A day or so after arriving home I started heading out and about, Xmas shopping and seeing friends and family.
Getting around town and boy things have changed in Oz. The place is awash with bucket loads of Chinese money from the resources boom and it was noticeable everywhere.
Salaries have gone way up, people were moving to the city from all over the country to pick up high-paying positions with one of the dozens of primary resource companies or the secondary support industries. License plates from the eastern state of Victoria were quite abundant.
House prices have correspondingly gone through the roof with this influx of people and are now at silly levels – higher than Sydney in places. Historically always the biggest city and accordingly the most expensive. Two bedroom apartments overlooking the casino were going for over three quarters of a mill’! Wow! That area used to literally be the town dump/the back of the cement works! Me and my mates used to ride motocross bikes on the vacant land way at the back years ago and now here it is millionaire row….
The boys have got all the cool toys too, I went down to Hillary’s boat harbour to go out fishing with my buddy Terry and his neighbour Bob – a retired Army and Vietnam vet - and there were all the fellas with brand new Utes (pick-up trucks) backing in brand new monster size wave-runners, jet-skis or brand new fibreglass cabin cruisers. (There's a two to three year wait for berths at most of the major yacht clubs now and folks are buying the boat just to get the pen).
After being used to Europe with expensive fuel and economical compact cars, I thought Oz would be the same too as the Federal Govt deliberately keeps petrol prices pretty high with the fuel tax so we don’t all get a big nasty surprise one day when the oil runs out (and also handily raise a chunk of tax revenue at the same time), but nope, folks are still driving around in big cars. There are the big 6 & 8 cylinder businessman’s expresses, sporty utes (pick-ups), and huge Toyota 4WD’s. They’re all pulling down the big bucks these days so they’ve just soaked up the hike in fuel prices in their big pay packets. (I kinda choked though when I went into a pub (bar) and ordered a beer, a scotch and coke and a packet o’ peanuts for me and my 20-something nephew and I and got slugged nearly A$27!! ‘Sh*t, what’s a round of drinks for all the mates gonna cost me? A kidney?’).
The city has really changed since I have been away. New buildings have gone up all over the suburbs and people are really into the consumer/credit-card lifestyle.
The Aboriginal issue though is still exactly where it was years ago and has not moved on one jot. The native-lobby activists and the well paid lawyers feeding off them are still stuck in a groove of recriminations for things the British did two centuries ago and trying to score political points off the government or secure yet more federal dollars (on top of the billions of un-audited funds they already get), yet doing nothing to make sure indigenous kids go to (and stay at) school to improve their education, nothing to encourage natives to seek regular medical care to improve health statistics and nothing to get kids well clothed and fed or maintain the state provided housing in a fit state. It's nothing to see Aboriginal dads dragging their kids cold and barefoot to the bottleshop in the middle of a cold, wet, rainy winters night to buy a case of beer yet not buy the kids coats, shoes or socks . Sigh….Sometimes I’m glad I work overseas and don’t have to listen to that broken record any longer.
Some things about being back were so simple yet so wonderful. As soon as you arrive at the airport the people and the atmosphere are different. Folks are more relaxed, more polite and less pushy than sometimes crowded and hurried Europe. People give you space in a queue (blink in some parts of Europe and three people will have sneaked in front). Customs officers chat and joke with you about confiscating those tasty Swiss chocolates as contraband! Checkout staff at the stores spend a few moments to talk light-heartedly and ask if you’re watching the footy this afternoon.
That’s one thing Perth people seem willing to try and hang on to no matter how large or glitzy or rich the (now big) city gets – that laid back feeling of a big country town and the sense of community. Folks I know still talk about the old days of going down to the beach all day in summer and leaving the house wide open or parking the car and just leaving the keys in the ignition - no worries...
Long may that feeling linger!
