I live in the US and am curious as to what Australia is like. Let's just take Sidney for starters. Is it cold in the winter? How do people live? Do people live mostly in houses with yards and property?, or is it mostly apartment buildings? Who is a major employer there? What percentage of taxes are taken from wages? What is the standard of living like compaired to the USA?
2007-02-11 02:35:21 · 6 answers · asked by FLHRCI 2 in Travel ➔ Australia ➔ Sydney
Hi I am from Australia,I live in Victoria. Yes We live in houses mostly average is 3 or 4 bedroom, usually Brick or timber. We don't have apartments, we have flats but mostly houses. We have pretty much the same fast food stores as you, McDonald's, Kentucky,etc. I work at Krispy Kremes and I can't say who the major employer is because there are a lot of small businesses in Australia. I think Tax from wages is about 20% and we also pay 10%GST(goods and services tax) It's cold in winter but most of us don't have snow, it's pretty rare average winter day is aprox 10 to 12 degrees Centigrade and summer is hot average mid 30's but can get into the 40's Centigrade. Hope this helps a little.
Oh and we do have peanut butter!
2007-02-11 02:58:58 · answer #1 · answered by lyndell v 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Sydney is a great place to live, we live pretty much exactly like amercians do. I was over there only a few months ago, i've travelled a fair bit, and its safe to say, that Australia, has a very similar culture to the states.
Just like in the states, the weather is different in every part. From the tropics, like say Florida, or to the Blue mountains which snows in winter. Etc. Again, with the houses it depends, mostly in Sydney, in the city part there are apartments, very few houses, in like New York in the city part, there are no houses. Then as you get further away from the city there are houses, with yards, then there are the country areas, who have big lots of lands etc.
We dont hae one major employer here. We have quite a few big companies, in lots of different industries.
Our percentage of tax depends on our earings, there are a few different tax brackets.
The standard of living is great, practically the same as in the US. but, we have a few more things that are better. Such as a health care system, where we dont have to pay to see a GP or a doctor, or to go to the hosptial. We also have something called Super Annuation, where money goes into a fund from our employer and we get it when we retire. And no-one can touch that money.
We do have peanut butter of course, actually we even get those reese cups. We have alot of the same products that you get.
I had a friend come visit me in Sydney, and he said the same thing, that Australia was the closest to home he's ever been. Compared to UK, Europe etc etc.
Hope i was some help. If you have any more questions, you can contact me. :)
2007-02-11 16:48:49 · answer #2 · answered by sparkley_fairy18 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Australia is a fantastic place to live!
SYDNEY in the city is fast paced, never stopping, always happening kind a place. Very multicultural, you can buy just about anything and everything, so shoppings always great. Very trendy city, usually the fashion comes there first.
Most of the people in the city live in units, but surrounding suburbs are houses with backyards. Woolworths is the 2nd major employer in the country, but for apprentices they are the major employer.
Tax rate on average is around 20%. So in general the standard of living, especially in the burbs its good.
From Sydney north the weather is really nice. Not much of a winter, maybe 15*c at the lowest, and up to 40*c in summer.
You should go, its a wonderful place, and by the way, of course we have peanut-butter, even hershey bars if you want them!!
2007-02-11 11:03:13 · answer #3 · answered by stabra 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Australia is the best! The weather everywhere is usually pretty warm except Melbourne has constantly changing weather and Sydney can be really, really cold during the winter. 50 % of ur wages is usually taken as tax. u earn a dollar, 50 cents is given 2 tax. if u hav a company, only 30% is taken. i think!? most people live in a house with a backyard but some people live in apartments. i love Oz n would recommend it 2 ne1 as a permanent residency or a holiday destination!
2007-02-15 04:00:36 · answer #4 · answered by ~ B_e_K_z ~ 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Hi, Im Australian - I live in Sydney and have travelled around the world a bit so I'll try to answer your questions...
Australia is in drought right now, the worst we've ever recorded so we dont get much rain! We have a humid heat here - not a dry heat. Summer temperatures in Sydney tend to be between 25 to 35 degrees celcius in the middle of the day and of course it gets cooler at night, though not cold. In Summer we frequently have 'scorchers' in Sydney where the temperature gets up to the high 40's - luckily many parts of Sydney get a breeze off the ocean which cools things down at night. In Winter we dont get snow in sydney (only a few mountainous regions of Australia get snow), it can be cold in the morning but during the middle of the day its usually around 10 to 15 degrees celcius.
We have a very good standard of living here and an excellent welfare system so you wont see many homeless people (compared to other Western countries). We are very multicultural in Sydney.
Much of Sydney is densely populated with apartment blocks but houses become more dominant as you move further out of the city. Contrary to popular beleif kangaroos do not hop down our streets - if you travelled a few hours out of the city you would have a chance to see our native animals in the wild.
We have an excellent public health system here compared to the US but our infrastucture is not as good as the US - your highways put ours to shame!
For tax rates check out http://www.ato.gov.au tax is quite high here - in the top income bracket the tax rate is over 40%.
As for employers... we have a wide mix - you could work in just about any industry here that you have in the US... many US companies have their Asia Pacific region head office here, for example I used to work for JPMorgan here!
Hope that helps! Feel free to email me if you have any other questions.
Carrie
2007-02-11 18:18:24 · answer #5 · answered by Carrie 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
my cousin lives there and when she came to visit... I hung her sweater in the hall closet and she lkilled herself laughing cause they don't have a need to wear sweaters there and they don't have closets to hang their coats in... weird eh?
they don't have peanutbutter either
2007-02-11 10:39:27 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 4⤋