Australia

Economy
Australia has had one of the most outstanding economies of the world in recent years. As a high-growth, low-inflation, low interest rate economy, it is more vibrant than ever before. There is an efficient government sector, a flexible labour market and a very competitive business sector. With its abundant physical resources, Australia has enjoyed a high standard of living since the nineteenth century. It has made a comparatively large investment in social infrastructure, including education, training, health and transport. The Australian workforce has seen many improvements over the last decade, leading to the surge in productivity in the 1990s. The complex and centralised award based industrial relations system has given way to a more decentralised one with many employees working under workplace agreements tailored to meet enterprise needs.

Fun Facts about Australia:

• The average family has 1.65 children.
• The average Australian will consume 18 beef cattle and 90 sheep in his or her lifetime.
• 22% of adults will never have children.
• 16.2% of adults will only have one child.
• 34% of men will never marry (2006).
• 32% of women will never marry (2006).
• The Great Barrier Reef is the longest reef in the world at over 2010 kilometres.
• Kalgoorlie in Western Australia is the largest electorate spanning 2,225,278 square kilometres.
• Australian women won the right to vote in 1902.
• Main source of immigrants to Australia is from the UK and Ireland totalling 6.35% of all immigrants.

Immigration
Australia's culturally diverse society includes its Indigenous peoples and settlers from countries all around the world. Immigration is an important feature of Australian society. Since 1945, over six million people from 200 countries have come to Australia as new settlers. Migrants have made a major contribution to shaping modern Australia. People born overseas make up almost one quarter of the total population. The federal government sets immigration intake numbers on a yearly basis. Australia's immigration policies are non-discriminatory and all applicants to migrate must meet the same selection criteria. more
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Animal

There are many different species of wildlife in Australia. Marsupials are the most successful group in Australia. This group includes kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, Tasmanian wolves, Tasmanian devils, wombats, and many others. The platypus and the echidna are egg-laying mammals. There are also numerous different species of birds. Some of them are cockatoo, kookaburra, lyrebird, the flightless emu, and several types of parrots.

History

Human habitation of Australia is estimated to have begun between 42,000 and 48,000 years ago, possibly with the migration of people by land bridges and short sea-crossings from what is now Southeast Asia. These first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. At the time of European settlement in the late 18th century, most Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherers, with a complex oral culture and spiritual values based on reverence for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturalists and hunter-gatherers^.

Following sporadic visits by fishermen from the Malay Archipelago, the first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent were attributed to the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula on an unknown date in early 1606, and made landfall on 26 February at the Pennefather River on the western shore of Cape York, near the modern town of Weipa. The Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines of "New Holland" during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer/privateer landed on the northwest coast of Australia in 1688 and again in 1699 on a return trip. In 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast of Australia, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. Cook's discoveries prepared the way for establishment of a new penal colony. The British Crown Colony of New South Wales was formed on 26 January 1788, when Captain Arthur Phillip led the First Fleet to Port Jackson. This date became Australia's national day, Australia Day. Van Diemen's Land, now known as Tasmania, was settled in 1803 and became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the western part of Australia in 1828.
Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales: South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, and Queensland in 1859. The Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia. South Australia was founded as a "free province"—it was never a penal colony. Victoria and Western Australia were also founded "free", but later accepted transported convicts. A campaign by the settlers of New South Wales led to the end of convict transportation to that colony; the last convict ship arrived in 1848.