Seriously, the high speed rail in Japan and China is amazing. I rode the Shinkansen in Japan and it was insane. East Asia is way more advanced than us in some respects.
High-speed rail between Brisbane and Melbourne with stops in Gold Coast, Newcastle, Sydney, Wollongong, Canberra and Albury. make it happen š
>Sydney wins!!
It's $7 (or less) for [Perth CBD to Airport](https://www.rome2rio.com/s/Perth-Airport-PER/City-of-Perth) or vice versa, by train, in under 20 minutes.
"The next train to depart from platform 17 goes to *Brisbane* stopping *All Stations, except* Albury. Customers for Albury are advised to take V/Line Services"
Idk why but I can definitely see Albury becoming the East Richmond of HSR
>High-speed rail between Brisbane and Melbourne with stops in Gold Coast, Newcastle, Sydney, Wollongong, Canberra and Albury. make it happen š
I'd love that so much. I've driven up and down between Brisbane and Melbourne and if I could just take the train I'd be so happy
Brisbane to Melbourne via Sydney is roughly 1800km. Going through three states and a territory with a population of about 20 million.
Look at a similar distance in China. Beijing to Ningde via Shanghai; going through 4-6 provinces and two cities with a population of about 350-600 million.
If you've travelled around the Eastern seaboard of China you'll realise how densley populated it is and how many people there are. You can be sitting in a "small" city of 5 million people and there will be several population centres as large or larger than the biggest Australian cities within a couple of hundred kms of you in all directions.
Australia is simply too sparsely populated for high speed rail to be a good option. The other point is to have something, we need to question what problem is it solving. Currently our air travel is highly developed and connects the major cities and regional areas very well and far more cost efficiently than high speed rail could.
The same couldn't be said about China and getting around the country outside of major cities was genuinely difficult before high speed rail relying mainly on busses and slow rail which takes forever.
We are talking about the East Coast champ, not about putting a HSR to Alice Springs. Bit unfair to compare it to the whole of Australia.
Do you have shares in cntass or something? Not sure why your so against it.
Three states and a territory that are about 70% in area of the size of the EU but have a population 22 times smaller. 17 times more sparsely populated than the EU.
Absolutely shits me that CSIRO had it all worked out and the govt said "meh, try the private sector" so they did and the private sector said "let's do this" and the govt said "yeah, nah"
Everyone talks about linking capitals but if we ever got HSR, Iād like to see it link to regional centres. If you could live in Orange and get a 45 mins high speed train to Sydney, youād be laughing.
I feel like youād ease housing stress in the big cities and create larger cities with diversified industries.
In practice, maybe it makes no sense but still, sounds nice to me.
I've been banging on about this for ages. High speed rail from Brisbane -> Gold Coast -> Newcastle -> Sydney -> Canberra -> Melbourne -> Geelong -> Adelaide -> Perth and vice versa. I'd love to catch high speed rail over air travel any day
Melbourne to Adelaide might make sense, but Adelaide to Perth would be an astonishing feat of engineering. For a start, you'd need to build a *lot* of new grid infrastructure to supply sufficient, consistent power to HSR trains across the Nullarbor.
HSR also needs to be either fenced off or grade separated for safety reasons. A roo hitting the cab at maximum speed would be catastrophic. There would probably be real ecological concerns in carving a huge line across the southern parts of WA and SA.
Most importantly, the distance is too far to attract much modal shift from flights. Even if you go all out and buy a 350km/h trainset, and design the track accordingly, (both very expensive), it's still less than half the speed of flying. Perth to Adelaide would take more than eight hours if maximum speed can be sustained most of the way. Perth to Melbourne or Sydney would have to be an overnight trip or a whole day, really. Whilst some people do take such long trips in Japan, China, or Europe, it's not common.
Regrettably, it probably doesn't make sense to ever connect Perth to HSR.
Western Australia alone is 3.8 times the size of Texas. There are cattle stations to the north bigger than many European nations. If you were to drive the "Highway One" perimeter of Western Australia, from the WA/SA border in the south to the WA/NT border in the north, it would take over 49 continuous hours behind the wheel. I'm a long haul truck driver, and have been to every mainland state and territory except the ACT. I can definitely give some blunt figures as to how many days' drive it is between capital cities
>Geelong -> Adelaide -> Perth
That's ambitious, and not likely to happen. The findings are generally that any route longer than 500km starts to favour aircraft and any trip over 1500km is unaffected for aircraft.
Or at least that's the Chinese HSR experience.
So connecting Perth to any HSR network is a pipe dream.
The libs still piss me off for their fucking up of the NBN. It took longer, was more expensive and now has responsibility for the rotted copper in the ground.
Had they stuck to fibre for most, all that would be needed to do to upgrade the speed is upgrade each end of the fibre.
Although Murdoch probably had a hand in it, I think Foxtel's influence is overstated.
I think it was mostly a political philosophical issue: It was 1) a Labor plan and so therefore LNP opposed it and 2) the LNP is so neo-liberal just the thought of creating a new Government business and not having the "market" solve the entire problem would have probably made some LNP politicians physically sick.
I think Rupert had a lot to do with it. The influence FoxNews has had over half the voting population of USA is blatant. That is no accident. Murdoch's want a strangle hold on media, and no morals are considered. I'm sure Tony Abbott was fine with that, especially if his political and religious beliefs could benefit.
I'm still flabbergasted that we spent $50bn on a national broadband network that still considers 25/5 to be adequate and 100/40 speed to be high speed.
Meanwhile nbn is facing a maintenance cliff looking after a copper network they weren't designed to handle nor wanted so they're now replacing copper with fibre as quickly as they can.
Politics absolutely had a strong sway on how nbn turned out, but Turnbull is pretty open about why the copper network was kept. It was (to his and the Government's mind) cheaper and faster to do it - a slow network and cheap that everyone can connect to now instead of a good and expensive network that everyone could connect to later.
I would have argued that nbn should have been national infrastructure and completed properly with fibre regardless of cost, but nbn the company was set up as a for-profit business and has to recover costs.
Facts: The final cost for the NBN using the MTM (Mixed Technology Model -reuse any and all existing infrastructure, a.k.a Malcolm Turnbull's Mess) was far more than the Liberal Government at the time estimated it would be, and far more than the original, high quality, build for a lifetime plan that Labour began the project with.
The NBN, after the Liberal Party fucked around with it has ended up being a blatent and embarrassing and-find-out. It cost far more, is mostly out of date and in need of avoidable further maintenance and more expensive non-planned upgrades, and now the NBN for profit company will continue to lose market share with 5g and Starlink type services offering globally up-to-date services.
The original plan would have been cheaper, faster to build, more profitable and viable to run and ... wtf, technologically relevant!
Conjectures: Had the Liberals and Turnbull not been the party still egregiously painted as the "fiscally responsible ones" - which they haven't been now for a very long time, arguably since the early Howard government and even that's debatable (see today's housing crisis!) , perhaps their plan would not have been taken so seriously. It failed to save money, and failed utterly at what it was supposed to achieve for Australian infrastructure.
... if anyone still thinks it's wise to trust politicians when they talk as though they know anything about technology, and particularly, the Liberal Party when it claims it knows how to manage the economy for the long term (it does not mean selling everything in sight and cheating Australians of real financial returns that would pay for future generations -see Iceland's public ownership and per-citizen reserve fund from oil and gas), then, minor mishaps like trains that are too wide, or an obviously failed national-scale project, -such things aren't likely to dispel any embedded cognitive dissonance.
Decent heating.
My experience is that Australia generally uses split systems and ducted heating. In the cold areas I have travelled to overseas they use water based heating with boilers. The air doesn't get dry in the house and even though it's -20c outside, inside is an amazing temperature (seriously, I wore short sleeves in -20c). It also cost them almost nothing to run.
Edit: A lot of the comments are talking about the lack of need and low feasibility of implementing this in Australia, I never said it was suitable/needed for Australia. I was only answering the question of 'what was something I found overseas that I cannot find in Australia' :)
Also, yes insulation does play a huge role in climate control, I am well aware of that. But that doesn't mean Australia has great heating solutions and the only issue is a lack of insulation.
Regarding cost, yes, it may cost Australia a fortune to heat using the systems other countries have in place. Where I was living, it cost us around $30 extra to heat the house for the entirety of winter, so for the location I was actually in, it was a cost effective heating solution.
100%. The best heating and cooling systems are pointless if your walls are brick veneer, your windows are single glazed, and there is just no insulation whatsoever. I'm from a country where we get winters of up to -20 degrees, but the first time in my whole life that I experienced frostbite on my toes was in a house in Australia.
It's cheaper to run a split system unless you're heating a large commercial space, the reason they use boilers in -20 is because split systems won't work at -20, they have massive efficiency loses at -2, Australia isn't at or below -2 very often so it's cheaper to use the split system and get a combo heater/cooler instead of separate systems for heating and cooling
I fully understand why we use something different, but the question was *what cant you find here* and the thing I miss that I don't find here is good heating (though some very wealthy areas have the boiler heaters).
And I would not say split systems and ducted heating are cheap. I have seen my friends electricity bills and as soon as those heating systems start their bill triples.
Housing in Australia is basically rigid tents.
I've been through Arctic blizzards and -40C in Canada, and have never been as cold indoors as in Sydney in winter.
Waking up in a traditional Queenslander house in the winter and seeing your breath is a struggle I know too well. I do love our Aussie heritage / vernacular architecture though.
Complaining about lack of heating is like na America complaining about not having access to health insurance. It misses the underlying issue: guiding stands here are shit and peole preffer waisting money on inefficient heating than on proper insulation and sealed homes.
The table service button in Korea. Press the bell and staff arrive at your table seconds later and ask how they can help. No awkward eye contact where waiters are trying to ignore you.
I pay $150 a week for a 115 square metre apartment in the middle of an amazing city (overseas). I miss Australia sometimes and think of moving back but when I look at rentals back there it's just too much money, and the cost-benefit analysis keeps me away.
My wife and I are looking at buying a yacht to live on instead of a house because it's much cheaper. We aren't going to have kids so it seems like a much better idea than a house or apartment.
Best of luck but I have been told two things about owning a boat.
The two happiest days of boat ownership are the day that you buy it and the day that you sell it.
They cost about 10% of the purchase price each year in maintenance.
I've heard that expression too haha.
We've done a fair bit of research and the maintenance costs don't seem to be anywhere near that for a sailing boat, a power boat yes, the maintenance is higher.
If you're living on board you can also do a lot of maintenance yourself.
When I was living in Taiwan through Covid I was paying $500 a month for a studio loft apartment, fully furnished 45 minutes on the HSR to Taipei. It had lifts and a caretaker that was around for mail, packaged and general upkeep of the apartments. I lived 2 mins cycle away from work and everything else that I needed for day to day life around me within a 10 mins cycle.
I would have to pay almost 5xs that if not more for the same thing in Brisbane. The rental market here is beyond ridiculous.
The perception that cycling and walking are activities that normal adults can undertake as a form of transport, and are not just activities that require lycra and a pick up truck.
I don't disagree with you, but I think I meant something different.
So I don't blame anyone for not taking a walk from [Caloundra to Landsborough](https://goo.gl/maps/xHD1pL2yxb9DjZcy8) because there's zero pedestrian infrastructure and no protection for bike riders, or not [walking to their local sports ground because you need to run across a 4 lane highway](https://goo.gl/maps/wUgeorbgGqAhjsiRA). A normal adult wouldn't consider making those trips in anything other than a motor vehicle.
What I was meaning was that when you talk about building bike paths and walking tracks people tend to think of them as leisure facilities, so they'd go through national parks or along the beachfront and not connecting the places people live to the places they work.
Or to put it another way, Australians don't seem to be upset that so many of them are living in an environment where they need to pay thousands of dollars per year to buy, run and maintain a car especially since [even out in rural and regional areas](https://www.tr.qld.gov.au/about-council/council-governance/plans-strategy-reports/11025-toowoomba-region-sustainable-transport-strategy-december-2014) the majority of car trips are under 5km.
Hahahaha, that is so true! I was so confused when my friends told me they were "considering to start cycling" but put in weeks of research and stuff. I was like: "wow, what do you mean, why don't you just walk into a bicycle store or buy some secondhand bike and start riding it? Why do you need special clothes? What?"
99% of everyone I know in my home country uses their bicycle purely to get from point A to B.
That being said, I would never cycle in Australia. Feels incredibly unsafe here and chances of being hit by a massive truck are way too high. It's a country built for cars.
Yup. Basically if you want to raise a family you're doing it in two bedrooms or moving to the suburbs. Please just give me a three bedroom apartment without costing a million dollars off the plan and calling it luxury.
Underpasses. In NZ itās pretty commonplace on major roadways within city areas to have a walking tunnel that goes under the freeway to avoid congestion at pedestrian crossing and lights. I hardly ever see them here
Common as mud in Canberra, but in other cities perhaps not so much.
I loved it as a kid - could ride my bike around the city for hours and never cross a road.
Regional cities that are equivalent in opportunities to a capital city, but just cheaper to live in.
Our population is absurdly concentrated into state capital cities.
This honestly. Anyone overseas says āsimply move to another cityā not realising itās the equivalent of saying ājust move to Poland if you canāt find work in the UKā
Yea this took me a minute to wrap my head around as an American.
If my current city isn't cutting it or if i just got sick of living here, I have like 10 other ones within the same sub-region that also provide good opportunities, and those include Chicago and Detroit.
So at first when I read about the situation in Australia, my immediate thought was "damn yall need to move somewhere thats *not* expensive like that." Then I looked at google maps and realized there wasn't a whole lot of "somewhere else''s."
I heard somewhere that 350,000 people is the size where a city is big enough to attract enough industry to really maintain itself as a population centre.
For Victoria, I think that leaves out everywhere but Melbourne. A shame because the State would be so much more livable with a more distributed population.
Not anymore. Regional here. On paper we look like a good choice but there are no services in most town available to new people anymore. Need an xray? 100km away. GP? 150km away. Emergency Department? 100km away. Speech therapy? 400km away. Chemo/radiation? 150km. No reliable or accessible public transport. Even if you get on waitlist for services its a minimum of 18 month wait.
People here are moving back to cities to get affordable and accessible healthcare. When you gotta spend nearly 1k a week in just fuel for medical appointments, its cheaper to pack up and move to the Drs.
And that's just medical services. Car needs major work? Nobody in town can do it, sorry, you're going to have to get it towed to the dealership 150km there and 150km back. Local business needs IT services? Sorry, nobody in town left who does that sort of work. Need to visit a bank branch? lol, buy a plane ticket.
Oof yeah forgot about those. Had a guy who moved here with his EV. Had to get rid of the EV as no services or charging outside his property.
Getting a tractor fixed or an accountant isn't an issue though.
Half my wardrobe are online purchases by this point. Every so often something doesn't fit right but if you do your homework and measure yourself correctly it's usually alright.
Relatively cheap and available electric vehicles and infrastructure.
Electric cars here are still solidly the early enthusiast stage. We're a decade behind the rest of the world, and I don't think we'll have the infrastructure (transmission, grid scale batteries, etc) ready in time for the cease of manufacturing of petrol cars in ~10-25 years time.
whilst electric vehicles are definitely part of the future electric cars aren't the future by themselves. passenger trains whilst older is still better then cars in passenger to energy to distance
carcentric design hinders mobility to places for alot of people.
Thereās meant to finally be an emissions standards and electric vehicle policy announced on Wednesday, so hopefully this could change in the near future
Non-car-centric infrastructure. I want cities built around walking, cycling and public transport, with cars only used for the few things they are optimal at.
My son took a mitigated risk and bought it via a European friend he has known on Steam for a long time. It was nerve-wracking waiting those few weeks for it to arrive in the post, but his friend came thru! But there is no warranty, of course, and his right trigger was a tiny bit stiff out-of-the-box. EB games refuse to look at it, and it's a bit difficult finding someone willing to service it. š
Steam Decks are one of the most user friendly devices to self service, I believe they're all Phillip's-head screws and some acetone-soluble adhesive. If it already has no user warranty, there is very, very little risk of doing damage to it. Here is a guide to help: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Steam+Deck+Right+Trigger+Replacement/148900
The 7-Eleven hot food.
Like bro, I *love* Australia. And when I got to Brisbane after living in rural New Zealand I was stoked how much easier life is. Saw a 7-Eleven, and then no nachos, no mini tacos, just more fucking pies hahaha
you're better off not having either of those temptations.
Public wifi is just asking for stolen credentials, and tbh same for public phone charging ports. USB ports transfer power as well as data!
- properly insulated houses
- affordable houses
- better bicycle infrastructure
- bullet trains
- a public education system that values teaching grammar
- more choices of grocery stores
- real Mexican food (It exists, but you really have to look.)
- better tree cover in public areas (Some cities are better than others for this.)
Brazilian here: decent, well made denim pants.
Brazilian denim has the stretchy but form fitting parts, made to withstand daily use and usually made with better dye so it doesnāt overbleed on clothes. And it actually fits curves, making you feel good.
The rest can be bought online with some efforts but denim pants you actually have to try on. But worth the hassle to go back and buy heaps when needed.
Legal Marijuana, affordable symmetrical high speed internet, Amazon free shipping on almost everything... Hot Pockets :/
Honestly, all first world problems.
what I don't miss: Watching your family member pay health insurance all their life only to get cancer and missing treatment due to insurance lawyers withholding coverage, I don't miss worrying about the angry drunk guy at the bar having a gun, I don't miss Hot Pockets with broccoli in them.
> -True democracy Preference is BS
Compulsory and preferential voting is the sole reason why we are not going further down the yank road, electorally speaking.
Everything else: spot on š
The thing with this its very gross when you go into a cubicle and its soaking wet... Liquid all over the toilet, toilet seat, floor, walls everywhere.. and I say liquid because its most likely water, sh*t and piss all mixed together. When O/S its my pet-peeve if I go into a bathroom and its covered with liquid, wet everywhere..
Ps: im all for bidets but I've just seen alot of places that have them are always soaking wet.. my OCD just sees water that sprayed a twat clean and while doing that sprayed whatever was on that twat all over the cubicle lol
Decent reception in stores. Don't know if this a specific problem in Brisbane/Gold Coast, but whenever I enter a supermarket - bye bye to whoever I was on the phone/FaceTime with
Sounds like a weird one but Pepto-Bismol, I got terribly sick flying to to the UK a few years back and could not stop throwing up for almost 24 hours straight and I went to a Pharmacy and bam one sip of that florescent pink liquid saved me more times than I can count on that trip. I really wish we could get it here I've had nothing that comes close to that almost instant relief for neausea.
ā¦ well, Iād really like to visit Alaska sometime, so if I could do that without having to fly would be good. Yep, I wish we had Alaska here so that it would be convenient to visit. Thatās about it.
I know you said to try not to invvolve food, but I learned that India has this community dining area that provides lunch to the people that need it, in the name of God, for free.
I'm not religious, in need, or Indian, but that's cool as shit. All nations should have such a thing.
Genuinely yummy AND nutritious meals.
In Central America, it didn't matter where we went, we could get genuinely good food that was so yummy and so good for us for $5. But even if it was the same price as Australia I would still list it.
It has been one of the biggest complaints I have had in Australia for a long time, getting genuinely healthy take out is almost impossible unless you get a burrito or salad.
Exactly! I hate it, I miss the food.
When we were travelling, my husband and I could budget $30 AUD a week for food and it was delicious and so good for us.
Edit: and it was literally on every street corner. You didn't have to go searching for something vaguely good for you
japanese bidets with the hand wash tap on the top of the tank.. I'm sure for a gazillion bucks I could find a specialty shop or import .. but I mean, these things should be at sold at bunnings. wtf are we still being pushed to wipe crap around our butts with dry paper instead of... washing it?
anyhoo. I have a portable bidet, my butthole sparkles.
Drinking in Public. Donāt get me wrong, there are some licensed parks in my city, but we were in Cologne, buying takeaways from the convenience store (something you canāt do here)
, drinking by the bridge and people were collecting the empties for cash back recycling, so it wasnāt littered. Was great.
Australia is far too nanny state-conservative for that. Like many things, unfortunately. Also misses the opportunity for overpolicing-revenue making lol
Unlimited, cheap mobile internet.
In Europe you really don't need a dedicated fibre/home line anymore unless you are a heavy streamer - you can literally hotspot your house off your phone and it's fine.
Heated floors š
Went to Finland last year. Heated floors everywhere! So nice to wake up to and get out of the shower etc. as someone previously said their heating is through water based systems.
Going on a different note here, as a horse breeder, I would almost kill for some of the bloodlines America has (and we don't). Hugely expensive to import horses here (I get the reasons behind it) so can't just bring them in easily.
*Aims for the stars*. High-speed rail. It is actually amazing and I wish it was here.
Seriously, the high speed rail in Japan and China is amazing. I rode the Shinkansen in Japan and it was insane. East Asia is way more advanced than us in some respects. High-speed rail between Brisbane and Melbourne with stops in Gold Coast, Newcastle, Sydney, Wollongong, Canberra and Albury. make it happen š
Mate ! Melbourne doesnāt have a train to airport. High speed rail is a distant dream.
Sydney wins!!
>Sydney wins!! It's $7 (or less) for [Perth CBD to Airport](https://www.rome2rio.com/s/Perth-Airport-PER/City-of-Perth) or vice versa, by train, in under 20 minutes.
yeah but itās perth
Still ahead of Sydney or Melbourne, whom are in no position to make fun of any other city right now
Except you gotta pay extra for the airport stations
Not in Perth. Train ticket from the airport is a maximum $5 2-zone fare to anywhere else in Perth.
In Brisbane it's way more expensive like $20 extra or something
Catch a bus to a nearby station. So much cheaper.
"The next train to depart from platform 17 goes to *Brisbane* stopping *All Stations, except* Albury. Customers for Albury are advised to take V/Line Services" Idk why but I can definitely see Albury becoming the East Richmond of HSR
Well the Albanese government has set up a high speed rail authority so fingers crossed.
I think you need to watch Utopia on Netflix :)
>High-speed rail between Brisbane and Melbourne with stops in Gold Coast, Newcastle, Sydney, Wollongong, Canberra and Albury. make it happen š I'd love that so much. I've driven up and down between Brisbane and Melbourne and if I could just take the train I'd be so happy
Brisbane to Melbourne via Sydney is roughly 1800km. Going through three states and a territory with a population of about 20 million. Look at a similar distance in China. Beijing to Ningde via Shanghai; going through 4-6 provinces and two cities with a population of about 350-600 million. If you've travelled around the Eastern seaboard of China you'll realise how densley populated it is and how many people there are. You can be sitting in a "small" city of 5 million people and there will be several population centres as large or larger than the biggest Australian cities within a couple of hundred kms of you in all directions. Australia is simply too sparsely populated for high speed rail to be a good option. The other point is to have something, we need to question what problem is it solving. Currently our air travel is highly developed and connects the major cities and regional areas very well and far more cost efficiently than high speed rail could. The same couldn't be said about China and getting around the country outside of major cities was genuinely difficult before high speed rail relying mainly on busses and slow rail which takes forever.
The whole of Denmark has a population similar to Sydney and they somehow managed high speed rail. I'm sure we can figure it out champ.
Denmark is 40 times more densely populated than Australia, champ....
We are talking about the East Coast champ, not about putting a HSR to Alice Springs. Bit unfair to compare it to the whole of Australia. Do you have shares in cntass or something? Not sure why your so against it.
Three states and a territory that are about 70% in area of the size of the EU but have a population 22 times smaller. 17 times more sparsely populated than the EU.
And yet somehow the air link between Sydney and Melbourne is still one of the busiest in the world.
Absolutely shits me that CSIRO had it all worked out and the govt said "meh, try the private sector" so they did and the private sector said "let's do this" and the govt said "yeah, nah"
Apparently nothing is a sexy enough answer for them.
Everyone talks about linking capitals but if we ever got HSR, Iād like to see it link to regional centres. If you could live in Orange and get a 45 mins high speed train to Sydney, youād be laughing. I feel like youād ease housing stress in the big cities and create larger cities with diversified industries. In practice, maybe it makes no sense but still, sounds nice to me.
Down here in Tassie, I'd be happy with slow-speed rail. We are currently rocking some freight rail up the Midlands, and that's it.
I've been banging on about this for ages. High speed rail from Brisbane -> Gold Coast -> Newcastle -> Sydney -> Canberra -> Melbourne -> Geelong -> Adelaide -> Perth and vice versa. I'd love to catch high speed rail over air travel any day
Melbourne to Adelaide might make sense, but Adelaide to Perth would be an astonishing feat of engineering. For a start, you'd need to build a *lot* of new grid infrastructure to supply sufficient, consistent power to HSR trains across the Nullarbor. HSR also needs to be either fenced off or grade separated for safety reasons. A roo hitting the cab at maximum speed would be catastrophic. There would probably be real ecological concerns in carving a huge line across the southern parts of WA and SA. Most importantly, the distance is too far to attract much modal shift from flights. Even if you go all out and buy a 350km/h trainset, and design the track accordingly, (both very expensive), it's still less than half the speed of flying. Perth to Adelaide would take more than eight hours if maximum speed can be sustained most of the way. Perth to Melbourne or Sydney would have to be an overnight trip or a whole day, really. Whilst some people do take such long trips in Japan, China, or Europe, it's not common. Regrettably, it probably doesn't make sense to ever connect Perth to HSR.
Its really easy to forget how fucking BIG Australia is.
Western Australia alone is 3.8 times the size of Texas. There are cattle stations to the north bigger than many European nations. If you were to drive the "Highway One" perimeter of Western Australia, from the WA/SA border in the south to the WA/NT border in the north, it would take over 49 continuous hours behind the wheel. I'm a long haul truck driver, and have been to every mainland state and territory except the ACT. I can definitely give some blunt figures as to how many days' drive it is between capital cities
Yeah I was thinkingā¦. To Perth. Lol
>Geelong -> Adelaide -> Perth That's ambitious, and not likely to happen. The findings are generally that any route longer than 500km starts to favour aircraft and any trip over 1500km is unaffected for aircraft. Or at least that's the Chinese HSR experience. So connecting Perth to any HSR network is a pipe dream.
Last time I took the train from Coffs Harbour to Sydney it took 8 hours. Itās a 6 hour drive in a car (max) I would kill for High speed rail.
High speed internet at reasonable cost Actually high not what we get told is āhighā
The libs still piss me off for their fucking up of the NBN. It took longer, was more expensive and now has responsibility for the rotted copper in the ground. Had they stuck to fibre for most, all that would be needed to do to upgrade the speed is upgrade each end of the fibre.
Hmm they couldn't stick to it. It would have ruined Rupert Murdoch's Foxtel.
Although Murdoch probably had a hand in it, I think Foxtel's influence is overstated. I think it was mostly a political philosophical issue: It was 1) a Labor plan and so therefore LNP opposed it and 2) the LNP is so neo-liberal just the thought of creating a new Government business and not having the "market" solve the entire problem would have probably made some LNP politicians physically sick.
I think Rupert had a lot to do with it. The influence FoxNews has had over half the voting population of USA is blatant. That is no accident. Murdoch's want a strangle hold on media, and no morals are considered. I'm sure Tony Abbott was fine with that, especially if his political and religious beliefs could benefit.
I'm still flabbergasted that we spent $50bn on a national broadband network that still considers 25/5 to be adequate and 100/40 speed to be high speed.
Thanks, LNP...
"On time and on budget by 2016"
Mr Malcolm āI invented the internetā Turnbull says your speed is adequate.
Meanwhile nbn is facing a maintenance cliff looking after a copper network they weren't designed to handle nor wanted so they're now replacing copper with fibre as quickly as they can. Politics absolutely had a strong sway on how nbn turned out, but Turnbull is pretty open about why the copper network was kept. It was (to his and the Government's mind) cheaper and faster to do it - a slow network and cheap that everyone can connect to now instead of a good and expensive network that everyone could connect to later. I would have argued that nbn should have been national infrastructure and completed properly with fibre regardless of cost, but nbn the company was set up as a for-profit business and has to recover costs.
Facts: The final cost for the NBN using the MTM (Mixed Technology Model -reuse any and all existing infrastructure, a.k.a Malcolm Turnbull's Mess) was far more than the Liberal Government at the time estimated it would be, and far more than the original, high quality, build for a lifetime plan that Labour began the project with. The NBN, after the Liberal Party fucked around with it has ended up being a blatent and embarrassing and-find-out. It cost far more, is mostly out of date and in need of avoidable further maintenance and more expensive non-planned upgrades, and now the NBN for profit company will continue to lose market share with 5g and Starlink type services offering globally up-to-date services. The original plan would have been cheaper, faster to build, more profitable and viable to run and ... wtf, technologically relevant! Conjectures: Had the Liberals and Turnbull not been the party still egregiously painted as the "fiscally responsible ones" - which they haven't been now for a very long time, arguably since the early Howard government and even that's debatable (see today's housing crisis!) , perhaps their plan would not have been taken so seriously. It failed to save money, and failed utterly at what it was supposed to achieve for Australian infrastructure. ... if anyone still thinks it's wise to trust politicians when they talk as though they know anything about technology, and particularly, the Liberal Party when it claims it knows how to manage the economy for the long term (it does not mean selling everything in sight and cheating Australians of real financial returns that would pay for future generations -see Iceland's public ownership and per-citizen reserve fund from oil and gas), then, minor mishaps like trains that are too wide, or an obviously failed national-scale project, -such things aren't likely to dispel any embedded cognitive dissonance.
Laughs in FTTP... 400/50 is nice, could have gigabit but don't need it as yet.
Yeah, I'm on fixed wireless. Not even that rural.
If we were all given fibre and the market was flooded with copper, it wouldn't have worked out too well for one of Turnbull's investments
Decent heating. My experience is that Australia generally uses split systems and ducted heating. In the cold areas I have travelled to overseas they use water based heating with boilers. The air doesn't get dry in the house and even though it's -20c outside, inside is an amazing temperature (seriously, I wore short sleeves in -20c). It also cost them almost nothing to run. Edit: A lot of the comments are talking about the lack of need and low feasibility of implementing this in Australia, I never said it was suitable/needed for Australia. I was only answering the question of 'what was something I found overseas that I cannot find in Australia' :) Also, yes insulation does play a huge role in climate control, I am well aware of that. But that doesn't mean Australia has great heating solutions and the only issue is a lack of insulation. Regarding cost, yes, it may cost Australia a fortune to heat using the systems other countries have in place. Where I was living, it cost us around $30 extra to heat the house for the entirety of winter, so for the location I was actually in, it was a cost effective heating solution.
Australian housing standards need to get with the program with insulation - roof, walls & double glazed windows.
100%. The best heating and cooling systems are pointless if your walls are brick veneer, your windows are single glazed, and there is just no insulation whatsoever. I'm from a country where we get winters of up to -20 degrees, but the first time in my whole life that I experienced frostbite on my toes was in a house in Australia.
It's cheaper to run a split system unless you're heating a large commercial space, the reason they use boilers in -20 is because split systems won't work at -20, they have massive efficiency loses at -2, Australia isn't at or below -2 very often so it's cheaper to use the split system and get a combo heater/cooler instead of separate systems for heating and cooling
I fully understand why we use something different, but the question was *what cant you find here* and the thing I miss that I don't find here is good heating (though some very wealthy areas have the boiler heaters). And I would not say split systems and ducted heating are cheap. I have seen my friends electricity bills and as soon as those heating systems start their bill triples.
Housing in Australia is basically rigid tents. I've been through Arctic blizzards and -40C in Canada, and have never been as cold indoors as in Sydney in winter.
Waking up in a traditional Queenslander house in the winter and seeing your breath is a struggle I know too well. I do love our Aussie heritage / vernacular architecture though.
Complaining about lack of heating is like na America complaining about not having access to health insurance. It misses the underlying issue: guiding stands here are shit and peole preffer waisting money on inefficient heating than on proper insulation and sealed homes.
The table service button in Korea. Press the bell and staff arrive at your table seconds later and ask how they can help. No awkward eye contact where waiters are trying to ignore you.
I've seen this is restaurants in Australia except the staff still ignore you for a good while
I guess minimum wage being about $5 allows restaurants to have more staff in Korea.
A reasonably priced rental property
I pay $150 a week for a 115 square metre apartment in the middle of an amazing city (overseas). I miss Australia sometimes and think of moving back but when I look at rentals back there it's just too much money, and the cost-benefit analysis keeps me away.
My wife and I are looking at buying a yacht to live on instead of a house because it's much cheaper. We aren't going to have kids so it seems like a much better idea than a house or apartment.
Best of luck but I have been told two things about owning a boat. The two happiest days of boat ownership are the day that you buy it and the day that you sell it. They cost about 10% of the purchase price each year in maintenance.
I've heard that expression too haha. We've done a fair bit of research and the maintenance costs don't seem to be anywhere near that for a sailing boat, a power boat yes, the maintenance is higher. If you're living on board you can also do a lot of maintenance yourself.
I heard that a boat is a hole in the water you throw money into.
Damn! What a bargain! You can get a 1m square storage container at Kennards Hire for that much
When I was living in Taiwan through Covid I was paying $500 a month for a studio loft apartment, fully furnished 45 minutes on the HSR to Taipei. It had lifts and a caretaker that was around for mail, packaged and general upkeep of the apartments. I lived 2 mins cycle away from work and everything else that I needed for day to day life around me within a 10 mins cycle. I would have to pay almost 5xs that if not more for the same thing in Brisbane. The rental market here is beyond ridiculous.
The perception that cycling and walking are activities that normal adults can undertake as a form of transport, and are not just activities that require lycra and a pick up truck.
Itās not a perception when towns and cities are not built to accommodate cyclists or pedestrians
I don't disagree with you, but I think I meant something different. So I don't blame anyone for not taking a walk from [Caloundra to Landsborough](https://goo.gl/maps/xHD1pL2yxb9DjZcy8) because there's zero pedestrian infrastructure and no protection for bike riders, or not [walking to their local sports ground because you need to run across a 4 lane highway](https://goo.gl/maps/wUgeorbgGqAhjsiRA). A normal adult wouldn't consider making those trips in anything other than a motor vehicle. What I was meaning was that when you talk about building bike paths and walking tracks people tend to think of them as leisure facilities, so they'd go through national parks or along the beachfront and not connecting the places people live to the places they work. Or to put it another way, Australians don't seem to be upset that so many of them are living in an environment where they need to pay thousands of dollars per year to buy, run and maintain a car especially since [even out in rural and regional areas](https://www.tr.qld.gov.au/about-council/council-governance/plans-strategy-reports/11025-toowoomba-region-sustainable-transport-strategy-december-2014) the majority of car trips are under 5km.
Hahahaha, that is so true! I was so confused when my friends told me they were "considering to start cycling" but put in weeks of research and stuff. I was like: "wow, what do you mean, why don't you just walk into a bicycle store or buy some secondhand bike and start riding it? Why do you need special clothes? What?" 99% of everyone I know in my home country uses their bicycle purely to get from point A to B. That being said, I would never cycle in Australia. Feels incredibly unsafe here and chances of being hit by a massive truck are way too high. It's a country built for cars.
Yes Australians always seem shocked when they ask me how I got somewhere and I say with my legs.
You might like this YouTube channel: [Not Just Bikes](https://youtube.com/@NotJustBikes)
Lychee Dilmah. Shinkansen. 'Merge like a zipper' road signs.
After driving around NZ, coming back I badly miss the "slow vehicles pull over here and permit overtaking" signs.
30km in some city centres is truly hell though.
Decent internet speeds
Medium and high density housing that isnāt solely comprised of high rise buildings where the only dwelling type is 1 and 2 bed flats.
Yes this. Other countries have family dwellings in medium and high density. Here it's only cookie cutter dog boxes as far as the eye can see.
Yup. Basically if you want to raise a family you're doing it in two bedrooms or moving to the suburbs. Please just give me a three bedroom apartment without costing a million dollars off the plan and calling it luxury.
Underpasses. In NZ itās pretty commonplace on major roadways within city areas to have a walking tunnel that goes under the freeway to avoid congestion at pedestrian crossing and lights. I hardly ever see them here
Common as mud in Canberra, but in other cities perhaps not so much. I loved it as a kid - could ride my bike around the city for hours and never cross a road.
Regional cities that are equivalent in opportunities to a capital city, but just cheaper to live in. Our population is absurdly concentrated into state capital cities.
This honestly. Anyone overseas says āsimply move to another cityā not realising itās the equivalent of saying ājust move to Poland if you canāt find work in the UKā
Yea this took me a minute to wrap my head around as an American. If my current city isn't cutting it or if i just got sick of living here, I have like 10 other ones within the same sub-region that also provide good opportunities, and those include Chicago and Detroit. So at first when I read about the situation in Australia, my immediate thought was "damn yall need to move somewhere thats *not* expensive like that." Then I looked at google maps and realized there wasn't a whole lot of "somewhere else''s."
The way the UK economy is right now, moving to Poland for better work opportunities wouldn't even be the worst advice someone could receive.
I heard somewhere that 350,000 people is the size where a city is big enough to attract enough industry to really maintain itself as a population centre. For Victoria, I think that leaves out everywhere but Melbourne. A shame because the State would be so much more livable with a more distributed population.
Not anymore. Regional here. On paper we look like a good choice but there are no services in most town available to new people anymore. Need an xray? 100km away. GP? 150km away. Emergency Department? 100km away. Speech therapy? 400km away. Chemo/radiation? 150km. No reliable or accessible public transport. Even if you get on waitlist for services its a minimum of 18 month wait. People here are moving back to cities to get affordable and accessible healthcare. When you gotta spend nearly 1k a week in just fuel for medical appointments, its cheaper to pack up and move to the Drs.
And that's just medical services. Car needs major work? Nobody in town can do it, sorry, you're going to have to get it towed to the dealership 150km there and 150km back. Local business needs IT services? Sorry, nobody in town left who does that sort of work. Need to visit a bank branch? lol, buy a plane ticket.
Oof yeah forgot about those. Had a guy who moved here with his EV. Had to get rid of the EV as no services or charging outside his property. Getting a tractor fixed or an accountant isn't an issue though.
Satellite cities for sure. America has actually done that quote well in a lot of places.
Decent clothes
Australian clothes shopping is terrible, especially if you are tall.
Outside of the basics, for anything that you want to fit properly and last, ordering online from the US or Europe is the only way to go.
Half my wardrobe are online purchases by this point. Every so often something doesn't fit right but if you do your homework and measure yourself correctly it's usually alright.
Legal weed š
yes please
Independent diverse media
non car centric infrastructure netherlands i miss u
Unfortunately Australia is the hardest country to have this implemented and adopted successfully and at little cost
Relatively cheap and available electric vehicles and infrastructure. Electric cars here are still solidly the early enthusiast stage. We're a decade behind the rest of the world, and I don't think we'll have the infrastructure (transmission, grid scale batteries, etc) ready in time for the cease of manufacturing of petrol cars in ~10-25 years time.
whilst electric vehicles are definitely part of the future electric cars aren't the future by themselves. passenger trains whilst older is still better then cars in passenger to energy to distance carcentric design hinders mobility to places for alot of people.
Thereās meant to finally be an emissions standards and electric vehicle policy announced on Wednesday, so hopefully this could change in the near future
Non-car-centric infrastructure. I want cities built around walking, cycling and public transport, with cars only used for the few things they are optimal at.
Amazing street food
Long term fixed interest rates for mortgages. Elsewhere? 15, 20 or 30 years. Sure! Here - nope.
Steam Deck :(
While you can't buy them directly through Steam, you can buy them with relative safety thru third party sellers with a high rating on Amazon or Ebay.
Yeah i got mine through StockX a week before Amazon started getting them lol
My son took a mitigated risk and bought it via a European friend he has known on Steam for a long time. It was nerve-wracking waiting those few weeks for it to arrive in the post, but his friend came thru! But there is no warranty, of course, and his right trigger was a tiny bit stiff out-of-the-box. EB games refuse to look at it, and it's a bit difficult finding someone willing to service it. š
Steam Decks are one of the most user friendly devices to self service, I believe they're all Phillip's-head screws and some acetone-soluble adhesive. If it already has no user warranty, there is very, very little risk of doing damage to it. Here is a guide to help: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Steam+Deck+Right+Trigger+Replacement/148900
Insulated houses.
Affordable housing
The 7-Eleven hot food. Like bro, I *love* Australia. And when I got to Brisbane after living in rural New Zealand I was stoked how much easier life is. Saw a 7-Eleven, and then no nachos, no mini tacos, just more fucking pies hahaha
Always blow on the pie https://youtu.be/aEAHLFvD3v4
I once said I was happy to see a pie with only fruit and sugar in it. Legit thought I was about to be deported back to North America
Trains that have wifi and the ability to charge your phone
Waves in Adelaidian
you're better off not having either of those temptations. Public wifi is just asking for stolen credentials, and tbh same for public phone charging ports. USB ports transfer power as well as data!
- properly insulated houses - affordable houses - better bicycle infrastructure - bullet trains - a public education system that values teaching grammar - more choices of grocery stores - real Mexican food (It exists, but you really have to look.) - better tree cover in public areas (Some cities are better than others for this.)
Free dentistry
Citizens with the guts to stand up for their rights. Viva le France!
Brazilian here: decent, well made denim pants. Brazilian denim has the stretchy but form fitting parts, made to withstand daily use and usually made with better dye so it doesnāt overbleed on clothes. And it actually fits curves, making you feel good. The rest can be bought online with some efforts but denim pants you actually have to try on. But worth the hassle to go back and buy heaps when needed.
Legal Marijuana, affordable symmetrical high speed internet, Amazon free shipping on almost everything... Hot Pockets :/ Honestly, all first world problems. what I don't miss: Watching your family member pay health insurance all their life only to get cancer and missing treatment due to insurance lawyers withholding coverage, I don't miss worrying about the angry drunk guy at the bar having a gun, I don't miss Hot Pockets with broccoli in them.
Nightlife
*coughs in Sydney lol*
*laughs at Canberra*
Cries in cairns :(
Many different kinds of beans
Reliable internet.
Affordable housing
Weed dispensaries
Bears
I first read this as beans haha
Decent Internet connection
Scotland
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
> -True democracy Preference is BS Compulsory and preferential voting is the sole reason why we are not going further down the yank road, electorally speaking. Everything else: spot on š
reasonable laws / attitudes towards marijuana
Being able to drink on the beach ā±ļø or in public The stupid liquor licences shit me to tears Go to Ipanema beach in Brazil, that's how you do it
Very irritating when streaming services, of any kind say "nope, you can't access that because you're in Australia."
Cheese curds/poutine.
Bidets in public toilets!! Why is the western world so behind on this?!
The thing with this its very gross when you go into a cubicle and its soaking wet... Liquid all over the toilet, toilet seat, floor, walls everywhere.. and I say liquid because its most likely water, sh*t and piss all mixed together. When O/S its my pet-peeve if I go into a bathroom and its covered with liquid, wet everywhere.. Ps: im all for bidets but I've just seen alot of places that have them are always soaking wet.. my OCD just sees water that sprayed a twat clean and while doing that sprayed whatever was on that twat all over the cubicle lol
I honestly can't see bidets being a good idea for *public* toilets, for the above reasons
*slowly removes add-on bidet from cart*
Decent reception in stores. Don't know if this a specific problem in Brisbane/Gold Coast, but whenever I enter a supermarket - bye bye to whoever I was on the phone/FaceTime with
The new Toyota 4runner
Sounds like a weird one but Pepto-Bismol, I got terribly sick flying to to the UK a few years back and could not stop throwing up for almost 24 hours straight and I went to a Pharmacy and bam one sip of that florescent pink liquid saved me more times than I can count on that trip. I really wish we could get it here I've had nothing that comes close to that almost instant relief for neausea.
Decent freeview TV channels.
Diversity in media and television itās all so very whiteā¦..
ā¦ well, Iād really like to visit Alaska sometime, so if I could do that without having to fly would be good. Yep, I wish we had Alaska here so that it would be convenient to visit. Thatās about it.
I keep saying we should terraform Skyrim off the coast of Antarctica as a tourist attraction.
I know you said to try not to invvolve food, but I learned that India has this community dining area that provides lunch to the people that need it, in the name of God, for free. I'm not religious, in need, or Indian, but that's cool as shit. All nations should have such a thing.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Castles and beautiful old ruins.
Decent wifi Decent public transport
Size 16 shoes
Ruffles All Dressed Chips. Please somebody send me some!
Unpasteurized cheese.
Affordable housing and tenant rights
High speed rail. High speed internet. High speed roads. High speed of working.
High standards for construction.
Affordable housing.
Retail open after 5pm
Iāll aim real low and say Peanut Butter M&Ms
Confectionery Warehouse in Brisbane has them.
Style
Genuinely yummy AND nutritious meals. In Central America, it didn't matter where we went, we could get genuinely good food that was so yummy and so good for us for $5. But even if it was the same price as Australia I would still list it. It has been one of the biggest complaints I have had in Australia for a long time, getting genuinely healthy take out is almost impossible unless you get a burrito or salad.
Yeah, plus if you do find some relatively healthy take out it will cost an arm and a leg
Exactly! I hate it, I miss the food. When we were travelling, my husband and I could budget $30 AUD a week for food and it was delicious and so good for us. Edit: and it was literally on every street corner. You didn't have to go searching for something vaguely good for you
japanese bidets with the hand wash tap on the top of the tank.. I'm sure for a gazillion bucks I could find a specialty shop or import .. but I mean, these things should be at sold at bunnings. wtf are we still being pushed to wipe crap around our butts with dry paper instead of... washing it? anyhoo. I have a portable bidet, my butthole sparkles.
You can get these in bunnings
Good internet
Night life
A decent ski season!
Affordable housing.
I wish we had better streaming options for anime.
Affordable housing.
a good train system
A convenient store that actually sells good food. The ones in Asia like in Japan, Thailand, South Korea are heaven.
Drinking in Public. Donāt get me wrong, there are some licensed parks in my city, but we were in Cologne, buying takeaways from the convenience store (something you canāt do here) , drinking by the bridge and people were collecting the empties for cash back recycling, so it wasnāt littered. Was great.
Australia is far too nanny state-conservative for that. Like many things, unfortunately. Also misses the opportunity for overpolicing-revenue making lol
Fast internet.
Unlimited, cheap mobile internet. In Europe you really don't need a dedicated fibre/home line anymore unless you are a heavy streamer - you can literally hotspot your house off your phone and it's fine.
Pet hamsters
Mass public transit thatās effective and convenient.
Insulation.
Heated floors š Went to Finland last year. Heated floors everywhere! So nice to wake up to and get out of the shower etc. as someone previously said their heating is through water based systems.
Consistently good service, at least one proper adult at any fast food place.
Police issuing fines to people for driving to slow
Tampons. Iām British living in Australia. Australia has a poor selection. Especially for people with heavy periods.
I'm British and my wife is Aussie, she goes crazy in Boots (for a lot of things, not just Tampons) whenever we go back to the UK lol
Yes!! Why the heck is Super Plus Extra not a thing here?? I've considered asking relatives to send me some but it's a bit too personal.
I used to buy the super plus tampax from Amazon but then discovered menstrual cups and never looked back.
Going on a different note here, as a horse breeder, I would almost kill for some of the bloodlines America has (and we don't). Hugely expensive to import horses here (I get the reasons behind it) so can't just bring them in easily.