Land Down Under



"Australia is a psychotic, cold-blooded murderer that would swallow you whole if you so much as left the front door of your house."

- Badass of the Week, on Australia.

"It's about three quarters of a mile away from the surface of the sun. I've seen insects walking around with knee pads. It's not supposed to be inhabited, and when they're not...frying themselves outside, they all fling themselves into the sea, which is inhabited almost exclusively by things designed to kill you. Sharks, jelly fish, swimming knives, everything."

- Dylan Moran

In Real Life, Australia is a vibrant, diverse and multicultural young country. Most of the population is concentrated in several large urban areas on the coast with a sparsely populated interior. In Hollywood, Australia is a primitive barren wasteland consisting entirely of Outback desert, aborigines, dingoes, crocodiles, kangaroos and some other marsupials, and occasionally a couple of rural people who run around wielding bowie knives and boomerangs. People talk with a grating accent, apparently a blend of Cockney English, New Zealander and vaguely British extraction called "Ostrayan" or more concisely "Strine".

Australia's indigenous wildlife is unique (one of the handful of megadiverse lands in the world), being dominated by marsupials rather than placental mammals. The dangers of the native animals has been noted by many - US President Barack Obama brought it up when he visited Australia. In Real Life, most of these creatures only live in remote areas. In Hollywood, Everything Trying to Kill You, although any sufficiently cute animal, no matter how wild, is inexplicably safe. This habit of making Australia a Death World often results in Australians being considered ludicrously tough - though there's some truth to that. Australia is the home of the Duck-Billed Platypus: best described as "you're not serious... right?" in animal form. Also home to box jellyfish, irukandji, and blue-ringed octopus, essentially animal forms of Demonic Spiders, Nightmare Fuel, and of course, koalas. And kangaroos.

For those fortunate enough to avoid being eaten by the aforementioned crocodiles, life is one long beach party and all meals consist of shrimp on the barbie (actually called 'Prawns') and Vegemite sandwiches (pronounced "veeeeejeemoit"). If these stereotypes are absent, the setting is likely Sydney, Australia's most populous metropolis and bustling economic centre. It's the home of the famous Sydney Opera House, which all hotels naturally look onto. Australia's capital is actually Canberra, built between Sydney and the other major capital, Melbourne, as a concession to neither city being named the actual capital.

New Zealand is largely interchangeable with Australia in western media. This is especially ironic given New Zealand has a different culture, history, even ecology - its indigenous ecology almost wholly lacks native mammals of any kind. Also, its location is even more remote, being one of the last major land masses colonized by humans: the Maori arrived only in the 13th century CE.

Australia's first European settlements were prison colonies. A fair few Australians claim convict ancestry with pride, truthfully or otherwise. Of course, with one of the world's highest immigrant intakes, Australians are, ethnically speaking, slowly becoming a sort of Convict/European/Asian/Middle-Eastern/Oceanian/Americas/African amalgamation.

Complicating this trope is that a lot of Australian humour involves deliberately playing up or invoking these stereotypes to mess with foreigners. Especially Americans.

For these reasons, it should come as no surprise that villains love this country.

Surprisingly, one aspect of Australia that is rarely (possibly never) played up is how important the Aussie mining industry is both historically and economically. In fact, as they have the best military in their hemisphere, perhaps the Dwarf checklist should be consulted. Gruff, gold-loving, blunt-speaking, funny-accented, alcohol-swilling, Elf-hating, boastful of their battle prowess and mainly just the fact that they are Dwarves. In comparison, some have noted New Zealand's 'elvish sensibilities'.

See also Useful Notes on Australia.

Advertising

 * Commercials for Foster's beer spread the shrimp on the barbie image, though ironically Foster's (supposedly "Australian for beer") is quite possibly the most unpopular beer in Australia... and, of course, the fact that in Australia, "shrimp" are pretty much always known as "prawns".
 * Fookin Prawns.
 * Nowadays, Fosters is pretty much an American beer with an iconic Australian name.
 * Foster's is Australian for "Foreigner's Excuse For Aussie Piss"; it's very rare to find in six-pack form in the various liquor sellers, let alone being served in an Aussie pub. If an Australian is asking for Foster's, they're not homesick, they're just trying to determine if they're in another country.
 * A Chinese airline tries and screws up by advertising its new flights to Australia with a picture of a woman playing with a kangaroo on the beach.
 * Not automatically an error, a few places in Queensland and NSW do have kangaroos on the beaches.
 * The playing part is possible, if you define playing as brutal lacerations...
 * Followed swiftly by a bullet to the head due to an overly-twitchy Park Ranger.

Anime and Manga
"Wy: ...Hm? A Rolls-Royce? Incredible clean and organized facilities? A bilby? We're in Australia!"
 * Balon (aka Valon, aka Varon) was given an Australian accent in the 4Kids dub of Yu-Gi-Oh.
 * Jim Crocodile Cook in Yu-Gi-Oh GX, on the other had, actually is Australian.
 * Epsilon, a character from Naoki Urasawa and Osamu Tezuka's collaboration manga project Pluto, was created, and lives, in Australia.
 * Occurred in Black Jack when the title character head to the Outback investigating a disease outbreak.
 * Australia is personified in the series Axis Powers Hetalia. All we know of him so far is that he has Green Eyes and light brown hair, wears a big grin and has a pet koala (that sports a Slasher Smile of sorts) and a dingo. Fanon usually portrays him as a Boisterous Bruiser.
 * The Principality of Wy give us this line when she realizes she's in Hutt River's house:


 * Chu in the English dub of Yu Yu Hakusho is a hard drinking okker aussie Boisterous Bruiser.
 * In Code Geass, the Chinese Federation, the Euro Universe, and the Britannian Empire are the three major superpowers fighting to take control of the entire world... except Australia, which from the colours shown in the maps of the series, appears to be neutral. Possibly Australia is devoid of delicious Sakuradite, or possibly the three superpowers were disinclined to waste Knightmares on a costly boondoggle for what basically amounts to "murderous desert, with the occasional arable land".
 * Of course, at one point when Schneizel decides So something is there at least...
 * Digimon Adventure 02 has a particularly strange case rife with compressed geography to drive home the point of where they are. During the Digidestined's efforts to eliminate Dark Towers around the world, Joe and Cody travel to Australia, landing in Sydney before heading up to the Gold Coast which, while doable in a day, is by no means a short or easy trip, especially for a pair of foreign early-teenage boys with no car. They notice that the locals treat the Dark Tower on the beach as an Unusually Uninteresting Sight, whereas a western show might've had the locals tear the bloody thing down before they'd have even gotten there. They do get backup from one of the local Digidestined, Derek; who is a blonde, tanned preteen surfer boy, very much in the spirit of this trope. In the last episode, Derek is in Sydney for some reason, probably to make it incredibly obvious what country he's in.

Comic Books

 * For a period in the late '80s the X-Men went further underground than usual and operated out of a hidden base in the outback (requisitioned from a band of cyborg Road Warrior rejects) with the aid of a mysterious Magical Native American Native American Australian Aborigine Indigenous Australian teleporter. This was one of the few places where they mixed up both Sydney and the outback. (Odd, considering Chris Claremont has been to Sydney.)
 * When Young Justice visited the Sydney Olympics, there were kangaroos bounding through the Olympic Village (which was seemingly situated on the side of a cliff within easy eyeshot of Sydney Harbour).
 * One place the mining industry did get some time in the spotlight was in Dreamwave's Transformers Energon run.
 * An early villain of Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew was "Kongarilla", a kangaroo turned into a giant by a secret organization. Kongaroo hailed from "Aukstralia" (Earth-C's version of Australia).
 * There was an issue of the Tomb Raider comic supposedly set in Australia, but which actually appeared to be taking place in the Wild West as everyone walked around with a pistol on their hip and there appeared to be no organised law enforcement of any kind.
 * The story in which Spirou and Fantasio go to Australia is actually centered around the opal-mining industry.
 * The goal of the main character Yorick throughout most of Y: The Last Man is to get to Australia to meet his girlfriend Beth, who was in Australia researching Aboriginal culture. In this universe, post-Gendercide Australia has become the single most powerful navy in the world, based on having the only female piloted submarines, and the entirety of Sydney has become a heroin addicted slum from south-east Asian pirates smuggling drugs into the country.

Film

 * Probably originated with Crocodile Dundee, which spurred an interest in this Flanderization of Australia. Note the movie was made by Australians and often cited as them enjoying playing up the image to mess with tourists.
 * Hell, it's done in the movie. The titular Mr. Dundee plays up his wildman-living-off-the-land bit to further impress the tourists.
 * Mick even does it to his best friend (by pretending to not know what day of the week it is), leading to the memorable line "Doesn't know, doesn't care. Lucky bastard!"
 * The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert contrasts the sophisticated gay scene of urban Oz with the outback culture.
 * Averted in The Proposition, a western that characterizes 1880's Australia as a god-forsaken hell-hole. Since most of the inhabitants are immigrants or first generation, very few have anything approaching an Australian accent.
 * Godzilla: Final Wars has a scene that takes place in Sydney, Australia in which Godzilla slams the American Godzilla into the Sydney Opera House and kills him instantly with his thermonuclear breath. Considering that director, Ryuhei Kitamura went to School of Visual Arts in Australia, it's not surprising that it was featured.
 * Kangaroo Jack
 * The Nicole Kidman/Hugh Jackman snorefest Australia. Sorry about that.
 * The Man from Snowy River and Return To Snowy River.
 * Chasing the Sun involves a car race through the outback. In one scene, the protagonists are driving from Darwin to Alice Springs, and look out the window and see Ayers Rock to their left. The most glaring error, of course, is that Uluru is actually south of Alice Springs... but that's just the most glaring error. There are a good ten others.
 * Point Break concludes on Bells Beach, Torquay - actually filmed in Oregon. The real Bells Beach is a good two kilometers from the nearest tree - and it's a eucalpytus, not a pine.
 * Van Diemen's Land relates the largely true story of a convict who escaped from Macquarie Harbour (a prison on the edge of seriously inhospitable wilderness) with a number of companions, and survived his walk to more civilised parts by eating them.
 * A Cry in the Dark A.K.A. Evil Angels is based on the true story of the Chamberlin family - whose daughter Azaria was taken from their tent by a dingo whilst camping at Ayers Rock. This film featured Meryl Streep's most awful attempt at an Aussie accent (think Bert) and the infamous line 'a dingo ate my baby!'
 * The franchise The Howling changes location to Australia in the third movie, focusing on marsupial werewolves (and it's as silly as it sounds).
 * The events of Razorback happen in the Australian outback, which seems to be filled with dangerous wild boars and psychotic pet food factory workers.
 * Welcome to Woop Woop also focuses on deranged pet food factory workers. Giant Kangaroo god also makes an appearance.
 * Quigley Down Under is set in Western Australia in the late 19th century.
 * The Princess Bride is one of the few films to reference Australia's convict past: "Australia, as everybody knows, is populated entirely by criminals." It also shows Iocane, the deadliest poison in the world, as being found only in Australia.

Literature

 * Terry Pratchett's The Last Continent features the land of XXXX (aka "Terror Incognita"), which parodies all things Downunderese, including Mad Max, Priscilla, Waltzing Matilda, Ned Kelly, Crocodile Dundee and the actual country of Australia, although they did expressly leave out cricket. There is a distinct difference between the citizens of Bugarup [Sydney], with their University, Opera House and Gay Pride Galah, and the outback characters, who follow all the stereotypes and tropes on this page and then some.
 * Upon asking a magical library for a list of dangerous animals in Fourecks, Death gets swamped by a tidal wave of books. Then he decides to ask for a list of safe animals, and a single sheet of paper reading "some of the sheep" flutters down. It is noteworthy that there are no deadly snakes in XXXX. This is because the spiders killed them all.
 * It also includes one of the most accurate descriptions of the danger presented by a kangaroo: "I could disembowel you with a kick."
 * An expression of cricket is shown by the line "...all you need now is to be good at some damn silly bat and ball game that no one's invented yet..."
 * Rincewind has no real trouble surviving in this environment, mostly because he assumes that anything he doesn't know about in great detail is likely to be lethally dangerous, often in ways nobody would expect, which is basically true in XXXX.
 * The Swampland Trilogy of Swampland, Tankworld, and Endsville, by S.R. Martin. It's all set in Australia, and starts with a really bad flood season. Gets a bit creepy with fish girls and creatures who have been fused with bikes. Definitely one for more the Everworld crowd than Animorphs. Here's a link to the first one's cover. If you find it interesting, which it is actually really good, search for it and the other two.
 * America (The Book) describes all Australian culture as "a by-product of their perpetual drunkenness". As in, after a few tinnies you can begin to make sense of Geoffrey Rush, and Vegemite becomes edible about the time you're dying of alcohol poisoning. Not that any self-respectin' Aussie is going to succumb to piss poisonin'.
 * The above-mentioned Discworld novel The Last Continent proposes that the perspective-altering beer is the cause of the Vegemite. Also, time travel.
 * The Tomorrow Series by John Marsden, was a popular series of Young Adult novels released in the early 1990s, where Australia gets invaded and occupied during Australia Day by an unnamed foreign power (read: Indonesia) and a group of kids, who were out camping at the time, start a vicious campaign of guerrilla warfare against them. No, really. For books aimed at kids in high school, it leaned a good way towards the darker side of the scale, giving readers a pretty frank war story featuring firefights, death and sex (for which the schoolboys rejoiced). A movie has been made.
 * In the third book of F.M. Busby's Rissa Kerguelen series, it's revealed that Australia managed to keep its independence from UET by developing a very powerful weapon, which they demonstrated by destroying one of the moons of Jupiter. Rissa and her husband Bran Tregare are in the process of overthrowing UET, and when Tregare hears about the weapon, he remarks, "When the time comes, remind me to be very polite to Australia." Rissa assures him there shouldn't be a problem: because he was born in Australia and he's done lots of damage to UET, "they celebrate your birthday as a national holiday!"

Live-Action TV
"Brett: You call that a knife? That's not a knife. Jamie: Umm yeah it is. Brett: Oh, yeah it is. Run away."
 * British Work Com Supernova is set in the outback. This makes sense, though, because the setting is an observatory which would benefit from being in the outback what with the lack of light pollution.
 * Lost is notorious among Australian fans for its completely incorrect accents (with the exception of Emilie de Ravin, who is Australian, and even then she has drawn criticism), its hilarious geography goofs (judging from the view out the window, Boone's hotel room seems to be hung in mid-air over the harbour) and the fact that anyone in Australia (shown in flashbacks) seems to be less intelligent and with less common sense than the main characters. To be fair, the idea that characters on Lost, of any nationality, display common sense is one that could be vigorously disputed. (The most level-headed and sensible guy in the entire cast is an Iraqi ex-torturer.)
 * The problem was mainly in the show's first season. They began to improve in the later seasons, casting authentic Australian actors for minor roles (such as the undertaker in "?"). However, in season 4, they cast a British actress as Claire's mother, who has arguably the worst Australian accent on the show.
 * Ironically, the minor characters "Captain Gault" and "Hendricks" are played by authentic Australians even though there is no reason for their characters to be Australian. Also, Charles Widmore, a supposedly British character, is played by Alan Dale, a New Zealander.
 * In an episode of Minder, Arthur Daley somehow manages to find himself in the middle of inhospitable outback and in real danger of dying of thirst a few hours drive outside of Sydney. Never mind that anywhere he could have driven to in that time would be urban sprawl, rolling farmland or on the coast.
 * Flight of the Conchords features the Australian/New Zealand interchangeability as a Running Gag, and for at least one episode, a plot point.
 * It generally portrays Australians as inherently unpleasant and mean-spirited towards New Zealanders (even the Australian ambassador makes a crack about a sheep being Miss New Zealand). The one seeming exception is an Australian woman who Jemaine had a drunken tryst with who, despite being rather grungy and unusually proud of her heritage as the descendant of a prostitute and a convicted rapist, seems rather pleasant..
 * This is reasonably grounded in reality as most Australians see New Zealanders as their slightly poofy younger siblings and taunt them mercilessly (despite the fact that they're actually rather fond of them.)
 * Also features a nice Crocodile Dundee parody when the pair are being mugged in the States:


 * Farscape was filmed in Australia, and one episode where John Crichton returns to Earth has him crashing on a beach outside Sydney- where most of the episode's action takes place.
 * The best moment occurs in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, where a friendly Mook decides he wants to flee to Tasmania (the little island off the bottom of Australia), before exclaiming and cocking his gun: "It's probably raining in Tasmania anyway!" * chick-chick*
 * Which is kinda like saying "I want to flee to Newfoundland, or far north Scotland."
 * While on the subject of Star Trek, it appears that the Vulcan embassy to Earth is in Canberra. Vulcans and Australians living in close quarters could be... interesting.
 * Particularly as the depictions of Vulcan basically make it look like depictions of Australia on steroids: Desert where everything is poisonous and actively trying to kill and eat you (including a significant portion of what plant life there is), but this is a whole planet of it. And ALL of the people are experts at living in the wilderness, or they don't live to see their ninth birthday.
 * Sally uses Australia as an analogy for her relationship to Steve on Coupling. As his girlfriend's best friend, Sally tells Steve that she is like Australia - mysterious, distant and with areas of great danger. Steve thought she meant that she had a lot of convicts.
 * The "Three Bruces" sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus, with Philosophy professors from the University of Woolloomooloo, Australia.
 * Then of course we have Daniel Osbourne in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Oz. The name of the band he's in? Dingoes Ate My Baby, after the Azaria Chamberlain case.

Music

 * The song "Down Under" by Men At Work, obviously. Look for the koala plushie. Surprisingly they made it to complain about the Flanderization of Australian culture. That buggered up pretty quickly.
 * "We'll surf like they do in the U.S.A./We'll fly down to Sydney for our holiday/On sunny Christmas Day/Australia, Australia" - The Kinks' concept album Arthur (Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire) tells the story of a man emigrating to Australia from post-war England.
 * Tim Minchin's Not Perfect: "This is my country, and I live in it; it's pretty big, and nice to walk on."
 * Ben Folds is a known Australia-phile, having lived in Adelaide for several years and dated mostly Australian women. He even wrote a song about it, "Adelaide", making sure his listeners all know that "the beer is better in Adelaide".
 * John Williamson, singer and songwriter.

Professional Wrestling

 * Outback Jack is coming!

Recorded and Stand up Comedy

 * Australian musical comedy duo The Scared Weird Little Guys wrote a song about all some of the dangerous animals to be found in Australia - "Come to Australia, you might accidentally get killed!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWFGd1nMa1A
 * In his stand-up act, Greg Proops describes Australia as "Arkansas with a beach".
 * Stand-up comedian Adam Hills parodied the national Anthem by putting it to the tune of Jimmy Barnes's Working Class Man. Most of the people who heard it honestly liked it better than real one.

Video Games

 * In Need for Speed II, the 'Outback track' goes from the usual Sydney landmarks to Uluru and back on a single racetrack. Luckily, Australians still find this kind of thing very funny.
 * High Stakes on the other hand allows people to live out their Blue Heelers fantasies by putting you behind the wheel of a Victoria police Holden patrol car.
 * Beneath a Steel Sky is set in a dystopian future Sydney. It's never explicitly stated, but the range of characters with Australian accents, the prologue set in the Outback and the "ancient" map of Sydney's underground train system are clues. All of which making the American protagonist speaking in British phrases much more hilarious.
 * Marine the Raccoon from Sonic the Hedgehog Rush Adventure is a Motor Mouth who uses every single Australian slang word ever invented, and then some. She'd be The Scrappy for that (and may still be considered one) but the other characters react as if she is that annoying.
 * Word of God states that Sonic himself is an Australian.
 * Not to mention Knuckles is an echidna, an Australian monotreme.
 * And the Coconut Crew, also from Sonic Rush Series Adventure, are koalas (who have very different eyes from other Sonic characters, by the way).
 * Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, a platformer series, is set in a fictionalized, Funny Animal version of Australia. However, having been developed by actual Aussies, it manages to pull off an Australia that's not all outback and sheep. There's rainforests, obscure examples of Aussie lore, and relatively few musical tracks that abuse the didgeridoo. Did we mention the fact that all the Funny Animal koala people have two thumbs?
 * The Sniper from Team Fortress 2 is an Australian with the usual South-London accent that's never caught a whiff of the Southern Hemisphere, Wild Colonial Boy outfit, and a really big knife (perfecting the 'colonial boy' image, albeit further undermining the Australianness, by being a Nepalese kukri). His bio states he honed his skills hunting game in the outback, a reasonable story given that various dangerous/nuisance species (pigs and buffalo were introduced and went feral, and there are kangaroo culls of variable legality in farming areas) are frequently hunted by groups of young men with rifles (firing from the backs of trucks. Sissies).
 * Look down below - the truck is, if anything, insufficient protection from a pissed-off roo.
 * The sniper also references Crocodile Dundee in one of his lines about knives.
 * Saxton Hale from the background of that game is best described as Crocodile Dundee in charge of a major company. That company's name is Mann Co., its motto is "We sell products and get in fights!", and it sends out form letters that depending on the boxes ticked are either about thanking someone for submitting a potential product or telling a thief that he should watch his back because Saxton Hale is coming for him.
 * Also suffers from major Testosterone Poisoning.
 * Then there is the "transformative mineral" Australium, which is only discovered in Australia, managed to turn the country from a "nation of idiots" into an extremely advanced society that outpaced everyone in the world in terms of technology, allowing them to have shiny buildings, streamlined cars, monoplanes, teleportation, cloaking, an entire spectrum of mustache science, and every single innovation in the last 40 years... in 1890.
 * According to the same comic, all Australians (including women) are relatively dumb, muscular, constantly fighting, and always wear mustaches. The Sniper, on the other hand, is not. Nor are his parents, judging from one photo.
 * All of the above is explained away by the fact that designer-in-chief Robin Walker is Australian, and given the Aussie's love of stereotype based wind-ups, Walker has pulled a fast one on millions of gamers for at least 3 years now.
 * Thus far, Australia has but two entries into the highly Hollywoood-Atlasized (well, usually Tokyo-Atlasised) Fighting Game genre: Jeffry from Virtua Fighter (a sailor who merely circumnavigates the country), and, rather more awesomely, Raptor from Darkstalkers, the zombie rockstar who chomps on people with his decomposed chest-cavity. Possibly some sort of perverse homage to the late, great Bon Scott of ACDC - where else did they get a dead Aussie rock god from?... Plus he's skinny enough!
 * There's also the tormented Cosmic Plaything Zappa, of Guilty Gear fame. His biography lists him as born in Australia, although it's never said how long he lived there, nor does it come up in conversation or...well, anything outside one line in his bio.
 * Also Craig Marduk of Tekken. Although his accent is about as Australian as Abraham Lincoln.
 * The Fatal Fury series features Raiden (also known as Big Bear), a huge Australian wrestler.
 * Kano from Mortal Kombat? Granted, he was originally American-Japanese, but the design team decided to retcon him into being an Australian. This was due to the movie, where Trevor Goddard portrayed him as Australian.
 * The famous Ryu vs Sagat fight was depicted in the animated movie in a grassy field during a thunderstorm. The Alpha games have this in Australia.
 * Mega Man Battle Network: Dingo. His Netnavi is a different story.
 * Not quite. Dingo is outright stated to be from the series' Eagle Land. It's just that he has the name of an Australian-indigenous animal for some reason.
 * The Grand Theft Auto series has a long running joke about a fictional war against Australia.
 * One of the minor factions in Syndicate was the Tasmanian Liberation Army, who take over Australia at least, but are described as always being too drunk to be a major player for world domination. The world map in the sequel Syndicate Wars asserts the language of Sydney is "Low English" (compared to "High English" in London) and their main industry is brewing.
 * As a Tasmanian myself, this isn't necessarily too far removed from the truth...
 * The English voices of the two characters from Gran Pulse in Final Fantasy XIII have Australian accents. Appropriately enough, Gran Pulse is an over the top Death World full of horrible monsters such as the Adamantoises (gigantic tusked tortoises the size of shopping malls), Gorgonopsids (think Dingos but with toxic breath), Megistotherians (giant Gorgonopsids), King Behemoths, various Cieth and The Undying...and the dreaded Tonberries. And that's just the wildlife. Pulse's Killer Robots and Giant Robot Killer Robots can still be found in the ruins of Pulse's mining facilities and cities. All presided over by a mountain-sized Giant Robot god made out of lava that eats Adamantoises. And also, ironically, Gran Pulse is a planet underneath the smaller, inhabited "moon", Cocoon. So to the people of Cocoon, Gran Pulse is literally "the land down below".
 * In the Halo universe, Sydney is home to HIGHCOM Facility Bravo-6 (the Hive). It is the formal headquarters of the UNSCDF (i.e. top of the human military heap) and was presumably built in Australia so the Covenant could become better acquainted with the wildlife.
 * Probably to do with the fact that even if they conquered it they have to travel halfway across the continent to get to the nearest major city, and if we wanted to defend Sydney they have no idea how to fight in terrain that can go from ocean to city to desert to farmland in less than 50 kilometers.
 * Agreed, Have you ever been to adelaide? Less than one kilometre off the beach can be desert, then some large hills, then farmland, It's absolutely mental.
 * And let's not forget Private Chips Dubbo.
 * In Tony Hawk's Underground 2, you get to visit Australia (Well actually Sydney). Looks right except that there's a Butterfinger ad where, in Australia, Butterfingers are never advertised.
 * Miranda Lawson in Mass Effect 2, while not specifically outed as Australian is voiced by Australian actress Yvonne Strahovski, who not only kept her natural accent but also acted as a model for the character's looks.
 * Urnot Wreave wants Australia for helping the humans. He wants to live in a place more terrifying than his own Death World.
 * Escape from Monkey Island features Ozzie Mandrill, an Australian property developer and Expy for Rupert Murdoch. He bests Guybrush in a bout of insult swordfighting,
 * The newer Resident Evil games have the Black Tiger, a giant Australian funnelweb. In real life they are that hard to kill and even deadlier, yes the T Virus makes it go through Badass Decay.

Web Comics
"SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Almost everything in Australia is made of poison, and if you find something that is not poisonous, watch out for the claws and the teeth."
 * According to Irregular Webcomic, Australian wildlife is exactly this dangerous. Or this.
 * During the recent "Order of the Dragon" arc in Fans, Keith Feddyg took Australia when the Order caused worldwide chaos and rioting by literally destroying the concept of writing. As he observed, "You know how feral most of that continent is? The exotic killer wildlife will have destroyed human civilization by dinnertime. All I have to do is go back, find the leader of the survivors and melt his bowie knife." This gave him time to stab another Order member in the back and seek revenge against Ally.
 * A Funny Background Event here in A Girl and Her Fed:


 * Bloody Urban (which is set in an AU version of Sydney) features a strip which depicts the Australian open as being played entirely by crocodiles. The Alt Text for the page reads 'This is nothing. You should see our football.'

Web Original

 * If one admits to being Australian on /tg/, the first question asked is almost inevitably something along the lines of "How do you find the time to play DnD with all the poisonous snakes?" The answer, of course, is that it's a good idea to have a hobby when unable to leave the house due to the town being knee-deep in funnelweb spiders.
 * There are multiple characters in the Whateley Universe are Australian, Including Razorback, a large raptor-like mutant. Also, There are stories of events that occur in Australia such as the takedown of a rogue mutant in Darwin, as well as allusions to as-of-Yet unwritten events that occur to some of the Australian students during a home visit.
 * Cracked.com has made a Running Gag of equating Australia with Death World. So has this wiki.
 * Ben Powell, Brendan Wallace, and Jason Harris from Survival of the Fittest. They're all Aussie, though only Ben is played straight. You'd have to read the profiles of the latter two to find out they were actually Australian.
 * In one most of his video reviews, Yahtzee Croshaw takes time to complain about how much later games are released in Australia than the US. One of these reviews showed an outline of Australia, with labels in four places. One in the southwest of the map said "ME" and the other three scattered throughout said "SHEEP".
 * Dragon Ball Abridged: Jeice is from "Space Australia".
 * More specifically, Space Brisbane. Go Space Broncos!

Western Animation
"Aussie father: Oi, Mr. Prime Minister.... ANDY!!!! PM lounging on an inner-tube, naked, drinking a beer: G'day lads, what's the good word?"
 * Disney's The Rescuers Down Under is set in Australia and revels in stereotypes, though its Dundee analog is the villain.
 * An episode of Gargoyles where they visited Australia and the country was portrayed this way. Also Dingo's character in general. If you can get past the ludicrously over-the-top faux Australian accent long enough to pay attention to his words and behaviour, that is.
 * When the heroes of Finding Nemo need to find Sydney, Australia, a helpful school arrange themselves as a likeness of the Opera House to confirm that it's where they want to go. Finding Nemo also features what must be the highest-rent dentist's office in the world, what with the stunning harborside views and the price of Sydney real estate...
 * Well, he was doing work on the Prime Minister in one scene...
 * We return to the reef in the sequel, Finding Dory.
 * The Simpsons: "Bart vs. Australia" manages to make several goofs—such as a didgeridoo made out of bamboo, being played by a woman—as well as purposefully subverted stereotypes, such as a postage stamp proudly claiming, "30 Years of Electricity!" Surprisingly, many Aussies are quite fond of that episode.
 * You know Dwarves... wonderful senses of humor.

"Croc Dundee Parody: You call that a knife? [pulls out spoon] Croc Dundee Parody: * This* is a knife. Bart: [confused] That's not a knife, that's a spoon. Croc Dundee Parody: Alright, alright you win. I see you've played knifey-spoony before."
 * Another favourite bit goes like this:

"Marge: I'll just have a coffee. Pub owner: Beer it is. Marge: No, coffee. Pub owner: Beer. Marge: Coff-ee. Pub owner: Bee-eer. Marge: C-O... Pub owner: B-E..."
 * And of course, who could forget:

"Australian teen: (Holding a frog) They's looks like Kangaroos, but they's reptiles they's is! Marge: Oh, we have those in America, we call them "Bullfrogs". Australian teen: That's a funny name! I'd 'ave called 'em chazwozzas!"
 * Another:


 * And of course the scene where Homer and Bart try to jump into the pouches of a pair of kangaroos.
 * In fact, the only part of that episode that Australians don't really laugh at is the Australian kid taking several hour to reach his neighbor's house and back. Mostly because it's true.
 * "I think a dingo is eating your baby." This taunt from Bart really angers the Aussies.
 * In the episode "Lost Verizon" Bart prank calls a Tin-shack bar, on the edge of Sydney Harbour.
 * Parodied on Clone High, when Gandhi runs into Daniel Feldspar, the "stereotypical Australian dragon", who Gandhi manages to distract by claiming that he's never tried vegemite.
 * Although the Australian Story Arc of Exo Squad starts pretty inconspicuously in Canberra (not Sydney!), it soon progresses into the desert-aborigines-Ayers Rock routine. Australia is also just the right place to introduce vicious half-beast/half-Neosapien Neo Warriors whose sole purpose is to search and destroy humans. They fit right in!
 * Taz-Mania, a show starring Looney Tunes' Tasmanian Devil, is supposedly set in the island of Tasmania, but is actually a Flanderized version of the Outback, and bears as much resemblance to the real Tasmania as Taz does to the real Tasmanian devil (that is, none at all). Apart from the Unstoppable Rage.
 * When the X-Men appeared on Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends and again in Pryde of the X-Men (the pilot for the first attempt to make an X-Men animated series, which wasn't picked up) usually Canadian X-Man Wolverine sported an Australian accent. Presumably because the producers couldn't imagine the toughest mutant in the world coming from anywhere else. (Decades later, it would turn out they were right - but at least Hugh Jackman was polite enough to fake it.)
 * Scooby Doo and the Legend of the Vampire, featuring the worst (or, at least, the most bizarre) attempts at an Australian accent ever heard.
 * For some reason, Jetfire in Transformers Cybertron has an Australian accent.
 * In the G.I. Joe universe, Cobra operative Major Bludd is from Sydney, and once served with the Australian SAS.

Real Life
"Prime Minister, do the words political shitstorm mean anything to you?"
 * Australia's former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, is a highly educated, bespectacled, ex-diplomat who talks like a management-consultant - in English and fluent Mandarin Chinese. In other words, he's a bit of a nerd. Shortly before the election that brought his government to power, the news media broke a "scandal" that he once got drunk at a strip-club in New York City. Australia's reaction? "Oh, he must be all right then." Alexander Downer, a Cabinet Minister in then-Prime Minister John Howard's government, noted that Howard told him that this was the moment he knew he'd lost the election. If anything, Rudd lost some respect when witnesses explained he just got drunk and went home instead of starting a bar fight or challenging a bouncer to a Boat Race.
 * He also said shitstorm on the 6.30 news. A Mass Effect 2 fan?

"If I had to take Hell, I would use the Australians to take it and the New Zealanders to hold it."
 * Prime Minister Bob Hawke not only admitted to it, he was actively proud of the fact that he held the Oxford record for downing a Yard Glass full of beer. Everyone in Australia thought that this pride was fully justified.
 * There is an entire restaurant chain (Outback Steakhouse) based on this trope. Apparently, the Outback Steakhouse people have opened up some locations in Australia. Reactions are mixed-to-negative.
 * Some Australians view Outback Steakhouse as serving what Australians think Americans eat, as opposed to what Americans think Australians eat. This outlook can drastically improve opinion on the restaurant.
 * Along similar lines, there is also an incredibly popular Aussie theme pub chain in the UK called "Walkabout".
 * Also Truth in Television is the stereotype of toughness at least in Australian military history. During both World Wars the German Army respected and feared Australian soldiers describing them as big, tough men who were obviously the elite of the British Army. At the Battle of Kokoda Trail in the Pacific theatre of World War II two hundred Australian militia held an entire regiment of elite Japanese soldier at bay for a considerable length of time. This was the start of a series of running battles where the outnumbered Australians slowed the Japanese force to a crawl, although the terrain was not suited for rapid movement - to say the least. A case in point was the first battle of Kokoda where the Japanese thought they had driven off a force of about 1200 infantry defending the Kokoda airstrip. In reality they had been up against 77 soldiers.
 * There's an old joke presumably originating during WWII in which a young British officer protests that a group of Australian soldiers didn't salute. An older Brit officer points out that unlike their fathers in WWI, they at least walked round, instead of over, the officers.
 * And, of course, Erwin Rommel's famous quote:


 * Supposedly, North Vietnamese said the same thing during the Vietnam War. They feared the Australians because they thought like them (the NVA).
 * In World War I, a group of Australian soldiers were prepared to walk a fair more distance to quench their thirst rather than salute a passing British General, merely because they did not believe this general had not gained their respect to be saluted at. This idea of respecting those who deserve said respect has been ingrained into nearly all Australians, whether native or not.
 * Australia is the only country in the world to eat all parts of its national coat of arms (that are theoretically edible anyway; eating stars and crosses is rather a difficult proposition). There's kangaroo, which is actually cheaper than beef to buy in Australia, emu, which tastes like gamey chicken, and the wattle plant, whose seeds make quite a sweet flour. Patriotic and tasty.
 * Also, kangaroo is delicious and if you're Australian, much less harmful to the environment.
 * There's a whole page on them, but here's some of the highlights from Australian Wildlife.
 * Koalas. Cute, slow-moving living teddy bears that prefer to sleep 19 hours a day. If disturbed - which is easy, what with the 19 hours of sleep deal - they can maim. They also feed off eucalyptus leaves, which from a nutritional point of view resemble cardboard that's been sprayed with mescaline. (That's right, they sleep 19 hours and are high as kites for the five they're awake.) We'll say that again - Australia's teddy bears can do severe damage if pissed off. Of course, if you actually call them a teddy bear...
 * Also, they're not technically bears.
 * Never call them bears. Not only will Australians maim you, so will the koala.
 * Wombats. Although they can be tamed to some degree, they can reach 40 km an hour, albeit only for a minute and a half. They're also pretty heavy, so they can knock over grown men if angered. Then they can deliver a bite through your trousers, socks, and gumboots, and still go nearly an inch into your leg. For sheer WTF value, however, there's their main defence against predators like dingos: they run down a hole and present their asses. (No, it's not Fartillery). Their backsides are heavily padded with cartilage and they have really short tails, ensuring that it takes a hell of a lot of effort to get them out of that hole. Unfortunately, this means that wombats are the one exception to the 'don't swerve to avoid an animal in the road' rule - hitting a wombat can total your car so completely you're actually better off swerving. 120-tonne road trains taken been out of action by hitting a wombat. Wombats can also use their butts to crush, suffocate and kill their attacker. You read that right. Cute little Australian native animals are so damn Badass they can use their butts as offensive, lethal weapons. They also have cubical feces.
 * Dingoes deserve a mention too. They're dogs, their puppies are still adorable, but... well... this is one of the top predators in Australia. Only a few things eat them—wedge-tailed eagles, which occasionally attack the elderly ones, and saltwater crocodiles. Oh, and they sometimes kill people (they prefer babies, from what I've heard). In fact, they're a sort of predator cocktail—the organisation of wolves, the threat level of cougars.
 * Speaking of which, the saltwater crocodile. Can grow up to 20 feet or longer. And weight over one ton.
 * The platypus' poisoned spur can cripple. And there's no known antivenom, so even if there's no lasting damage, you've got several hours of excruciating pain to look forward to.
 * Just to expand on that; the poison in question is not lethal but will make you wish it was. It results in such incredible excruciating pain that a lethal dose of morphine will not stop it.
 * Wedge-tailed eagles are bigger than bald eagles. That's right, America—our eagle can kick your eagle's ass any day! How much larger? The wedge-tail's average wingspan is six inches larger than the bald eagle's maximum wingspan.
 * Most bandicoots, on the other hand, are the native Australian version of rabbits. Indeed, we'd rather have more of them than all these bloody rabbits.
 * And some of the deadliest snakes in the world. Which are very tasty. As David Morgan-Mar put it, "Only 9 of the top 10 most venomous snakes in the world live in Australia. Of course, 9 of the top 9 venomous snakes in the world live in Australia."
 * Emus. Not only can they kick the crap out of you, but they are one of those species who does the same thing all those huge sauropods used to do - eat solid god-damned rocks to grind up their food.
 * Then you have the Cassowary which is basically an Emu that's been compacted for ease in ambushing joggers that get too close to forested areas.
 * Or the reason feathered raptors aren't laughable.
 * With a horn! On a frickin' bird!
 * Actually it's a crest. The main danger over an emu is that it has a raptor claw on one of its toes. Yes, one of those ones.
 * To give you an idea of how tough this thing is, even Steve Irwin got cautious around them.
 * The cassowary is basically a smaller emu which was apparently created in response to complaints that emus were too sane and peaceable.
 * And kangaroos. The biggest ones are taller than the average man when they stand upright, and can leap 9 metres in one leap. So you'd better believe those big, powerful legs can cause incredible damage to a human - not to mention those feet have nice long claws on them. There's tales of humans being nearly disembowelled by a kangaroo kick.
 * To add to that they actually prefer to drown their attackers in a river. And if that doesn't works they grab them and kick them with their legs, did we mention that those are extremely strong, until the attacker topples over because of internal bleeding?
 * Sugar-gliders. Notable for being so damn cute that even the most hardened bushman is reduced to girlish squeals just by looking at them. And unlike most of the things on this list, they're totally harmless. Go on, google a picture of one. Awwwwwww.
 * Possums, being well-known for the creature that most Australians run over since they only come out at night. They're also known for being little cheeky bastards - they'll steal fruit from your trees, terrorize your dog, make unholy noise during the night, and god forbid if any of them get inside your house or roof. There's pest control business dedicated solely to getting rid of them. They also have a nasty bite if provoked. Still, since they're mostly harmless and pretty cute, they're not so much a part of Australia's deadly wildlife as much as they are the irritating part.
 * Box jellyfish. Their sting is the most painful sensation possible. Found in Australia's tropical regions during summer: while swimming at those beaches during those months, it is extremely important to wear full body cover. Or, better yet, don't go swimming.
 * And irukandji. There are nets at beaches to keep the box jellyfish out and fool people into thinking it's safe to swim. Except the irukandji are almost as painful and are small enough to get through the nets. Australia, where a necessary beachside day includes vinegar.
 * "Irukandji syndrome" is the effect of this little dear's venom - not only are you in excruciating pain but you become convinced you are going to die and will beg to be put out of your misery.
 * Drop Bears. Fear them.
 * Those damn drop bears cause more injuries then all the snakes and spiders combined.
 * Make sure to smear vegemite on your ears, they won't attack you then!
 * Another method: while bushwalking, put your thumb to your forehead and wiggle your fingers upwards at all times. It mesmerises them so they don't attack you. Totally.
 * Hoop snakes. And kangawallafoxes. Also, land sharks.
 * The deadliest animal of all: feral penguins.
 * And while it is true that MOST of the particularly nasty things that happen to live in Australia live only in relative wilderness areas where you might expect dangerous things to live, there's a very important exception. The redback spider (a relative of the black widow, and has similar markings) isn't likely to kill you, but you damn well won't want to get bitten by one a second time. And they live in the cities, too.
 * And then there's the founding father of Aussie Badassery, Ned Kelly himself. Starting with the 40 kg suit of armour. Then there was getting a friend to reload his rifle so he could keep firing even with his left arm disabled by police fire during the siege at Glenrowan. Finally, when he was eventually brought down, he had twenty-eight gunshot wounds. They weren't what killed him, either. He was hanged. Long story short, imagine a cross between Butch Cassidy and Iron Man.
 * Ned Kelly's last words but newspapers at the time reported his last words were "Such is life", while his warden, who was present at the hanging said that when Ned Kelly was asked to speak hi final words he mumbled something that could not be heard.
 * Badass he may have been, but if he'd bothered to protect his legs the police would have had a much harder time stopping him. His armour at least allowed him to survive until he was hanged.
 * Then there was Breaker Morant, who after being found guilty of murdering POWs in the Boer War, shouted "shoot straight you b'stards! Don't make a mess of it!" at his executioners. If you could sum up Australians quickly it would be "mouthy buggers". Also note that Australians use the word "bastard" as a noun, verb, adjective, and honorific.
 * and sometimes, even as an insult. It's a very versatile word.
 * Fosters beer - thanks to Crocodile Dundee himself, everyone outside of Australia thinks that everyone in Australia drinks nothing but the 'amber nectar'. Australians tend to prefer less fizzy and more flavoursome (and more alcoholic) brews.
 * It's also worth pointing out that the 'Australian' beer you can buy abroad is brewed locally under license.
 * All foreign beer is made locally under license, beer doesn't travel well.
 * Castlemaine is a probably UK-only example best described as "Fosters, but worse". Also noteworthy for being brewed next to the site of an old gasworks that was so badly contaminated with hazardous chemical waste that it took a couple of decades to clean it up well enough to be safely built on... at which point production of Castlemaine moved elsewhere.
 * And in Australia, the stuff is a novelty at best and near impossible to find in most of the country.
 * Aussies aren't lacking in variety when it comes to booze. The Barossa Valley, north of Adelaide, is a HUGE exporter of wine.
 * Goon: it's basically the equivalent to Nightrain, except far less classy and even more alcoholic.
 * Australian entertainers include Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Hugo Weaving, Mel Gibson, and Nick Cave.
 * Special mention goes to dancer and Dancing With the Stars veteran Kym Johnson, who's begun to acquire a reputation of being damn near indestructible. In one season of the American version, she endured a pretty nasty knee injury and continued to dance with partner Jerry Springer. That, however, is nothing compared to the season with Hines Ward. She suffered a difficult-to-watch neck injury while rehearsing, where she was in an awkward position on the floor, and Hines (who's over twice her size,) fell on top of her. She went on, not only to dance later that week, but to win the whole damn thing. Said attempts have only seemed to anger her.
 * Drunk Australian rides crocodile. How stereotypical can you get?
 * Here's an older story about a man wrestling with a crocodile to save his wife's life, if this doesn't make him an automatic badass I don't know what else could qualify.
 * How about a 60 year old grandmother wrestling a crocodile to save a stranger?
 * Australian Rules Football. Possibly one of the most violent games in the world. And the most skillful to boot.
 * This Australian troper would like to relate that he heard of two American Football players came to Australia once and watched a game of AFL. When asked if they wanted to have a shot, they basically replied with "Are you nuts?"
 * The uniform for this game is a tank top and short shorts. No armour, no protection beyond mouthguards and the occasional bit of strapping tape.
 * Although most of the teams have damn manly nicknames like 'Bombers' or 'Demons', one team is so manly that they are comfortable calling themselves the Sydney Swans.
 * Back to the dwarf comparison, with the "living underground" criteria, there's the Central Australian town of Coober Pedy, where most of the town lives underground. Add to that the fact that it's a mining town...
 * Some of them have their house built underground as the entrance of their mine, its definitely worth seeing.
 * Featured prominently in Jared Diamond's book Collapse, about civilisations that ... collapse.
 * The Aussies were among the main participants in the New Guinea campaign-which was a contest over who was the most Determined and who had the most reserves with the Japanese in steep mountains, choked with Jungle, stuffed to the brim with disease and in general a Death World.