Hi, I´m Heidi and I´m from Germany.I need some information about the relationship between Britain and Australia today(for a presentation).Is there something British and Australians have in common beside the language?Can Australians really accept the Queen as the head of their state?
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On the relationship side Heidi, Australia is still a member of the British Commonwealth and along with other member nations of the Commonwealth that does still generate something of a close connection in politics and sport with the latter being a very competitive association especially in team sports like Rugby and Cricket but there also being many other more international sports that both countries like many others engage in internationally.

Though through Britains (and it is common in Australia to just refer to Britain as the UK[United Kingdom - Wales, Scotland and England] or England - the dominant one, Britain being a term little used and no offence to the Welsh, Scottish or Northern Irish in that) involvement in establishing Anglo Saxon settlement in Australia it is natural to expect that there will be many things in common, they have diminished with time.

We still have what is called the westminster parliamentary system for electing politicians, but a big difference is that what is called the Upper House of Federal Parliament (in Australia the Senate) is elected here whereas in England (House of Lords) it has been a parliamentary house for the Lords - a title either conferred by the Queen/King of the day or handed down in the family from generation to generation - an example of a Classes society and it is something that is being reviewed in England.
The other huge difference politically is that whereas we have a much smaller population, the development of Australia by the British as separate colonies saw on colonies becoming states the formation of state governments, making for a bit of over governance if you like, each state having their own departments for policing, vehicle registrations and roads standards, education, health, industry regulation, national parks administration, tourism etc., and then we have federal ministers in just about all those areas too, and so it can cause duplication and disagreements and with a vehicle for instance, it is registered in a particular state and whilst driving it anywhere in Australia is OK, just like with different countries and Europe, if you want to sell the vehicle and are not in the state where you bought it or live, it can be a more costly exercise.

But I digress, and so back on track, we also have a justice system that was established by the British based on what they have, and so that is near identical, or even with developments, principles are very much the same.

Tastes in food here in Australia were very much British but that has changed greatly and especially over the past 50 years with a much greater influx of immigrants into Australia. England is rather famed for their liking of Indian Curries, there being probably more Indians having migrated to England than to Australia but here we probably have more Europeans immigrating and then Asians from many countries in addition to people from countries all over, something like 160+, and so that has meant we have had the opportunity to experiment with food.

Aside from those types of similarities and changes, lifestyle here in Australia has departed somewhat from how it is in Britain and Europe and that is largely to do with a minute population compared to there but a huge country in terms of distances and our climate being tropical to moderate rather than moderate to cold/very cold and thus our housing is so much different, there being less need for insulation and central heating in warmer/moderate areas - where I am for instance, our winters are often like European cooler summer days, but further south we can still have more normal colder winters.

So if anything we have a greater diversity of life styles and whereas in Europe and UK you have your larger cities and then many smaller cities, towns and villages with not too much distance between or open countryside, here in Australia there are two larger Capital Cities, Sydney and Melbourne, and though initial developments may have been of smaller villages about them, migration and development has seen the Capitals become one big sprawl as we call it here, a bit like Paris you could say if you have been there, or perhaps Munich or Berlin are similar, but then there are far greater distances of open space outside of the cities.

You should use Google Earth to zoom over the Cities of Melbourne and Sydney (Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth being similar but much smaller) to get an idea of what I mean by a sprawl and then you get to the edge and can go for hundreds of kilometres with little development, and in some cases when you get inland, for thousands of kilometres.

The Australian version of English btw has quite a bit of slang (sort of made up words) in it and as no doubt you get some variation of accents from one part of Germany to another and likewise in England with Cockney or Liverpoolian accents and then trying to understand Irish, Welsh or Scottish speaking English can be very difficult, in Australia our accent is considered to be a very flat monotonous accent with little modulation of vowells, a bit rough some may think, and then in other areas it can have a broad twangy type sound or a layback slow drawl.

As to the Queen and the Monarchy, there is a republican movement afoot in Australia and the former Liberal Party Prime Minister initiated a convention about moving towards being a republican state and severing ties with the Commonwealth.
This has not happened for the Australian Constitution requires a majority vote in all states to change the cnstitution and that is very hard to achieve.

So you do have in Australia a great divergence of views:
. Monarchists, being it is thought mainly older people who have great recognition and respect for the Queen.
. People with no strong view either way, and quite possibly a lot of people of immigrant families that way.
. Republicans, wishing to be separate and have a President and that a very strong view of mainly younger people and/or current Labor Party in power.

But whatever the view, most people have a respect for the system and how it should be decided and meanwhile maintain a recognition of the Queens role and some respect though quite a few happenings within the Royal family in recent decades probably have them thinking less of other members of the Royal family.

Ironically, Princess Mary, and Australian who married Prince Frederik of Denmark is quite possibly more popular than anyone else but the Queen.

I think Wanderer deserves an A+ for this post.

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Thank you very much for the detailed information.You helped me a lot and I think I can use almost everything of it

No problems Heidi, as we say here for any help is OK.

And I was just cleaning up my shortcuts and came on Information about Australia - International , a Catholic Education site on four of the Capitals and one of our few regional cities, Ballarat and about our largest regional inland city, second to Toowoomba in Queensland - Toowoomba City Council Home - Home (probably an indigenous connection name, and is: History of Toowoomba, Queensland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )
We have many towns and cities with non English looking names and most of them can be derived from what the English may have thought an indigenous word about a locality sounded like, that in some way being something we still have in common and I'll give you a view of twisted similarities in a further paragraph seeing as I have brought in something on our indigenous people.

Ballarat has some history in not only being founded on the 1850s Gold Rush but also a miners rebellion against the British at time laws being enforced on miners to be registered and their rights, there being a battle that occurred at what is referred to as the Eureka Stockade.
Eureka Stockade - Australia's Culture Portal will tell you all about it and how it has been seen as something of a key event in Australias development, that site also being possibly very good to research a lot of Australian events.

You can read that immigration could be seen to have started back in the Gold Rush Days, and many Chinese initially came to Australia because of it.
The ACU site mentions that we actually have people descendant from200+ nationalities and that is not surprising as many Australians could be called a mongrel breed - term used for a dog that is not a pure-breed, but mongrels are also often seen as stronger tougher animals with less inbreeding defects - I jest a bit, and should with Greek ( one ancestor first Greek in South Australia 1842) Irish and a bit of English and German.

The other associations I can make with the 1850s as being a key time in Australian/British relationships is that Australia was founded as a result of a very brutal time for poor people in England, "transportation to the colonies" being the sentence for petty crimes like stealing a loaf of bread - read more here: First Fleet 1788 resourcesNSW
and the penal settlements, also known to have been very brutal places came to an end in the decade or so after Eureka, so maybe that caused a rethinking by the British government of the day.

The other very dark side of early Australian post British settlement history was how the indigenous people, our aboriginals as they are commonly referred to as, though aboriginal in meaning a native of a land is a more generic term and the word Koori is often thought to be more politically correct though Koori is also considered to be one tribe of the original aboriginals and there were a few thousand other tribes.
The darkest of the dark side is the massacres that occurred, all indigenous people in the state of Tasmania having been killed.

I was hoping that the brutality towards indigenous people may also have stopped heading towards the end of the nineteenth century but a quick google and Aboriginal Massacres - Google Search and it is obvious that it continued well into the twentyieth century.

There's two points here that could be of interest to your project and one on a similarity for in the same era when indigenous peoples lives were not greatly respected, we have some of the earliest Australian/English cricket being played by an indigenous team - Great Ashes Moments - CricKids Ashes Challenge - Cricket Australia but you need to click on the "indigenous cricket" tab - some shame in that such historical info is somewhat hidden away!

The other more philosopical similarity that I find is that back in the late 1700s the British had their problems and an answer was found in shipping the undesirables to a faraway land where they could be brutally treated and put into slavery for the benefit of free settlers, there being little respect for rights.
And ever since settlement and interaction with indigenous people, a very similar path has been followed, there being little respect, many brutalities, and in fact a number of isolated indigenous peoples settlements have been developed.

One difference is that they are not chained or imprisoned there but their lifestyle offers not much hope of leaving or improving it.
Mind you, there have been different approaches to attempting to create a better life for indigenous peoples, the settlements being one approach and many indigenous people have successfully assimilated into the general Australian society, but if you visit some cities and towns in northern areas you know there are still many that do find it hard to cope with what a more modern world has brought upon them.

Anyway, now you have a bit more to put into that project - do a good one.
And if you want more info or help in understanding some things, it's no problem to assist if we can - it's interesting to look at some of your own history I probably would not otherwise do.

Well Done,
A detailed response..as an Australian I found it an interesting read.
regards
AL

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AL
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