Australia was first settled as one colony, New South Wales, but this eventually branched out into six. These six, after settling some minor border problems, became Australia's six states, although the Northern Territory was part of South Australia. The six colonies became the six states during Federation on January 1, 1901, forming a unified government, but each of the states still retain a local culture which is still distinctive today, although somewhat less than earlier in history, thanks to a blending of them all as well as Americanisation. The quickest points of distinction to find are whether they prefer the National Rugby League or the Australian Football League and, oddly enough, the name for a certain kind of sausage, which has a different name in every state. Just one of those things.
(For the record, the "Sausage" we're talking about is the unsliced form of what Americans would call "Bologna".)
Let's be fair - all the states have their good sides. The East Coast states (NSW and Victoria) are cosmopolitan and vibrantly diverse, Queensland is swimming in natural, tropical beauty, Western Australia is a booming economic powerhouse, South Australia basically created the modern 'Australiana' film industry, and Tasmania is blessed with quiet, pristine wilderness.
However, be warned, the following article consists of people bragging about their own state and bashing others. Expect the following stereotypes: Sydneysiders are yuppies, Adelaide is dull as dishwater (which is, incidentally, safer to drink than what comes out of the tap there), Queenslanders are rednecks (or bogans, as they are called here), Tasmanians are inbred, Melburnians are snobs, Western Australia is 3 hours and 30 years behind the rest of the country, and everywhere else is backwards and ignored. All of these stereotypes are completely and uniformly accurate. Unless it's your state, in which case, they're all wrong.
Australian Capital Territory
Nickname(s): The Nation's Capital
Motto(s): For the King, the Law and the People
Demonym: Canberran
Capital & Largest City: Canberra
Area: 2,358 sq km / 910 sq mi (8th)
Population (2022): 455,900 (7th)
Technically just Canberra, but also includes a part of the Australian Highlands with a handful of smaller towns. Here we find the House of Parliament, standing on a hill surrounded by the rings of roads and overlooking the artificial Lake Burley Griffin. Canberra was built on a sheep paddock in 1908, which early political satirists seized upon with vigour. It is a planned city, and is also known for being somewhat dull. In many ways, it is (sometimes unfairly) lumped into the category of Southern New South Wales, but it has a distinctiveness which keeps it separate from the surrounding state. Briefly had the license plate slogan "Feel the Power of Canberra", until someone realised that the rest of the country read that as "Feel the Power of the Federal Government". It has its own government run along state government lines, but as it is smaller than many city councils, it tends to be a little strange- the Legislative Assembly fills the roles of both state and local government. Canberra is also Australia's porn capital. Yay Canberra! You can call sausage whatever you like. And also unlike practically everywhere else in the country, they Take a Third Option when it comes to spectator sport: the most popular one there is rugby union.
- Notable for its round-abouts. And Bendy Buses.
- The district of Woden was named by a Norse farmer who named it after the god Odin from Norse mythology.
- Also a worthy mention is the unpredictable weather; which can go from sunny to stormy in practically no time at all. And it gets cold: if you're going to Canberra at any time near winter, take a very thick jacket. It is in fact more unpredictable and colder than the weather in famously unpredictable and (for Australia) chilly Melbourne, with average lows during the winter hovering around 0°C, while Melbourne "enjoys" temperatures a good 5-6 degrees warmer (Sydney's winter lows are a good 3-4 degrees higher than that). Canberra's elevation takes the credit—or blame—for this state of affairs, being over 500 metres above sea level (Melbourne and Sydney are of course on the coast and thus very near sea level).
New South Wales
Nickname(s): The First State, The Premier State
Motto(s): Orta Recens Quam Pura Nites (Newly Risen, How Brightly You Shine)
Demonym: New South Welshman
Capital & Largest City: Sydney
Area: 809,444 sq km / 312,528 sq mi (5th)
Population (2022): 8,130,100 (1st)
The oldest, most populous, most economically powerful, and most culturally important state, New South Wales is essentially the strongest state. Most of Australia's media and business is centred in New South Wales, particularly in Sydney. Here they play rugby league, with 10 out of the 16 NRL teams in the state, and they call that particular sausage "devon".
New South Wales includes the home of Australian country music, Tamworth, but also the home of the Australian Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, so it is very diverse. A Kiwi outpost has been established here in Bondi. With Australia's biggest mosque in Sydney (the Gallipoli Mosque), and Wollongong home to the biggest Buddhist temple in the entire Southern Hemisphere (the Nan Tien Temple), NSW can be considered a centre of much of Australia's multiculturalism.
Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, is the largest and most populous city in Australia, and boasts two of Australia's most well-known landmarks - the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and the Sydney Opera House. It's informally the business capital of Australia, with an infamously large central business district. Said business district, and indeed most of the city, is also infamously difficult to navigate courtesy of bewildering arrays of one way streets, curved roads and a near total lack of basic city grid structure: Americans, imagine a horrifying combination of New York and Boston, and you're halfway there (although the weather more than makes up for it). This is an artifact of the extremely haphazard way the oldest city in Australia was built on hilly terrain around a deeply-indented harbour. Believe it or not, it used to be worse. Sydney is also an extremely ethnically mixed city, with large populations of Asian, Middle Eastern, Polynesian, and African residents. The biggest ethnic group remains Anglo-Celtic Australians, but Sydney has it all, from Burmese to Brazilians, French to Fijians, Tongans to Turks. Auburn, in Sydney's west, is the most diverse region in the entire nation. Since the Federal Government's official adoption of the policy of multiculturalism in the '70s, there has only been one major outbreak of ethnic violence in Sydney, the Cronulla Riots in one of the beach-side suburbs.
North of Sydney is the oft-overlooked Newcastle - the second largest city in New South Wales, but mostly overlooked because it is pretty boring compared to Sydney, despite the fact that it is the largest coal-exporting harbour in the world (we can taste your excitement to hear that) and has some fantastic beaches (best in New South Wales, the ABC said so). It was also the location of one of Australia's extremely rare earthquakes
and, more recently, suffered serious flooding, again quite unusual for the drought-ridden Australia (read: God hates Newcastle). However, people from Newcastle are called Novocastrians, which sounds far more awesome convoluted than Sydneysiders.
South of Sydney is the spectacularly-sited but even-more-often overlooked city of Wollongong. Contrary to the beliefs of a certain section of the community, the name "Wollongong" is not derived from a Chinese name meaning "Five Dragon Temple".
We also think we should mention Wagga Wagga here, mostly because, well, it's a fun name. It also marks the "border" between Australian Rules Football and Rugby League's traditional territories, and was where Sam Moran, a former member of The Wiggles, grew up. Don't call Wagga Wagga Wagga, calling Wagga Wagga Wagga is wrong.
Maitland, as usual, slides under the Radar by being mediocre and constantly in Newcastle's shadow, however the nearby town of Kurri Kurri, in contrast to what the Wagga Wagga song says, is called Kurri by everyone in the region.
Locals of Sydney are called Sydneysiders; locals of Newcastle are called Novocastrians. Wagga Wagga fluctuates between Waggarians, Waggaites, Waggatarians and probably many more things.
NSW: also occasionally said to stand for Newcastle-Sydney-Wollongong, the three cities, right next to each other on the coast, where pretty much everything, the people, the business, the fun, is.
Victoria
Nickname(s): The Garden State, On The Move, The Place To Be, The Education State
Motto(s): Peace and Prosperity
Demonym: Victorian
Capital & Largest City: Melbourne
Area: 237,629 sq km / 91,749 sq mi (6th)
Population (2022): 6,593,700 (2nd)
Melbourne, now capital of Victoria and Australia's second largest city (next to Sydney), can be considered Australia's fashion, culture and sporting centre: a lot of Australian television comes from Melbourne (such as Kath & Kim and much of Australia's TV comedy), and a lot of Australian sport is played in the city, including the Australian Open, the Aussie Grand Prix, the AFL Grand Final, and the horse race that stops the nation, the Melbourne Cup (which also is one of the state's biggest fashion events of the year). It's the home of Australian Rules Football and has 10 out of the 18 AFL teams (nine if you don't count Geelong as a Melbourne team), and Melburnians remain stoically dedicated to AFL and resist rugby like it's the devil. The other area Melbourne seems to have the upper hand over Sydney in is education, and it's proud of its universities and museums. It's also incredibly multicultural, in part due to waves of immigration from World War Two onwards that keep coming; residents of Melbourne come from anywhere from Germany to Malaysia. Melbourne actually has the third-largest ethnically Greek population of any city in the world, including in Greece. Currently, Melbourne likes to sell itself as the cultural capital of Australia.
Melbourne has what may be the most awesome founding story of any city ever: It was founded by two guys named John, one of whom came to it on board the Enterprize, and the other of whom was named Batman. In fact, the young settlement nearly wound up being officially named Batmania before they settled on the more prosaic name of the then-current British Prime Minister.
There is an intense rivalry between New South Wales and Victoria, or, more accurately, between Sydney and Melbourne; originally due to a dispute at federation over which city ought to be the national capital, Sydney having the historical benefit of being the first Australian city settled, but Melbourne being larger and the cultural hub Sydney wasn't at the time. Or maybe it dates back to when Melbourne (then "Port Philip") wanted to break away from Sydney and become self-governing, and Sydney didn't want it to. As the two cities were relatively evenly matched and neither could handle the other being capital, the solution was to build Canberra "halfway" between the two (actually, very much closer to Sydney). Unsurprisingly, both Sydney and Melbourne still like to think of themselves as the number one city of Australia.
You could be forgiven for wondering if there's anything to Victoria but Melbourne, and not without cause: the city sprawls like an overweight hippopotamus and about three quarters of the total population of the state live in it. Outside Melbourne, Victoria is one of the greenest states and small regional centres like Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat are notable. Many such small towns originated in mid-19th century gold rushes to Australia, of which Victoria got the lion's share, such that in ten years Victoria's population grew by almost seven times. Large numbers of Asian, especially Chinese, immigrants arrived in these rushes, so Victoria has a relatively large Asian population.
Outside Victoria, the stereotype the state and Melbourne in particular have is that of being a bit 'old glory' - Melburnians do tend to exhibit a great nostalgia for some of the city's claims to fame (e.g at the time of Federation, Melbourne was the second largest and second wealthiest city in the British Empire, Melbourne was Australia's first capital city from 1901 to 1927, and Melbourne hosted the first Olympic Games in Australia in 1956) - and a bit up themselves: they're seen as artsy, lazy, thieves, and will take any excuse to avoid a good day's work (although that last one could apply to any Aussie). It's worth noting that Sydneysiders stereotypically have a bit of an issue with Melbournians (and vice versa). Residents of Adelaide also have an issue with Melbournians, however their perceived Melbourne/Adelaide rivalry is largely one-sided and goes unnoticed by most Melbournians (when it is noticed, it usually leads to the Adelaidian being patronised about it by the Melbournian).
And that particular sausage is called "strasbourg", presumably after the city.
Queensland
Nickname(s): The Sunshine State
Motto(s): Audax at Fidelis (Bold but Faithful)
Demonym: Queenslander, Banana Bender (Colloquial)
Capital & Largest City: Brisbane
Area: 1,852,642 sq km / 715,309 sq mi (2nd)
Population (2022): 5,296,100 (3rd)
The third most populous state and second largest in size, Queensland has the highest population growth rate in Australia (as of 2022). Here you will find most of Australia's tropical areas and natural tourist attractions, such as the Australian rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef, but also the areas of the Sunshine and the Gold Coast, which are Australia's summer vacation spots, known for its surfing and theme parks. Gold Coast is also the largest non-capital city in Australia, even being larger than some of the capitals. Here they play rugby as well, and have an intense rivalry with New South Wales because of it, coalescing in the NRL State-of-Origin matches (three times a season) which are among the most watched moments on Australian television in any given year. The sausage is called "Windsor Sausage" in Queensland, or "Devon" again, depending on who you ask. Queenslanders are sometimes nicknamed "Banana-benders", or more recently "Cane Toads", as that species was first introduced into this state (and has since become a widespread pest). The term "deep north" is sometimes used for Queensland, with many of the same connotations as America's Deep South. Queensland is also often compared to Alabama, Florida and California, which we'll let you sort out.note John Oliver described it as Australia's most conservative state, although many Australians would consider WA a strong alternate candidate. Much as many Americans think of Texas the same way foreigners think of America, the same could apply to Australians and Queensland... although it could also be seen as Australia's Florida, for reasons that should become clear as you read on.
Queensland is also infamous for being the retirement destination of choice by many aging Sydneysiders and Melburnians, desiring Queensland's warmer climate. Native Queenslanders refer to these types as 'Mexicans' (south of the border).
There is a bitter on-going feud between those who want daylight savings, and those who don't.
Oh, and Brisbane has an Aussie Rules team that regularly wins Victoria's AFL has 3 premierships in a total of 23 seasons which does not make them exceptionally good puts them on par with most Victorian sides, especially when their last was in the 2003 season They are over half a century younger than most of the top Vic teams. But don't worry. Melbourne has a Rugby League side that keeps winning our NRL competition because their team was composed of Queenslanders. (Well, up until recently... when they were caught doing horrible things to the salary cap.)
Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, likes to think of itself as a very, very large country town. It's known for holding massive fireworks displays at the drop of a hat (see the Riverfire festival, which while a lot of fun and very pretty, represents exactly nothing) and having an insane variety of nightclubs and pubs, largely centred around Brunswick Street in Fortitude Valley, and Edward Street in the CBD. Brisbane is also frequently hit by severe tropical storms. The other states never believe us when we say this, as Queensland is known for its weather being beautiful one day and perfect the next. The rest of the country probably thinks this because you call yourselves the Sunshine State and have it stamped on all your number plates.
Other places of note include the city of Cairns in the far north, home to very large crocodiles and the best marine biology institute in the world, the Daintree, one of the oldest surviving areas of rainforest in the world, and the area of Innisfail, which, when destroyed by a cyclone, raised the price of bananas by several dollars per kilo across large tracts of the southern hemisphere. There is also a literal City of Townsville, informally considered the capital of North Queensland.
Western Australia
Nickname(s): The Wildflower State, The Golden State
Demonym: Western Australian, West Australian, Sandgroper (Colloquial)
Capital & Largest City: Perth
Area: 2,645,615 sq km / 1,021,478 sq mi (1st)
Population (2022): 2,773,400 (4th)
The largest state by area, Western Australia alone is nearly one third of the entire country, and is the second-largest country subdivision in the world (behind Sakha in Russia). However, it is sparsely populated outside the major cities like Perth (the capital) and Kalgoorlie (mining town out in the middle of the desert). The current resources boom in the North West nicely props up the country's economy. Western Australia could be considered a mining industry with a notable agriculture sector and some support services. Interestingly it was also the only colony to specifically ask for convicts back in the day. Due to its distance from the rest of Australia (several hours by plane or a week driving over the featureless Nullarbor plain), Western Australia has mostly kept to itself throughout the years. Here they play AFL as well, with two teams in the AFL (with the West Coast Eagles being the first non-Victorian team to win an AFL premiership, in 1992), and the local WAFL (pronounced "waffle"). They eat the sausage "polony". Western Australians are nicknamed "Sandgropers". Has lots of English immigrants, and also a lot of South Africans (Afrikaners and others who wanted to leave SA for various reasons often found themselves in Perth, as it's actually not that far).
The CBD of Perth is busy during the day but looks like the apocalypse has happened as soon as the shops close, when then most of the people seem to move to Northbridge (named because it is north of the bridge that goes over the train line and separates the suburb from the CBD) with a decent number of bars and clubs and some amazing restaurants.
Perth also holds the distinction of being the most isolated capital city in Australia, such that the nearest major city, Adelaide, is 2,129.6 km / 1,323.3 miles away. In fact, Perth is geographically closer to Jakarta, Indonesia than it is to Sydney! It is also the windiest city in Australia.
The rest of the state is mostly desert and mines. Though there are some good wineries in the south-west. Also, one town in northern WA was quite literally wiped off the map because its one major business was an asbestos mine. The very ground itself is actually toxic.
South Australia
Nickname(s): The Festival State, The Wine State
Demonym: South Australian, Croweater (Colloquial), South Aussie
Capital & Largest City: Adelaide
Area: 1,043,514 sq km / 402,903 sq mi (4th)
Population (2022): 1,815,500 (5th)
The only colony founded without any convicts. South Australia was originally more culturally mixed than the other states, with Cornish and German migrants and a reputation for tolerance and liberalism, but the east coast has since played catch-up thanks to bigger economies attracting more newcomers. Divided into two rough areas, with the border along the theoretical Goyder's Line: South of the line is green, partly thanks to the River Murray, and contains almost all of the state's population (and most of that live in Adelaide, the capital); north of it is pretty much plain, mostly featureless desert, except for Coober Pedy, the famous opal mining town; Woomera, the famous rocket-launching site, and Lake Eyre, Australia's largest lake. This being the desert, of course, it rarely has any water in it, just salt. Within the green portion is the Adelaide Hills, the producers of almost all of Australia's wine, a lot of it very high quality.
Although Adelaide is often seen as a "hole" (a place with little to do) by those outside and inside it (what does happen always happens in the city), it is Australia's fifth largest city, and it is gaining a cultural reputation thanks to the annual Fringe festival. It was also the first Australian city to decriminalise homosexuality in the '70s, leading the now little-used epithet "Yass with poofters" (Yass is a small, very dull country town, which did not at that point have homosexuals, at least not out of the closet.) The combination of this and the Arts/Fringe festival has given the city and its inhabitants something of a reputation of being effete and artsy, and ever so slightly ridiculous with it; the famous cartoonist Bruce Petty characterised this with the phrase, supposedly said by a Festival organiser, "Let's put nonsense back into culture."
Adelaide is also known as the City of Churches (originally City of Churches and Pubs), presumably because it has a lot of, um, churches, thanks to the variety of denominations which settled Adelaide (and the large number of pubs). It's also well known for the city planning done by Colonel Light, where the city centre is surrounded by beautiful parklands on a (mostly aligned) grid rather than just haphazard urban sprawl, with a distinct lack of one-way streets compared to the other capitals.
Apparently, thanks to the "water" in the River Murray, Adelaide water is incredibly foul tasting or even toxic to people from the eastern states, which has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that millions of Queenslanders, Victorians and New South Welshmen use the river before it gets to Adelaide. Here they play Australian rules football, with two AFL teams and the local SANFL league. The sausage is called "fritz" over in South Australia. South Australians are nicknamed "Croweaters".
It's also a recurring joke that half of Adelaide's population are potential serial murderers, though to be honest it isn't exactly unfounded. (Well, ours are more creative, anyway...) The most publicly known being when bodies were found in a bank vault in Snowtown (actually a hundred-odd miles away on the road to Perth, though it'll become a suburb soon anyway as Adelaide's urban sprawl gets increasingly ridiculous).
South Australians (along with WA, the NT and perhaps Tasmania) generally feel as though they are ignored/forgotten by the big eastern states since they are much more geographically isolated and don't have as much of note as them. It's not uncommon for an "Australian tour" by an international music act to consist of shows in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane only (they may do one in Adelaide or Perth but rarely both, for some reason). Often an Australia wide music festival will have big music acts only perform in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. That doesn't stop anyone complaining about ticket prices when an artist deigns to perform here though.
- Broken Hill: Officially part of New South Wales, Broken Hill has very strong cultural ties to South Australia due to its location. For all intents and purposes, everyone considers Broken Hill a part of SA. It even runs on SA time.Background
- Offer Void in Nebraska applies here; often SA-wide offers or specials include the fine print of being available anywhere in South Australia and Broken Hill. Even some legal opinions count Broken Hill as South Australian.
Tasmania
Nickname(s): The Island of Inspiration, The Apple Isle, Holiday Isle
Motto(s): Ubertas et Fidelitas (Fertility and Faithfulness)
Demonym: Tasmanian
Capital & Largest City: Hobart
Area: 68,401 sq km / 26,410 sq mi (7th)
Population (2022): 571,200 (6th)
Everyone leaves out Tasmania, the smallest state in size and population. It was the second European settlement in the entire country (after New South Wales), and as such the is second oldest as well; but Hobart, its capital, is dwarfed by many cities on the mainland. Except for the pristine, World Heritage forests in the state's west, most mainlanders don't know much about the island or its inhabitants. Tasmanians play Aussie Rules (or rather, watch it, because they don't have a team in the major league) and call that particular sausage "Belgium". Nicknamed "Apple Islanders" or "Taswegians", and often the subject of jokes about inbreeding and locals having two heads. You're more likely to hear older slang in the younger generation in this area, and even then it's still rarer than in the older generation. Americans: This is Australia's Maine,note but with less lobster and with three coasts.
- Until 1856 it was known as Van Diemen's Land, in honour of the Dutch explorers who originally found Australia. The change of name to Tasmania was in honour of one such explorer, Abel Tasman, who was in fact the first European to land on the shores of the island back in the 1600s.
- To a great extent is even more traditionally "British" than the mainland. The great majority of the population is white, Asian people are represented by overseas students at the University of Tasmania in Hobart (the capital), mostly, and the only people of African descent you are likely to see are Somalian refugees only recently offered asylum.
- Tasmania has a much smaller "Night Life" than the mainland. The only things of note are a state orchestra, an end of year food festival, a biennial arts festival endeavouring to bring some culture, and being host of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. It is normal for a young person wishing to make a career to move to the mainland (or the Big Island as we call it). Prices are generally lower, apart from food which must be flown in.
- Salamanca market, held every Saturday near the State parliament, offers examples of local arts and crafts.
- The only locally made programs Tasmania has are an antiques show, a fishing show, a travel show inexplicably marketed to Tasmanians, and the local news. Before his retirement the long term newsreader for one station was most popular talent for Tasmania every year in the nationwide TV Week Logie awards.
- The sausage is called Belgium because once WWI started it wasn't popular to keep calling it German sausage, and it was renamed as Belgium in recognition of the country recently occupied by Germany. Still tastes like sausage.
- Port Arthur, one of the coldest places in the country, and originally where they sent convicts who didn't take the hint and shape up when they were sent to a penal colony to start with, was turned into a tourist trap and museum. Sadly, it is now best known as also the location of one of the worst shooting sprees in history, which led to a dramatic tightening of Australia's gun ownership laws.
- Outside of Australia, Tasmania is mostly known for the Tasmanian devil — or, more accurately, the cartoony whirling dervish that's depicted in Looney Tunes, which bears little resemblance to the real animal (which is a real piece of work in its own right).
- Tasmania is "roughly" divided into four sections.
- The South, Hobart and surrounds. Trendy, cosmopolitan, holier-than-thou wankers. Fairly moderate climate.
- The East Coast/Midlands, Triabunna, St Helens, Bicheno, Swansea (soft S, no Z, for all you British people out there). Consists of two types of people: Those on welfare, and those growing weed. More notorious places include Black Bobs (full of inbreds) and Rossarden (former mining town, which is so dodgy the police won't go there).
- The North. Launceston, Burnie and Devonport. The north west is known for its Bible bashers, and Launceston for its degenerates and amazing sportspeople. Generally, the further North West you go the better the infrastructure due to the swinging nature of the electorate.
- The West Coast: Two types of places, places where people go on holidays and places where people should go on holidays. Places like Strahan etc are known for their touristy thingies. Doesn't mean that it isn't a lovely place. But looking further around you start to see run down mining towns which have become literal ghost towns. And if you dig around even further you find some of the most lovely destinations in Tasmania, with literally not a soul in sight. We could name these places, but we'd have to kill you. Also, some of the wilderness around here is incredibly incredibly dense. A convict escaped here once and ate all his fellow escapees. That's how tough it is.
Northern Territory
Nickname(s): The Territory, The Top End
Demonym: Northern Territorian, Territorian
Capital & Largest City: Darwin
Area: 1,420,970 sq km / 548,640 sq mi (3rd)
Population (2022): 250,400 (8th)
Divided roughly into two areas: the north, which is relatively highly populated and includes the capital Darwin, and the rest of the territory, which is sparsely populated except for Yulara, the town closest to Uluru; Alice Springs, the city in the dead centre (literally!) of Australia; Katherine; and Tennant Creek (the other major cities). Contains much of Australia's Indigenous Australian population, especially in Arnhem Land in the Top End. Contains Uluru, the world's largest monolith and sacred site of the Pitjantjatjara and Yankuntjatjara peoples, and the tropical rainforests in Arnhem Land, somewhat under threat due to uranium mining. Northern Territorians are nicknamed "Topenders" or "Croc-bait".
Also known for drinking a lot. A "Darwin stubby" is much bigger than anyone else's stubby. A stubby, oddly enough, is not any kind of sausage at all. It is a type of beer bottle.
The NT also has an... interesting newspaper called the NT News (and Sunday Territorian). Often showed last on national news roundups for laughs. It generally only has one of five things on the front page: crocodiles, cane toads, cyclones, chicks or UFOs. It was recently used in a meme, much to the amusement of locals. On the whole the paper is the laughingstock of the country, and looked on with equal parts pride and disdain by Territorians.
Although Darwin is a capital city, it is so small (a bit over 100,000 people) that it isn't really counted as such in many contexts (a trait it shares with Hobart and/or Canberra on occasion). It's not uncommon for something to be available in "all capital cities"... but not Darwin (which serves as something of a Berserk Button to locals).
By the way, since the Territory was settled later and more slowly than other places in Australia, its particular brand of Australian English is a mixture of all the others. That sausage is therefore called whatever it is in the state you or your parents came from (some households may have two different names if the parents came from different cities).
Other Territories
Not much happens in these places. Most Australians don't even remember they exist.
- Ashmore and Cartier Islands
- Australian Antarctic Territory: Larger than any other nations Antarctic Territory, and about as exciting as you'd expect for a giant ice block.
- Treated as a single unit legally but in fact two, geographically separate areas. The French Antarctic Territory is between them.
- Christmas Island
- Known in Australia mainly for its refugee detention centre, before former Prime Minister Tony Abbott put all the refugees in Nauru instead.
- Less well known is that the population of Christmas Island is ethnically 70% Chinese, 20% Malay and 10% European.
- Cocos (Keeling) Islands
- Most Australians haven't heard of this place, and even less well known is that of the 600 people who live here, 500 are ethnically Malay (Cocos Malay, a derivative of Malaysian Malay, is spoken as much as English here) while only 100 are Caucasian and that it is the only part of Australia where Islam is the dominant religion, with 60% of Cocos Islanders adhering to the faith.
- On a more pessimistic note, unemployment and welfare dependance is relatively high here too.
- Coral Sea Islands Territory
- Heard Island and McDonald Islands
- This territory has a peak higher than any on the Australian mainland, glaciers and weather so terrible that nobody lives there. Literally.
- This territory has a peak higher than any on the Australian mainland
- Jervis Bay Territory
- Unlike the other territories listed here, Jervis Bay is on the Australian mainland. It was carved out of New South Wales in 1915 to provide a seaport for Canberra. Although most of the small territory (slightly larger in area than Manhattan) is Aboriginal land, the majority of its fewer than 400 residents are associated with a naval base on the territory. While ACT law applies here, it is no longer administered as part of the ACT, but is instead run directly by the federal government. There is talk of returning the territory to NSW.
- Norfolk Island
- Ever wondered what a Town with a Dark Secret would be like if it were an island? Congratulations! You've just pictured Norfolk Island! Case in point: this story about the first murder on the island since 1893 where the guy who went to jail is alleged to have not committed the murder, but is instead covering up the real murderer/s.
- To be fair, Norfolk Island has an interesting history, with most of the 2200 residents being descended from Bounty mutineers, having some Tahitian ancestry, speaking a creole language called Norfuk and having such a close knit community that the phone book lists residents by their nicknames (because of a small range of surnames due to being perhaps the only Australian territory more inbred than Tasmania).
- One can say that Norfolk Island is the Bunny-Ears Lawyer of Australia: limited self-governance, no income tax, non partisan politics, passports required for all visitors (even for Australians), expensive imports and telephone calls (the local government places taxes on these instead), runs its own census, and inexplicably absorbing other cultural features like Hawaiian Hula dances and celebrating American Thanksgiving.
- However, this lack of income taxes has consequences. For example, Norfolk Islanders do not enjoy a welfare payment program, free healthcare and subsidised medications, unlike mainland Australians.
- The aforementioned lack of income taxes necessitated the Norfolk Island Legislation Amendment Act 2015 due to Norfolk Island's dire financial situation. In exchange for giving New South Wales control over Norfolk Island and adherence to Australian tax policy, the Act will grant Norfolk Islanders access to the free healthcare, subsidised medication and welfare payments that Australian mainlanders enjoy.
- This BBC article has an outline of Norfolk Island and its distinctive people and history. It also shows the opposition that Norfolk Islanders have towards any further integration into Australia and their Chief Minister's belief that the territory's economic woes can be solved by full independence and nationhood.
- Ever wondered what a Town with a Dark Secret would be like if it were an island? Congratulations! You've just pictured Norfolk Island! Case in point: this story
Some of us Aussies also consider New Zealand to be our second-best state (second, of course, to whichever one we happen to live in).
- Some Sydneysiders think of New Zealand as a suburb, christening it "East Bondi".
- Which should tell you something about Sydneysiders.
- It's worth noting that the Colony of New Zealand could have become a state, if it had ratified the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act.
- So could Fiji, in fact. Both colonies refused. Isn't history interesting?
- Also, they have sheep. Lots of sheep. They have 5 times as many sheep as humans. note
- Which is why Australians make so many jokes about New Zealand and sheep-fucking.
- This is referenced in Hetalia, where New Zealand has a little sheep companion, and Scandinavia and the World, whose New Zealand is a sheep that gets on well with the human Wales. Later on in the comic we meet New South Wales... a talking lamb.
- New Zealand is the country equivalent of a little brother: you have a fair bit in common, you really do kind of like them, and it's your sworn duty (and yours alone, nobody else's) to pick on them mercilessly.
- Basically, New Zealand is to Australia what Canada is to The United States.
