With the new year upon us, we can look back to see how the world treated us last year—and most of us will just pray it might get better. I’m currently in Australia, enjoying grandchildren and wishing I had some of my old energy back. Boy, can a 10-year-old and an 8-year-old wear you out! We took them to Sydney for five days as an early Christmas gift, and I’m not sure I’ll ever completely recover. Is sibling rivalry always this demanding?
As for Australia itself, when I was first here in 1987, I thought it was similar to home but about 20 or so years behind the United States. As I now come down about every year or more, I find those 20 years have shrunk away. Its economy hasn’t quite fallen as hard as ours, and the real estate market is still booming with a major housing shortage, especially in Sydney. For those of you who are somewhat unfamiliar with Australia (and, like everyone I know, plans to get here some day), it’s approximately the same size geographically as the United States, but with less people than there are in Los Angeles.
Its 23+ million people are spread out in a handful of cities: Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, the Gold Coast (Cairns, etc.), Darwin and a few in Tasmania and the rest in the country capitol, Canberra. The entire middle of the country is called the outback and is very similar to Death Valley—or hell. Alice Springs in the dead center is home to a few brave souls and a lot of native Aboriginals. They’ve been treated somewhat similar to Native American Indians at home, but things are very slowly beginning to change.
Several years ago, we drove 1,000 miles from Adelaide to Alice Springs and back. After the first mile, the next 999 looked exactly the same: very little plant life of any kind—even the nasty, dirty Eucalyptus doesn’t thrive well there—and the carcasses of cattle and kangaroos that have been run over by Road-trains. Road-trains are 50-foot trailers being pulled three at a time at 60+ miles per hour. The big front bumpers are called Roo-guards and simply hit, kill and let fly any unfortunate cow or kangaroo sleeping on the pavement. They move to the pavement—if you wish to call it that—at night to get the heat built up from the daytime temperatures, which hit about 100, as opposed to the nighttime temperature of about the high 30s. One small opal mining town along the way is Coober Pedy, which is actually built underground to handle the temperatures. About the only reason to go there is to visit Uluru (formerly Ayers Rock; it’s the world’s largest monolith), which is part of the Olgas, a circular grouping of 36 isolated, mountainous rocks that occupy about 11 miles. Both are wonders of nature, making the trip worthwhile.
If 23 million people seems like a very small tax base, it is—hence some of the ungodly taxes and tariffs in effect. Virtually everything is imported, and the high tariffs account for some of the high prices you see. The mining of natural resources is a major source of income and used for trade and sale. There is a 10 percent Goods and Services Tax (GST) that’s applied to everything. It beats the hell out of our arcane system of adding sales tax at the cash register. No more standing around and saying to yourself, “Well let’s see, if it costs $129 but I need money for tax also, how much would that be?”
I’ve also noticed, over the last 20 years, that food costs have skyrocketed. Certainly the current drought gets some blame for it, but the real reason is the government has allowed two food chains, Woolworths and Coles, to get what they now call a “duopoly.” They have close to 70 percent of the entire food market share and, as you’ve already guessed, they take big advantage of it. The really sad part is, it’s also true for alcohol sales, and the same two totally dominate that market.
Sooo, besides a duopoly market, there’s also ungodly taxes on all forms of alcohol. I’m not sure how public drunkenness and drunk driving are such big issues with the prices that are charged. I’ll give you a few examples from ads in today’s paper: Coopers Mild Ale $49.99 per case (24) or $14.99 a six-pack; Jack Daniels, 700 mL (2 ounces smaller than our bottle), $45.99; a case of Heineken for $44.98; a bottle of Grant’s Scotch and/or a bottle of Bacardi Rum are two for $82.98. Let’s have another drink! Who has their credit card?
On the flip side, wine is reasonably priced, at least based on California wine comparisons, with a lot of good wines in the $10 to $20 range. I’m also sorry to report that restaurants rob you here, just as at home, with two to four times retail markups on wine. However, there’s a bottom end market also, just like our two-buck Chuck. A recent newspaper headline was “Wine Cheaper than Coke and Water.” And that’s not just some wild attention-grabber. It’s true. Woolworths sells bottled water for $2.25 per 750 mL, and a 600 mL Coke for $3.07. A 700 mL bottle of generic diet tonic water is $2.25. At home, in Safeway a 2 liter (2000 mL) is only $1.15. Cheap wine is the same price as at home. A giant surplus is being produced and export sales are way off because of the strong Aussie dollar (or weak American one, if you wish). They’re very close to parity today when, not that long ago, a United States $1 was worth Au$1.50. Talk about the good old days!
Besides spending Christmas on the beach, which is a little different to say the least, another strange thing here is the price of gas. On Monday morning, gas might be Au$1.04 per liter. Then on Thursday, it’ll jump to Au$1.27 per liter. With about 4 liters per gallon, that is Au$0.92 per gallon change in a few days. Then by the next Monday or Tuesday, it goes back down again. Can you even imagine what the American public would do if that happened at home? Talk about pooh-pooh on the fan!
Time to say g’day mate. And yes, I’m doing my homework down here.
