Talk:Australia/Archive 5

message: Does not the IPA notice in the Origin and history of the name section fragment the pronounciation paragraph? It does so in my browser. User:203.164.184.88 moved it here, but when I moved it lower again, to prevent the fragmentation, I was accussed of making a bad edit. I do think that the notice should precede the IPA langauge, but I have been unable to position it there without the fragmentation occuring. Could somebody perhaps fix it?--Cyberjunkie 05:05, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: IPA notice

message: Are the statistics provided in the infobox in US dollars or Australian? Either way, they are incorrect. I'll fix it, but I just need to know what currency is used.--Cyberjunkie 16:15, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure. This is an Australian article, so should be in AUD (can put in USD for comparison if neccessary). --Daveb 07:53, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Infobox

message: Wouldn't it be usefull to keep the continent/island and the political structure separate? The first is far more "eternal" than the last. Only plate tectonics can "destroy" the first and it has existed for how many millions of years? On the other hand the commonwealth exists apparently since 1 January 1901. Perhaps the best solution is to change the def in the intro and redistibute its contents under the correct heading, namely politics. -MarSch 14:26, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree entirely. Australia the country and Australia the continent are one in the same. The natural features of the continent are discussed within the diverging articles of ecology and geography. Most of the continent articles focus upon the polities situated within their bounds, and for Australia, the polity encompasses it in its entirety. The article as it presently exists, is most correct.--Cyberjunkie 15:02, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Australia or its commonwealth 

message: I think bolding the links to main articles is really ugly, and unnecessary since the Main article:Blah is on a separate line to the blocks of text, and its not done on featured artciles, anyone mind if I reformat them?--nixie 04:38, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Whilst I don't think it makes them appear "ugly" (actually, I think the opposite), I don't mind if it's reverted. I changed it because that seemed the standard for a growing number of articles, including features.--Cyberjunkie 04:58, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

text: what about using , that would keep them standardised?  clarkk 06:16, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good --nixie 07:00, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Bold main articles

message: ... most from Britain] and Ireland to begin with, but from other sources in later years" in the Demographics section seems both inaccurate and blantantly contradictory.  The 19th century was over in 1899 (and 1788 was only 12 years before the end of the 18th!) At the end of the 19th century, the "later years" of non-Anglo-Irish immigration had not yet begun, and the population was still well over 90% Anglo-Irish.  Moreover, is it really true to say that "most" Australians are descended from immigrants who came to Australia before 1899??  My understanding is that even many of the Anglo-surnamed Australians can trace their heritage to British immigrants who came in waves after 1900 (not to mention the non-Anglos).  I'm not Australian so I'm reluctant to change in case I'm missing something, but please respond or correct.  It just seems wrong.  Moncrief 05:42, May 17, 2005 (UTC)
You're right, not many Australias are related to the convicts. I changed the offending sentence to Most of the estimated 20.3 million Australians descend from 19th and 20th century immigrants, and I'll see what else I can do to improve the section--nixie 05:52, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: "Most of the estimated 20.3 million Australians descend from 18th and 19th century immigrants....

message: I'm using the Innote hidden reference template, refs are inline, but commented out, and then listed in the refernce list. If you've got references to add, plase do so in that format. Thanks.
ALso I put the page on peer review today --nixie 09:29, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Referencing

message: I've done a bit of cutting and removing flowery text to shorten the article, I won't take offence if you think something should go back. I also moved the topics list to a template :Template:Australia topics (it was 2kb long). History, Politics and  and Population and migration could still be shortened with a view to get to 40kb. --nixie 08:33, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: hi nixie, I think all of your trims/edits are fine, I would only ask that any text you trim be relocated to the relevant Main article (or other sub-article) so that good content isn't lost (or buried in the diff history).  I have reclaimed a paragraph and moved into the History of Australia before 1901, for example. clarkk 11:43, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, I had kind of assumed that the stuff from this article would already be in the longer articles. I'll be more careful--nixie 12:47, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: in a perfect world, editors would ensure that if they add to the summaries here that they would realise that those changes should be mirrored in the relevant Main article, unfortunately it is most often not so.  clarkk 13:05, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Recent changes

message: in light of the above, I suspect all the main (or "sub")-articles, geography of..., economy of... could do with an overhaul and porting of any new text (especially any added or improved text) and any new references added that have been added in the Australia article.  I started on economy of Australia. clarkk 15:35, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: ''Main article''s

message: Some things that need a mention:
*World Heritage sites, Ramsar, National Parks
*Cuisine
*Short explanation of the ESI to difficult to explain with brevity
--nixie 01:38, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Missing things

message: The Parliamentary Library has produced an excellent Research Note on the Governor-General's reserve powers. It is not convention that the Governor-General only acts on Ministerial advice, for example. It is the nature of the reserve powers that they are exercised without advice. The case of Prime Minister George Reid in the second Parliament is before us - nobody, least of all Reid, disputed the power of the Governor-General to refuse Reid's advice to call an election or to appoint a new Prime Minister (Deakin), both actions taken against or without advice.
Bryan Palmer's Australian Politics site provides another view of the reserve powers and lists examples of their use - eight times in all since Federation. Constitutional conventions cover more than just the limited circumstance of the Governor-General acting on advice. For example, it is a convention that Australia has a Prime Minister, even though that office is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution. Australia has been without a Prime Minister for a short time on a number of occasions following the death of an incumbent, and this could be construed as a breach of the conventions. Pete 21:03, 29 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem. My edit is more concise and more accurate than what was there previously. Did you want a cite for reserve powers/conventions placed in the article? Pete 00:01, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That's probably a good idea, if you look at the article in edit mode you should be able to work out how the footnote system works. --nixie 00:13, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Heh! I'll do my best with my limited faculties. Pete 00:59, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Constitutional Conventions

message: Should the date of the Statute of Westminster in the Independence section in the infobox be the date it was adopted by the Commonwealth Parliament, rather than the date the British Parliament made it available to us, seeing as it didn't apply to Australia till it was accepted? (according to the Wikipedia article on it). If so, should it be the date it was adopted, or the date it was backdated too? Felix the Cassowary 12:57, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Independence/Statute of Westminster 

message: I keep on changing this but I am not attached to any alternative wording. Basically, I truly believe that saying 75% or so Australians are "nominally" Christian seems like an unreasonably loaded way of describing demographics and seems to imply something about these Australians which is not supported by any facts elsewhere in this article.
:There is a serious point to be made here; lots of Australians may describe themselve as Christian but a much smaller portion of those are active, or even occasional, attenders of church.  To give some indication about 1.5 million Australians per week attend a Christian church, according a survey.  I'll add a sentence to this effect.  --Robert Merkel 08:57, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "nominally" in religion paragraph 

message: This article has been edited as a summary for clarity, please make additions about the discovery of Australia to the History of Australia before 1901, as they are not necessary in this article. --nixie 04:10, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There's no history involved in possible Portugese voyages, lost caravels and so on. It may well have happened, but as no records remain, it cannot be history. Archaeology, perhaps, if anybody ever finds the ship. Worth a mention somewhere, because it's eminently plausible (and there's that tantalising mystery of the "Mahogany Ship"), but not in this article. Pete 05:12, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Pete. Tannin 08:04, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Additions to history section by Anon

message: I recently made some changes to the article, re-adding a reference and information on the republic referendum. In re-adding the reference, I think I may have messed up the existing ones when amending the numbering. Could somebody check if this is so and let me know whether I need to revert my changes.-- Cyberjunkie 12:19, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep, they're all messed up, one problem with this ref system is that numbering needs to be manually changed and some of the refs are used more than once. I'll revert and add the referendum ref to the history section and adjust the notes (I'm getting good at it)--nixie 12:35, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks nixie. I really should have reviewed Footnote 4 before fiddling around and buggering it up. -- Cyberjunkie 14:09, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: References

message: The article shows an increase of about 300% in 24 years. Obviously this can't have  come from immigration, and I haven't done the maths, but I think that the birthrate needed to sustain this sort of increase is pretty much beyond any human population. The large and anomalous increase is mostly because Aboriginal Australians now feel far more comfortable about declaring their Aboriginality on census forms - a very positive sign IMHO, which says a lot about changing community perceptions. Reductions in infant mortality and increases in longevity also account for a portion of the increase. I think that the article should mention this because otherwise someone's going to say "hey, they must breed like rabbits!" and that's not the case. I've added a hypenated word to help explain this, but it's really a subject that deserves more detail, which may be inappropriate in this "overview" article. Pete 07:25, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Aboriginal population

message: *While were at it, someone has objected to the article being featured on the basis that it doesn't discuss racism in Australia. I was thinking of adding something after this sentence In the 2001 census the five largest groups of Australians born overseas were from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Italy, Vietnam and China from the demographic section. But I can't think of what to add, since the whole Hanson episode there has definately been a push for mulitcultural Australia but I'm lost for a way to describe it.--nixie 09:27, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Racism

message: I think statement that modern Australia has Racial Discirimination is an extreme POV.
Perceived racial discriminations are much better.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Alex Bakharev (talk • contribs) 15:53, 12 July 2005. diff
Fine, but I took the comment about refugees out, wihtout some serious comparative context the comment is of little consequence.--nixie 06:37, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Racial discrimination??? 

message: JPD, if you want to retain the word, tell us what it means. Do you mean 'by Australians'?
Tony 09:14, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, that would be the obvious assumption.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 09:31, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

text: I took it to mean that the sentence was talking about normal Australian pronunciations. There are plenty of other ways it is pronounced, so some sort of clarification is necessary. If you have a more pedantic way of saying it, fine, but "pronounced locally as ..." is usually meant in that way. JPD 11:38, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

text: No dissatisfaction at all. I just thought it rather obvious. In an article about Australia, one would rightly assume that "locally" meant within Australia. In any case, Slac amended the offending sentence so that it instead reads "The word Australia is pronounced in Australian English as..", which I agree sounds better and should be satisfactory. There is no ill-feeling on my part, so I do apologise if you got that impression. As for debate on detail, I don't see how I am opposed to that. I welcome it.-- Cyberjunkie | Talk 16:23, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  'locally' in the bit about the pronunciation of 'Australia' 

message: Last I heard, it was overtaken by Sydney.  Can anyone give us an up-to-date reference on the claim that it is the fastest-growing capital city?  Otherwise, the photo caption is potentially inaccurate.  Slac speak up! 02:25, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Of the capital city SDs (statistical divisions), Brisbane was the fastest growing capital city in Australia between 1998 and 2003, increasing by an average 2% per year, followed by Perth (1.4%) and Darwin and Melbourne (each 1.3%). ABS 2005 yearbook. Since the ABS has the best data and people to analyse it, I'll go with their analysis of the numbers.--nixie 02:34, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Brisbane - fastest growing?

message: There are numerous references to this census in the article, and in places it becomes a little repetitive. I wonder whether editors agree that one reference, where the issue first occurs, might be enough—something like '..., on which most of the demographic and economic statistics in this article are based', would be neater. I note that many statements in the article are not referenced to a source (which is quite reasonable).
Tony 03:03, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  References to the 2001 census 

message: '... Australia is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the major land area of Australasia. It includes the entire continent of Australia and a number of islands, the largest of which is Tasmania.'
The all-important first sentence introduces what will be an unfamiliar term to most foreign, and some Australian readers: 'Australasia'. The term is unfortunately similar to the name of the country, and involves a level of detail that I think is undesirable at the opening of the article. If it's necessary to educate readers about the term, why not relocate it further down, in the section on Geography, where a link will be less disruptive to the flow. Doing that would allow the opening to be something like:
'... Australia is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the entire continent of Australia and a number of islands, the largest of which is Tasmania.'
Shorter, simpler, more direct, it states the most important points about the location of the country without this interesting, but tangential point.
Does anyone object?
Tony 16:42, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Since I objected to removing "Commonwealth" and Boigu Island, I guess I better say I support this change. --ScottDavis 00:11, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Generally, country articles include in the introduction a reference to the region in which they are located. That said, I think your suggestion is suitable, although not on the grounds that it is "confusing" (this is Wikipedia: people follow links to learn). Australasia is more a political (and ecological) term than geographical, so in that respect, it is not necessary.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 05:10, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

text: If people can't find "the continent of Australia" in the southern hemisphere on a world globe, telling them it's the major landmass of either Australasia or Oceania is unlikely to help! --ScottDavis 09:27, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Australasia' in the first sentence 

message: I'm not entirely sure that the current wording is appropriate:
'although the Constitution gives extensive executive powers to the Governor-General, they are used only on the advice of the Prime Minister. The Governor-General's "reserve powers" are seldom exercised, the most notable example being to end the Australian constitutional crisis of 1975.'
The prime minister is not mentioned in the Constitution, which holds that the GG is advised by the Executive Council. I wonder whether it's safer to be less specific here, i.e., by referring to 'the government' rather than the prime minister?
In addition, Kerr's use of his reserve powers 'to end the constitutional crisis' might not be neutral enough: some people would assert that rather than "ending" the constitutional crisis of 1975, his actions created one out of what had been merely a political crisis that was, in any case, about to be resolved in the Senate. I personally don't take sides on this historical issue, but I think the text could steer through this more safely.
Proposed new text:
although the Constitution gives extensive executive powers to the Governor-General, in practice, these are referred to as "reserve powers" and are used only on the advice of the government. The most notable example of the use of these powers was with respect to the Australian constitutional crisis of 1975.
What do people think?
Tony 03:34, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Your suggestion simlifies the matter nicely :) --nixie 03:37, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Simple, but wrong. As far as I know, the Prime Minister was not sacked on advice of the government. --ScottDavis 09:34, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

text: Although the Constitution gives extensive executive powers to the Governor-General,  in practice these are normally exercised only on the "advice" of the Prime Minister.  The most notable exercise of the Governor-General's "reserve powers" outside the Prime Minister's direction was in to order the Prime Minister's dismissal in the constitutional crisis of 1975.
Don't know if that's any better.  Slac speak up! 11:07, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

text: With the minor correction above. This version looks OK to me. --ScottDavis 11:26, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

text: Drop the quotes round 'advice' and 'reserve powers', and alter the last bit to be '... was to dismiss the Prime Minister...'. Felix the Cassowary 13:40, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The bit about the GG—reserve powers, prime minister, etc. 

message: I don't mind removing the bit about cuisine, but in terms of their unique contribution to Australian culture, the ABC and SBS are worthy of mentioning by name. Apart from the BBC, the ABC is the only public broadcaster of its type, plays an important role in the life and politics of the nation, and has been a significant force in local TV production. The commercial networks, by contrast, do not seem to me to be uniquely Australian in their contribution, and currently occupy considerably more space in the paragraph (including the citing of particular programs).
I wonder whether we can go back to (shorter) references to these two institutions?
And can the reference to Harvey Krumpet be removed? Sure, it's important and received an award, but why single it out over the multitude of good stuff that Australia has produced? 
I'm also not sure why 'one' of the two national newspapers is mentioned by name. Surely this link can be found in one of the daughter articles on Australia.
Tony 05:30, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  culture 

message: I can't find any reference to life expectancies in Reference 14; why are both genders mentioned as 17 years lower? I'm sure these figures are not exactly the same for both genders. Can someone enlighten me?
'Indigenous Australians have higher rates of imprisonment and unemployment, lower levels of education and life expectancies for males and females that are 17 years lower than those of other Australians. Perceived racial inequality is an ongoing political and human rights issue for Australians.'
Tony 15:10, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Indigenous population is reflected in life expectancy at birth, which for Indigenous males and females born in the 1996-2001 period was 59.4 years and 64.8 years respectively; approximately 17 years less for both males and females than the life expectancy of all Australian males and all females born in the 1997-1999 period. 
 --nixie 23:07, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference 14 

message: Can we please remove the paragraph on cuisine, which seems all too superificial: 'oh, we have Indian cuisine here, and we even cook it in our own kitchens'; bit parochial, given that there's been an internationalisation of cuisine in many industrial countries over the last few decades. Tim Tams and Vegemite—well, if we have to cite these brands to bolster our sense of national identity, something's wrong, but I guess they could be tacked on somewhere else if someone insists. I've not acted on this, pending other people's opinions.
Tony 15:34, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The paragraph is a bit lacking, although there is doubtless something to be said about Australian cusine. Perhaps someone amongst us knows a thing or two about cuisine and could expand/rewrite it? From what little I know on the subject, I understand that Australia has pioneered in blended/modern cuisine, known here as "fusion cuisine". Some discussion on unique foodstuffs wouldn't go astray either, though you're right, if we're only invoking Vegemite we have things to worry about. How about native foods and/or produce and their place domestically and internationally. For instance, Australia is one of the largest wine producers in the world (fifth, I think), so why not mention that? What about native Macadamia nuts, one of the most expensive in the world? And so on. However, this is a summary article, so any such talk would need to be brief. --Cyberjunkie | Talk 15:57, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

text: Actually, just on the article size, we could cut it down by moving the Infobox to a separate template. Doing so would remove the imposing syntax at the begining of the article (in edit mode), which I've read off-puts newbies. The only drawback is that many don't know how to access templates to edit. Thoughts? --Cyberjunkie | Talk 03:28, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

text: Were you endorsing the template thing then? I don't know of any guidelines on infobox templates either, but I have seen it done in many articles (although only a couple country articles do it). I'll add an edit link to the end of the infobox if I transfer it.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 05:52, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't mind one way or the other. Having it on a template may make it a bit easier to update.--nixie 07:13, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cuisine 

message: Does anyone object to the relocation of 'Foreign relations and military' from before to after 'States and territories'? Currently the reader has to veer from federal political institutions to foreign relations then back to state and territory political institutions. Foreign relations was probably placed after the federal stuff because they are a federal matter, but that's probably not a good enough reason for juxtaposing these two sections. Federal responsibility for foreign relations is not mentioned anywhere, and there's mention of other federal responbilities much further down in the article.
Tony 15:47, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re-order sections? 

message: Since Andrew Bartlett has stuck a NPOV flag on demographics perhaps he should back up his claims about a housing shortage and source the evidence that overpopulation is an issue in Australia. Previously the section was simply factual. He seems to be inserting POV without sources.--nixie 23:16, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I have removed the additions until they are sourced. I don't think the article presents for or against immigration, it just says there is immigration? Is that POV?--nixie 23:24, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The current article is fine. You're exactly right - there is no place for biased editing here. Ambi 23:58, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

text: I agree. I've reverted similar edits twice now. Rather than following NPOV, this user is asserting POV. The NPOV tag should be accordingly removed. I do note, however, that there is a view that the continent, being as ancient and dry as it is, can only support around 40 million people. This could be discussed (if referenced to credible sources) in the Demographics of Australia article; such discussion is not necessary here. One would have to be careful though, given anti-immigration and radical ZPG groups will use any argument to support their beliefs. I very much doubt the thing about a housing shortage as well.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 04:13, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV on demographics

message: Sorry, there's a problem:
'... comprising the entire continent of Australia and a number of islands, the largest of which is Tasmania. Australia has been inhabited for about 50,000 years ...'
Using the term 'Australia' to refer to the continent, as opposed to the country, raises the question of which meaning is intended at the start of the second sentence. I think the intended meaning was the country in the second sentence, but at the moment, it looks as though it excludes Tasmania with respect to habitation for about 50,000 years.
One way around this might be to avoid the other meaning of 'Australia':
'... comprising the world's smallest continent and a number of islands, the largest of which is Tasmania. Australia has been inhabited for about 50,000 years ...'
As nixie (I think it was) pointed out, if you can't find it on a map, there's something wrong. The location is quite clear from the world map that is supplied.
Is my suggested change OK?
Tony 08:04, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds much better to me JPD 14:49, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opening sentence, again