and ignored by the right) is not just dumbing down students, they are actively cutting down and silencing outspoken lower and middle class intellectuals.   They are manipulating scores.

The system is trying to groom and produce robots that don't question or challenge the status quo, those that dont conform are put in their place.  

The message is loud and clear.   If you speak out,  you will suffer.    

Yes Australia is a paranoid derivative culture perched on a large but blighted, infertile and dried-up island off the coast of Asia. For the first century or so it was difficult enough just to stay alive.

Given the tremendous amount of work that had to be done to create a modern western civilisation here on this unrewarding land it is no wonder that the Australian people were all body and no brain.

The free settlers were devoted Empire loyalists who wanted a new start in life: why else would they come all this way when the US was so much closer and cheaper? Many Indian Army pukka-sahibs chose to retire here, Colonel Blimps to a man.

The lower orders were not noted for their intellectual pursuits either. At the beginning they were resentful convicts, many of them Catholics whose only contact with intellectual life were the clergy--"Godbotherers" as they were derisively known--whom they despised.

Despite resentment against pommy bastards we clung to mother England long after she ceased to be a world power. As late as the 1960's we were voting the Queen's Man Sir Robert Menzies into the Prime Ministership. When England's decreptitude could no longer be hidden we tranferred our alliegence with scarcely a blink of the eye to the United States. This same Menzies dispatched Diggers to the all-American Vietnam War.

This pathetic clinging to the Great White Powers of the northern hemisphere further stulified our intellectual life. All that was good and glorious came from overseas and it still is. Anyone who wanted to read a book or glance at a picture was satisfied with something from the Old Country or a cheap local copy of the same. Australia was little more than half a century old when the telegraph and the steam boat put Australia back in intimate touch with England. The sudden blare of "Rule Brittania" drowned out the feeble strains of "Waltzing Matilda".

The effects of this have been long lasting. Australia has yet to produce a first-rate intellectual or artist although Patrick White and Pro-Hart are at least 3rd rate. Compare this to the number of excellent sportsmen we have fielded and the contrast becomes even more remarkable. Australia is and always has been deficient in cultural nationalism and will probably remain so unless some great historical drama makes us value ourselves a lot more than we do.

How times change.
Labouring in Sydney pays way more than being a Clerk, even an IT white collar.
It's hard to get decent Labourers in Sydney. Most are mature or backpackers on working visas.

A bricky-labourer can make $500-$800 in a day.
While a bludger-labourer is busy tapping his phone - wishing he was smart like computers.

IT and other such jobs are 'common' and sought by many.
No-one wants to build themselves up and get paid for it on a worksite. Instead - they just gymbob it before or after their office job.

Playing dumb is the way to $$ in Australia.
My brethren in Africa are more the Engineer type (Surgeon) while my brethren in Oceania are more Academic (Doctor)
my brethren in South America are Clerical, while I'm Labourer here in Sahul.
Know you place 

I'm much older now. But I still do the 'simple' jobs and now I get paid well to snip a few roses or walk a dog or other 'leisurely labours' 

Hmmmmm.

That is a difficult one, isn't it !! ?

/sarc off




And Australia is no 'Robinson Crusoe' either !






Isaiah 5:20
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!


2 Timothy 3:1
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2  For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3  Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4  Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;