So about a week ago I spent 10 days in Queensland, mostly in and around the Brisbane area and I have compiled an non-exhaustive list of pros and cons that are completely from my point of view. I am not trying to hurt anyone’s feelings, but this is my opinion. I have tried to list an equal amount of pros and cons.
These are the CONS, for the selection of PROS you can go here
Customs are a bunch of jerks
Perhaps this is because of the semi-famous TV show where they really rip apart people coming into the country over petty things. In my situation I didn't even have anything they were looking for (whatever that was,) I have no idea why i was selected but it was a horrible situation that took entirely too long.
I don't enjoy being talked down to by someone that probably didn't pass the exam to be on an actual police force especially when they are 10 years younger than me. The overly friendly yet extremely patronizing attitude of the staff was just horrible and was a bad start to my time in the country. Combine this with the fact that my carefully packed bag was now left in a pile on the inspection table with zero effort on their part to be even remotely careful with my belongings put me in a bad mood. I made certain to take my sweet time putting it all back perfectly and I sincerely hope that I inconvenienced them by taking so long to move along.
If you are looking for drugs have a drug sniffing dog - you don't need to unravel all of my t-shirts and underpants. At one point i was asked if my computer contained porn with a condescending attitude that I would imagine is not directed at the women who come through there. If i did have it, would it be illegal? I looked, and it is not, so why are you asking me this? As I mentioned before I was harassed about the fact that I had 10 million Vietnamese Dong in my bag. As a customs agent I think you should be trained just a little bit and realize that this is worth less than $400 Australian and isn't even close to being against import restrictions.
Nanny State
There is a line in a Die Antwoord song where he is referring to over governance (he was referring to South Africa but it applies elsewhere) and he says "you can't do this, you can't do that."
This is how I felt when i was in Australia. I was reprimanded at one point by a policeman who was wearing what appeared to be riot gear about the fact that I was walking on the wrong side of a footpath (sidewalk) and this was important to point out to me despite the fact that literally no one else was around. He actually parked the car to come and talk down to me for walking on the WRONG SIDE of an empty footpath.
In another instance we were on a train and my friend (who is in his 50's and a father of 2 kids, one of which was with us) was missing one of his tickets but the other ticket was waiting for us at our destination. Again, we were talked down to in a patronizing manor by someone wearing a flack jacket and had 2 beefy backup cops with them as well. What sort of confrontation are they expecting to encounter on a public train in the middle of the afternoon?
I was on edge all the time when i was in public because it seems as though almost anything you want to do is somehow against the law. There are too many rules there and from the people I have spoken to that are citizens, they are really starting to get fed up with this as well.
Taxes aimed at the poor
I get it. You don't want people to smoke. This is possibly because of the fact that health care is "free" and everyone knows that smoking dramatically increases a risk of many diseases. However, people are still going to do it and for the most part these people are in the poorer demographics. A pack of smokes is $25. That is absolutely absurd.
Also, as i mentioned before, despite the fact that you can't do very many things without breaking a law, horse betting pubs and gambling games called "pokies" are everywhere. Gambling addiction ruins people's lives, yet this is allowed. Why? Because it makes buckets of money for the gubment.
Roundabouts are used every 100 meters
How anyone knows where they are going is beyond me. I know there are studies that show that roundabouts are more effective than stoplights but for craps sake man, do we have to use only roundabouts?
If we didn't have GPS I don't think we would have ever gotten anywhere and even with GPS it took two of us to get where we needed to go.
Expensive
It is a lovely country but man oh man it is pricey. Most of the time when i am trying to just do something normal like get something to eat I am looking at the menu and thinking how is is possible that all the sandwiches are $20 or more?
Most of the restaurants that we went to feature something really annoying called "counter service" where you have to go make an order at the counter rather than order through a waitstaff member. I was told this is because labor laws require these individuals to be paid so much money per hour that the average shop can not afford to employ them. This leads back to my "Nanny State" point that I made earlier.
I don't want any Australians out there to get upset with me and I also want you to know that a vast majority of the points i made above exist in a lot of other countries, including the one I come from. I suppose after living in Thailand for so long I just kind of get annoyed when government becomes too intrusive in my life and in Thailand the government has an attitude of "if you don't hurt anyone else financially or physically, you can do whatever you want."
I think I prefer it that way.
I likely will not return to Australia but I am glad that I went. The beaches are great and for the most part the people are really nice provided they don't work for the government in any capacity. Those guys can kiss my a$$