It may be pointing out the bleedingly obvious, but Australia is rather warm. I moved here knowing that, and still I wilt in the heat (30 degrees C is common, and in the high twenties overnight). I expected the first summer or two to be unbearable as I acclimatised, but what surprises me is that the locals seem to have similar issues with the heat to me.

There is almost a staunchness to owning a house in Brisbane without air conditioning or a pool. Almost as if the possession of them indicates you are not really tough enough to be a local. But, without fail, when the heat goes up, the locals head in droves to the shopping malls for the comfort of air conditioned areas.

Houses are not insulated at all to minimise heat ingress, and the building forms of most houses are similar to what owuld be used in New Zealand, which is singularly unsuited to keeping houses cool. It is only in older houses (Queenslanders) that breezeways are installed over the doorways to allow natural breezes to flow through the place. It is only in very new and very flash houses that air conditioning is installed, and it is mostly done on a room by room basis rather than the entire house.

This gripe came to a head for me over the Christmas week period when at home (as opposed to the air conditioned comfort of work) the heat hit the 30s for a few days and I wanted to avoid the madness of the malls, and it was too hot to go bush walking, so I hung round home. I have never sweated so much while doing so little. Deodorant is a good thing, but the body needs to sweat to equilibrate internal temperatures.
It doesn't make for a pretty sight when you are trying to dress to impress and the only way you can arrive without large sweat stains under the arms and across the back is to change just before you leave the house.

There is a seeming lack of common sense in how Queensland deals with the sunshine. The sun rises a little before 5am here, and sets about 6-30pm. In most sane parts of the world there is daylight saving which works on the premise that people like to get up around sunrise, and have time to do some leisure activities in the evening after getting home from work. Queensland does not have daylight savings. As I wake up when sun hits me, I have had to buy blackout curtains to prevent me from waking up at an indecent hour. A downside of this curtain is that it prevents air circulation, which adds to the heat in the room overnight.

option 1: no blackout curtain. small fan blows air around and window is open. Sleep better but for shorter time as the sun will wake me up too early.

option 2: blackout curtain. window open and fan going but not a lot of coolness in the room. sleep longer but not as well due to the heat.

I am presently on the horns of a dilemma.

The solution, were I not renting, would be to install a small air con unit in the room, and leave the curtain up. As I am moving from this place when Allan get married in march the next place I'll be moving into will need air con.

In Australia it appears that it is considered acceptable for a man to wear a singlet to almost any social occasion other than one requiring a tie (which are rare). While in many parts of the world I believe that singlets are reserved for wrestlers, sheep shearers, people at gyms, it does not draw note for a guy to wander around a shopping mall in a ragged singlet.

Likewise, a tidy and slightly more formal form of the singlet, is not entirely out of place on a casual friday at work.

I think that this is more reflective of the weather than any inherently more casual attitude towards life.

Footwear, also, are on a more casual scale than I am accustomed to in NZ. Thongs as they are known in Australia, jandals in NZ, are seen in aussie as fashionable footwear to be worn with casual outfits rather than a sign of a lack of style, and being stuck in a time warp.

I migrated to australia in late september 2003 (from NZ), and thought it only proper to jot down some of the things i have observed.

NZ is commonly thought to be a minor, and backward suburb of Australia. This is true to some extent but not as much as the uninitiated would have you believe.

This isn't meant as flame bait, but just as observations made in the process of living life in Australia.
1. Shower mixers are normal in NZ, compared to two taps in all showers I have seen to date in Australia (even in brand new bathrooms). It feels like an odd juxtaposition as I had previously only seen them in very old bathrooms.
2. Almost no suit jackets worn in transit to work. Probably 100% due to climate rather than a more casual approach.
3. Eftpos is seldom in shops, and often with $10 or $20 min purchases. Banks put charges on the EFTPOS system that effectively kills people using it.
4. All banks charge you if you use another bank's ATMs - there are no reciprocal agreements between them
5. You pay for local phone calls (15cents flat for as long as you like)
6. The addition of voicemail to phones is an extra cost, and is enough that most people do not have it.
7. Voicemail on cellphones is also uncommon.
8. There are fewer foreign (UK, NZ, USA) beers than in NZ, and beers can't be bought at supermarkets (neither can wine for that matter). The only NZ beers seen to date are: Tui, monteiths golden lager, steinlager.
9. Sunshades are on the outside of many buildings, and often in houses blinds pulled all day long.
10. People using umbrellas as portable sunshades.
11. Umbrellas are a useful commodity in Brisbane compared to Wellington, as the rain is not often accompanied by wind, so it will not end up looking like a dismembered spider as so many umbrellas do in a decent blow in Wellington.
12. CDs are about as expensive in Aussie dollars as they are in kiwi dollars, and like NZ there is no legal capacity to copy your own cds to your computer or make backup copies of your cds (fair use copying for those for whom that term means anything).
13. Petrol prices fluctuate by as much as ten cents in a week, with max prices at the weekends when people want to get petrol for family trips
14. Dialup internet speeds seem far slower than on a dialup in NZ. Will find out for sure when I get my own PC rather than borrowing my flatmate's one. It is common for hours to be capped, or on broadband for the volume to be capped.
15. Radar detectors are illegal. I never wanted to own one, but the levelling of the playing field with radar detectors is not seen as "fair dinkum" by the local constabulary.
16. There are literally dozens of 7-11 stores all over the show. I have yet to have someone tell me "thank you, come again" as per the simpsons classic quote. I have seen them on opposite sides of the same traffic intersection.
17. There are fewer cheeses at the supermarkets, and I have yet to see either hokey pokey icecream or jelly tip icecream, but you can buy trout (which is illegal to sell in NZ - being a sport fish).
18. Marmite is only available in small 250g pots rather than the larger ones you get them in NZ.
19. Most Australians have not been to NZ (or explored their own country to any great extent) but profess that it would be a lovely place to visit some time.
20. A short drive for an Australian seems to be anything under half a day. Two hours is "just down the road", but most shopping is not done in the CBD, but in the local suburban shopping districts. Like most large cities, people do not shop much outside their own area, and seldom have need to go across town. That I choose to go to a church on the other side of town is somewhat peculiar, but it takes no longer
21. It will cost something around $2000 for a qualifying kiwi to apply and obtain permanent residency in Australia. $2000 can be spent on more interesting things than the right (and indeed requirement under law) to vote in the latest batch of politicians.
22. The standard of humour in advertising appeals to a lower common denominator than in NZ. It is more slapstick American humour than dry UK wit.
23. The TV series are about two to three months behind NZ. I am told they are years behind on coronation street.
24. Bottled water is available everywhere and is cheap and widely bought. It costs extra if you get it out of the chiller rather than having it "warm".
25. Coffee in cafes is about on par with NZ, but you cannot get Robert Harris coffee, and the range of plunger coffees in the supermarkets is narrow in comparison to NZ. The concept of coffee carts, such as the fuel carts in Wellington, is novel in Australia (or at least Brisbane), and despite hearing of them I have yet to see them in the sorts of places that Fuel would be set up in the CBD of Wellington.
26. There is a lot more protection of local industry, and many products advertise that they are Aussie owned and that things are made in Australia. This is good on many counts, but means for instance that second hand car are far more expensive to buy in Australia than in NZ where used Japanese imports are common.
27. In my professional capacity as an engineer, the design wind force is the 1 in 1000 year event, compared to the NZ 1 in 250 to 300 year event. This increases the wind speeds by about 50% over comparable NZ locations (design wind speeds of 60m/s, or 216 km/hr).
28. White bread seems to be the norm. In NZ, from my own observations, probably 50% of bread would be something other than white, be it wholemeal, general purpose lumpy molenburg or similar. In cafes where I have ordered a sandwich with some interesting ingredients, the bread is nothing elaborate such as you would get from a bakers, but is regular white sandwich bread as from the supermarket.
29. there are no 24 hour supermarkets as there are in NZ. Even the 22 hour supermarket is an unknown commodity.
30. The concept of a 24 hour petrol station is foreign in Australia.