I really need some input on this, because I have several issues that I have faced while visiting/living in Australia (Queensland) that just makes me wonder if it is in act a developed country:
1) Education system is just crazy here, 20 million people and like 33 universities, yet different ranking systems place their universities in different places. Australian websites such as ‘Good university guides’ tend to throw couple of institutes in the top 100 list, while the top ranking systems on the internet might place 1 or 0 universities in the top 200 lists. Bond university, Australia’s only known private university, is ranked (1000? wow)
2) I have never received a special service here while being a visitor. In San Fransisco you have free buffets, and casinos dash out the nicest drinks for free. In England (I own 2 flats there), I receive complimentary limousine ride to the casino whenever I want, and back again. In Australia I have to wait hours just to catch a single cab, AND if it’s late at night, they sometimes ask you to pay before hand?! before they even deliver the service to you.
3) The people here are just weird. I never met anyone decent here (out of 300 Ive met over the years) in GEOGRAPHY, there are decent personalities however. Most of my friends (OZs abroad) know more about Geography than anyone that I’ve met here. Please understand that these people are ones I meet on everyday bases as a visitor, let it be the bar tender or someone in the bar.
4) They cannot believe that my Kuwaiti dinar is worth 5 dollars of their own currency, and they think the euro is the most valued currency in the world? what happened to the Maltese lira, sterling? that’s kinda blatant.
5) The public transport is a disaster, I’ve seen buses running in Budapest Hungary that offer 3 times the service, more buses, electronic boards and timers. Sometimes bus stops here don’t even have a time table, and calling their number lets you wait for 3 minutes which really *****. And they look at you in a very bad way if you have no change what so ever, sometimes I only carry 50′s, what can I do?
6) I takes me 2 nights to obtain a British visa for the holidays, it takes me 1 month to obtain an open visa for 10 years to the states (I must do an interview however), but it takes me 2 months to get a visa with multiple visits (3months + 3months) to visit Australia. Plus my country is on the Assessment level 1, so we’re among the first ones to have the visas accepted, because they are hungry for tourism money.
7) They are unable to produce nuclear weapons on their own. And if someone jumps on me saying that they can hire people, well let me tell you that Kuwait (where I come from) has these capabilities as well. Well would you surprised that the US got recruited to free Kuwait and take action all in 6 hours. This is to point out that having the power to hire other people to fight for you doesn’t make you a developed country fool.
Their economy is being led, they wont lead. Perfect example is now, the market crisis. Australian people used to get paid on average more than the US citizen, now a dish cleaner in the US being paid $9 an hour is the same as the waiter here being paid $16 an hour. If the Chinese market goes up, the Australian one follows. And now, they are in the worst situation ever, this means OZ families will spend almost double their savings to travel abroad, that just *****. Check out the US dollar, British Sterling and the Euro. No comment.
9) Poor Australians are being ripped off everywhere. No matter where I go I see Oz businesses ripping off the poor people. A very perfect example can be seen in the following:
a) Electronics, they are way to expensive here. You can set your own price and the people will pay. An iPhone here costs 1000 dollar (even before the market crisis). A 2002 Ferrari here sells for almost a million dollar which is a complete joke. American cars cost 4 times, regardless of their age. I envy my cousin who got himself a mustang for 6 US grands, I can still dream of having it in Australia.
b) Internet. People here charge you even if you dont use the internet, and they will slap you continuously with their scary fines when you overuse their service. An extra GB overusing 3G’s network costs $100 AUD dollars, 1 damn gigabyte. Don’t let me even talk about Bigpond, because that’s a whole discussion by itself.
c) Anything European. If you purchase anything that’s European here, get ready to pay for prices that haven’t entered your brain yet.
d) Cheaply built houses selling for crazy dollars. Its very sad to know that a country as large as Australia will make it very hard for a newly wed couple to get a new house. The finances are easy, they will give you loans, launch contracts, all to purchase a 3 bedroom house, in a cheap scary suburb that costs 3 times what I paid for my 3 bedroom house in Brighton (south of England) that I’ve purchased 2 years ago. Houses here in regi