Life In Australia

I didn’t notice anything at the weekend, but the Courier Mail says there was a drink-driving blitz by the police. After administering 50,000 breath tests, one of the peoople caught was a policeman - from the far north of Queensland.

It’s something I warn visitors about - once you leave Brisbane and the Gold coast, you’re entering the ‘wild west’ for driving. The death rates on Queensland’s rural roads is pretty high. Part of the reason for this, I’m sure, is that for many people in rural Queensland - and too many in the urban areas too - driving after a few drinks isn’t considered such a bad thing to do as we’d consider it in Britain.

Funnily enough, Australia has tougher alcohol limits than the UK has. The legal limit here is 0.05 percent while in Britain it’s 0.08 percent. The practical effect is that most men in Britain can get away with drinking a couple of pints of standard-strength beer and drive legally. In Australia, two pints would put you over the limit.

In the case of the of policeman caught at the weekend, he’d have been over the limit in the UK or in Australia - he was measured at 0.1 percent.

Oh, in addition to the hapless police officer, the blitz netted 614 drink drivers, 287 speeding offenders, 83 disqualified or unlicensed drivers and six dangerous driving offences. The Queensland police force is apparently going to stage another weekend blitz ’soon’.

The Australian Government has approved the $ 2 billion puchase of thirty-four MRH 90 helicopters to be built in Brisbane.

Delivery of the first twelve is scheduled from December 2007 through to December 2009.

It’s expected that somewhere around skilled 400 jobs will be created at the Eurocopter subsidiary Australian Aerospace. (Australian Aerospace is currently assembling the army’s Tiger armed reconnaissance helicopters.)

Australian Aerospace chief executive Joseph Saporito said:

“This decision creates the prospect of Australia becoming more involved in the global helicopter supply chain, more exports from Australia, more jobs, the development of new skills in the latest composite fibre manufacturing and construction techniques and more investment by Australian Aerospace.”

Fortunately, British immigrants don’t need to sit a driving test - my wife was especially relieved about this. It took her three attempts to get her driving licence in the UK and she was dreading having to sit a driving test in Brisbane.

All you have to do here is sit a reasonably easy driving theory test - which costs around $16.

You need to answer 30 questions about driving and traffic laws. I don’t know the pass rate but I would think it’s pretty high. Before you sit the test, it’s best to read through a little book called “Your Keys to Driving in Queensland”.

I’m not a smoker. I’ve never smoked and I’ve always resented it - even as a child - if someone smoked near me and I had to breathe their fumes. I’m pleased to say that Queensland has the toughest anti-smoking regulations of any of Australia’s states. Anti-smoking regulations here are tougher than in the UK.

Currently smoking is banned ($150 on the spot fines for breaches) at entrances to non-residential buildings, within 10 metres of children’s public play equipment, at patrolled beaches, at artificial beaches, at major stadiums, and at least one-third of the indoor area of pubs and bars.

The laws are actually enforced. According to Queensland Health, 748 on-the-spot fines were levied for breaches of tobacco laws between March 31 and December 1 2005.

225 of the fines were for smoking at a building entrance, 149 were for smoking at a major sports facility and 328 were for other breaches.

From July this year, it gets even better. Then the whole area of pubs and bars must be smoke free. Smoking will also be banned in non-enclosed areas where food or drink is served.

If you’re going to a hospital, smoking will be banned at all health facilities including buildings, grounds and vehicles. The smoking policy will apply to everyone - staff, volunteers, inpatients, residents, patients, visitors, etc.

Patients who request it will be given the option of free nicotine patches or gum while they are in hospital.

Not everyone will agree, but I think it’s all fantastic!

Our daughter went back to school on Monday of this week, after the summer holidays. She’s one of the lucky ones. Her classroom is air-conditioned.

Many Brisbane and Queensland schoolchildren are not so fortunate and are forced to sit stewing in swelteringly hot classrooms trying to do their schoolwork.

In a relatively wealthy state and country, it’s intolerable that classrooms aren’t air-conditioned in mid- summer.

You can bet your bottom dollar that the state government has all of its own buildings air-conditioned. As far as schools are concerned, the government says they plan to air condition all state schools in the “long term”. (I’d interpret that as a politician’s euphemism for “sometime never”.)

If you are planning a move to Brisbane, you really need to ask schools whether they have air conditioning or not. For the sake of your kids, find one with air-conditioned classrooms.

I was reading some gloomy jobs news in The Age today.

Apparently employment in Australia fell in the last three months - including in Queensland.

Funnily enough, figures from the ANZ Bank are showing that, at the same time as employment is meant to be falling, the number of jobs advertised in Queensland is actually increasing. More and more of the jobs being advertised are appearing on the internet - good news for anyone thinking of moving here.

I know for a fact that businesses all over Australia, not just in Queensland, are crying out for skilled workers in all fields - just a couple of days ago there was a report that Queensland was short of around 500 aged-care nurses.

It seems that unskilled jobs may be being lost, leading to the decreasing employment figures. At the same time there is increasing demand for skilled people, leading to more internet job ads.

The skills shortage is very good news for skilled people who want to live in Australia.

A word of caution though. An employer who advertises on the Net may not be interested in hiring someone from overseas. Most newspapers here circulate in only one State - they don’t have Australia-wide coverage. The Net is a convenient way for employers to get their vacancies in front of readers all over Australia.