How to arrive and

Practicalities of life in Australia

The postal system

Australia Post (http://www.auspost.com.au) is a government-owned corporation which operates all the standard national and international post. For urgent deliveries there is a 'priority paid' facility for next-day delivery both inside and outside Australia. Ordinary mail between Europe and Australia is almost always transported by airmail. This takes around 5 to 7 days between Australia and continental Europe and 3 to 4 days to the UK and USA. Private companies operate separate parcel delivery and courier services.

All addresses on letters and packages need to reflect the abbreviated name of the state as well as the four-digit post code for the actual delivery destination. Abbreviated state names are as follows:
New South Wales = NSW
Queensland = Qld
Victoria = Vic
Australian Capital Territory = ACT
South Australia = SA
Western Australia = WA
Tasmania = Tas
Northern Territory = NT

Post offices are open between the hours of 09.00 and 17.00 Monday to Friday. In Melbourne and Sydney, main post offices (GPO’s) and several other busy offices are also open on Saturday from 09.00 - 12.00. Postage stamps can be bought at the reception desks of hotels and motels as well as at some stores and news stands. Mailboxes are easily recognisable and are a large metal box painted red with a white stripe.

Radio and Television

There are no radio and TV licence fees in Australia. Broadcasters are left to their own devices in order to cover their costs and make a profit. Most do so by means of advertising revenue. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) operates the television network (http://www.abc.net.au) in competition with 60 or so privately-owned companies. Most of the cities have four channels which includes ABC and 3 other commercial television channels which run 24-hour broadcasting.

News and documentaries are popular on Australian television and sport features heavily, especially on additional channels which are available on subscription-based satellite television. International sports coverage tends to be limited, but this is of little consequence to most Australians who are mostly into sport on a domestic level. They become fervent patriots when their national side is playing against another country in any sport though. In most big cities, there is ethnic or multicultural broadcasting by way of the Special Broadcasting Service (http://.www.sbs.com.au)

Australia also has hundreds of different radio stations, some of which are run by the ABC, with the majority being operated by commercial companies. There are also small radio stations which are community and university based. International radio stations can be heard on short-wave receivers. Internet-based radio stations are also becoming popular.

Newspapers and magazines

The Australian is a national newspaper available daily across the country. The Australian Financial Review is the newspaper of choice for businesspeople. The best-selling and most influential newspapers are the daily publications released in the cities. Sydney has ‘The Sydney Morning Herald’ while Melbourne has ‘The Age’. The other cities have daily morning and sometimes evening newspapers too.

The larger towns tend to have their own local newspapers, some of them dailies, that are sold alongside their larger rivals. Foreign newspapers are imported to cater for demand from expatriate communities that can be found in the larger population centres. Sunday newspapers appear in all the states across Australia.

There is no shortage of Australian magazines that cater for every taste and interest. Foreign titles can be obtained through subscription. The top-selling weekly magazine is TV Week which has the listings for all televisions programs aired in Australia. There are regional versions that take in to account the different time zones in Australia.

The complete list of Australian newspapers and their websites can be found at: http://www.nla.gov.au/npapers/

Entertainment

Most Australians spend a considerable amount of time outdoors, which is easy to do when there is an abundance of sunshine. The two most popular forms of entertainment/socialising are barbeques and days at the beach. Australia has allocated considerable resources to its parks and wildlife services. Today there are hundreds of nature reserves in Australia covering a large proportion of the country.

Theatre companies exist in the larger Australian cities and are regularly patronised. They are supplemented by amateur companies that stage regular productions of popular plays, especially over Christmas. Melbourne leads the cultural front with over 60 theatres. Each state has its own symphony orchestra and their concerts are popular. The Sydney Opera House (http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com) is the cultural icon of Australia and provides excellent facilities for opera and ballet performances. It is regularly visited by performers from around the world.

All Australian cities have good public library facilities and are well equipped with a wide range of material that is either free or available at a very low charge. They sometimes double as community centres and provide classes in a great variety of subjects.

The other trappings of modern Western life can also be found. Cinemas are not hard to find in the cities and larger towns. Theme parks tend to be grouped in Queensland along the Gold Coast. Sydney has LunaPark (http://www.lunaparksydney.com).
Australians take sport very seriously and there is no lack of facilities for most sports in most population centres. Being able to successfully host the Olympics in 2000 in Sydney is testament to the Australian ability to administer and participate in sporting matters. The big cities have large rugby and crickets grounds that have familiar names to many people around the world. Melbourne prides itself in annually hosting the Australian Tennis Open, the Australian Formula One Grand Prix and Australia’s most popular horse race, the Melbourne Cup.