Comments by "Jeni10" (@Jeni10) on "American Reacts to Pleasant Surprises You Find Visiting Australia" video.

The Australian Brush Turkey is very different and has a much smaller population. “They are sometimes hunted for food, including as part of the diet of Aboriginal Australians. Their eggs, which weigh on average 180 g (6.3 oz), are also sometimes eaten. The Australian brushturkey is fully protected in Queensland. Under the Nature Conservation Act 1992 it is an offence to harm brush turkeys.” “The Australian brush turkey can be found in New South Wales and Queensland. It lives in humid forests along the eastern seaboard and inland to the wetter ranges, though it is most often seen in rainforest and neighbouring eucalypt forest areas. It remains in a particular locality throughout the year, where it breeds and forages in the forest leaf litter for fruits, seeds and small animals. During the Great Depression in the 1930s, when jobs and food were scarce, Australian brush turkeys were nearly wiped out when people used them for meat and eggs. Today, this native wildlife is protected under the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 and the population of brush turkeys is now recovering in areas where they have not been seen for many decades.”
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Our poor White Ibis are getting a bad rap which they honestly don’t deserve! They’re beautiful waterbirds whose natural habitat is the wetlands well away from the cities. The problem is that a combination of droughts and corporate greed has destroyed their habitat, so they were forced to fly towards the coast to find sources of water and food. Their natural diet consists of fish, small crustaceans and other wetlands wildlife, hence their very long beaks and legs, now their only source of food is the rubbish bins and people’s lunchtime fare. It’s annoying for the people but it’s also doing the Australian White Ibis long term harm!
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The free garden is actually a Community Garden where locals come and plant whatever they like and at harvest, can share them with the poorer folks in the community. They have these in the UK too. Some rules apply, otherwise the whole idea of community gardens would be a massive greedy grab!
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Just to clarify: Even if certain plants grow in Vietnam and also grow here, you CANNOT bring any plants, seeds or soil from Vietnam into Australia! That’s strictly against our Quarantine and Biosecurity Laws! Asians are some of the biggest offenders for this, they get heavy fines on the spot - payable immediately! Many of them wear all their clothing so they can fill their luggage with foods: plants, fruits, vegetables, meats, raw and cooked, seafood often in sea water! Then on their Legal Customs Declaration they tick no for everything! What they don’t realise is that all luggage is X-rayed after it comes off the plane, so they know which bags contain food and bio indicators before you collect your luggage and they know whose bags to check. If the smuggling is serious, you can be taken into Police custody pending charges for making false declarations. Being an island nation, we MUST protect our borders from pests and diseases we don’t have, which could devastate our farmers’ crops as well as our unique natural habitat, flora and fauna. One woman brought in bags of plants she had uprooted from her garden, saying she wanted to plant them here! When the Security Officers looked into the bags with soil all over the roots, they saw several creepy crawlies they didn’t recognise. They collected a few as samples in screw top jars for scientific analysis, and all the plants were destroyed. The woman didn’t declare ANYTHING on her Declaration Card, and she had other food items all through her luggage. She was fined $420 on the spot! Her food was checked, some items she was allowed to keep but most of it was destroyed. This is a WARNING for everyone visiting or returning to Australia: DECLARE EVERYTHING and avoid the fines. You may lose some of your items due to our Biosecurity Laws, but if you declare everything, you will avoid the fine.
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Ian, you can apply for a working holiday visa but you can’t extend it. If you wanted to stay, you would have to apply for a different visa and different conditions, probably from outside Australia. You should look into the different types of visas and study the limits and requirements of each one.
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Flies are annoying outdoors in Summer. Indoors, we have fly screens on all the windows and external doors so we can open a window for fresh air, but if it’s hot air, we just swap to the reverse cycle air con, set it on 21C and let it run at a low cost. We wear insect repellent over our high SPF sunscreen, making sure it has been applied to all exposed skin including our ears and the nape of the neck. People get skin cancers on the top of their ears because they forget to apply sunscreen on their ears!
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Yes, all schools in Australia wear uniforms. Not only does it help to give a sense of pride in their school, but it also helps to balance out the poor kids with the wealthier kids, when everyone is dressed identically. Also, if any of the kids misbehave in public going to and from school, they can be identified by their school uniform and reported to the school principal. I had to do that myself years ago. I was riding the train from the city where I worked to the suburb where I lived. There were three boys, aged about 9 or 10, and they had what we used to call Double Happy fire crackers - they were about an inch and a half to two inches long with a wick. They came linked together in a block wrapped in red tissue paper and you could let them all off in one fell swoop - just like the dozens of crackers you hear for Chinese New Year and other celebrations; or you could separate one from the block, light it and quickly toss it, where it would explode. This would normally be done with parental supervision in the backyard, but these boys were lighting them and tossing them out of the window on the lower deck of a double decker train, they would immediately land on the platform at some poor unsuspecting traveller’s feet and explode! This was happening at every station stop. I approached them as if to make small talk, “Where do you boys go to school?” The first one answered, “St Edwins”, but a second boy corrected him, “St Anne’s”. When I got home, it was Friday afternoon, so I quickly looked up both schools. They were connected: one was a school for blind boys and the other a school for blind girls. You can guess which was which. I called the boys school, hoping that the Principal hadn’t left yet, since the teachers at most Aussie schools work longer hours than just during classes. A man answered the phone. “Hello?” “Hi, I was wondering if the school principal was still there?” “Yes that would be me, how can I help you?” “I hate to have to do this but I feel it’s necessary. There were three boys on the train this afternoon, who were lighting “Double Happies” and throwing them onto the platform at passengers’ feet. I figured I beeded to report it because it was dangerous and could even cause a heart attack in an older person.” “You definitely did the right thing. Can you describe them for me?” I gave him a description of each of the three boys. “I know exactly who they are, and come Monday, they will be held accountable and their parents informed. Thank you very much for letting me know! This is not the first time those three have been reported for misconduct. Have a lovely weekend.”
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