Land of Waltzing Matilda Australia the Beautiful

Land of Waltzing Matilda

Australia The Beautiful

This wonderful Continent Island of Australia is vast compared to most islands. The circumference of this incredible land surrounded by water and, encloses Deserts of Bareness.

Australia is the smallest, flattest and most arid of Continents. Arable land is just 6% of its total area, but it supports the world’s largest sheep herd, in excess of 100,000 million. This Beautiful land is to a very large extent Desert

There four major Deserts and two smaller ones

GIBSON DESERT 120,000 sq. miles

GREAT SANDY DESERT 150,000 sq. miles

GREAT VICTORIA DESERT (250,000 sq. miles in size)

SIMPSON DESERT 56,000 sq. miles

As you can see on the weather map, there is very little green,

The population mainly follows the East Coast from the Northern Tip

of Australia to the bottom of Victoria and all of Tasmania. NSW has the largest population and Sydney has now in excess of 4,000,000

New South Wales

(6,782,100) (811,428 sq km)

There are Six States and Two Territories being: -

Taking them from the right and the top of the map they are: -

Queensland, Que, (Brisbane); New South Wales, NSW, (Sydney); Victoria, Vic, (Melbourne); Tasmania, Tas, (Hobart) ;

South Australia, SA, (Adelaide); West Australia, WA, (Perth); The Northern Territory. NT, (Darwin) and the Australian Capital Territory, ACT, (Canberra.)

This is the Capital of Australia and the Federal Government is managed from there and the Prime Minister lives there. The Federal Government has two levels of Government: - These levels are called the House of Representatives (The Main Government.) The House elects The Prime Minister.

The Senate is elected every 7 years. You could say it is a Job for life, at a good pay.

All the States have a State Government and they are elect one of their own members to be in charge of that State and they are called Premiers.

Each State has elections every three years, with the acception of Queensland.

Each State has two levels of Government, with the acception of Queensland.

These levels are called the House of Representatives (The Main Government.) The Senate and elected every 7 years.

If you stand for an election, The Australian Election Office pays you a sum of money (141.711) just for standing for that election. That is if you receive 4 % of the votes. If you fail to be elected you nominate the Party, you would like your votes to be given to. The last Election lost power as Australia has a Party Called “The Green Party.” All of their votes that were polled to the Greens’ were then Given to the Newly Elected Government; consequently the existing Government lost the election. The previous election a lady went to jail for about eight months for electoral fraud. This last election, she had learnt her lesson and earnt something like $170,000 thousand dollars just for her nomination and achieving 4% of the vote, I wish I had thought of that.

The Prime Minister lost his seat for the same reason; he polled more votes than the new member of this seat, but the Greens, vote got the new member in to that seat. It would appear at a casual glance the old Government were either too tired after 11 years, or they did not think the Green Party were a significant worry.

The Population of each State (By Numbers) is as Follows: -

New South Wales

(6,782,100) (811,428 sq km) Sydney, Capital City, New South Wales, 4,250,100 (33º 87' S, 151º 21' E)

Victoria

(4,984,300) (227,600 sq km) Melbourne, Capital City, Victoria, 3,610,800 (37º 81' S, 144º 96' E)

Queensland

(3,757,300) (1,787.200 sq km) Brisbane, Capital City, Queensland, 1,547,700 (27º 46' S, 153º 02' E)

Western Australia

(1,987,100) (2,525.500 sq km) Perth, Capital City, Western Australia, 1,375,200 (31º 96' S, 115º 84' E)

South Australia

(1,532,500) (10,244,377 sq km) Adelaide, Capital City, South Australia, 1,087,600 (34º 93' S, 138º 60' E)

Tasmania

(482,000) (67,800 sq km) Hobart, Capital City, Tasmania, 189,400 (42º 85' S, 147º 29' E)

Australian Capital Territory

(377,700) (2,452 sq km) Canberra, National Capital, 327,700 (35º 31' S, 149º 13' E

Northern Territory

(249,400) (1,346,200 sq km) Darwin, Capital City, Northern Territory, 96,200 (12º 43' S, 130º 85' E)

Significant Other Cities in Australia: -

Newcastle, New South Wales, 500,000 (32º 92' S, 151º 75' E

Gold Coast, Queensland, 439,200 (28º 07' S, 143º 44' E)

TOTAL Population

21,264,082 (2007 estimate)

TOTAL Land Area

(7,617,930 sq km) (2,941,285 sq miles)

There is a Mayor for Each of the States’ Major Cities and all little Cities and locations inside the Cities and throughout the Country are called Councils and they have Councilors running the affairs of each Council with a Mayor of their own. Shires if they are in the Country Areas.

Within Fifteen Km of our home we have three Councils and three Mayors with their own Councilors. You could say Australia was very much over

Governed.

All motor vehicle have their steering wheels located on the right hand side and the car is with the passenger sitting on the left hand side of the vehicle.

Speed varies to the location you are driving through. Like 40 km per hour when you are near a school, then may be 70 Km per hour or some times 60 km per hour Open Country side 110 Km per hour. Tunnels and some motorway are limited to 80 Km per hour.

Australians have a low fertility rate of 1.7child per mother.

Whereas Russia has a fertility rate of 1.1 per mother and Niger’s

fertility rate is 8 children per mother.

Some Amazing Facts: -

Australian has the third lowest consumption in the World of Cigarettes: - 2,710 per head of population and the USA are 2,670 per head, where as Poland consumes 3,620. This indicates the advertising in Australia and the USA is very effective. Whereas Europe and Southern Europe are very high, due to cheap cigarettes and ineffectual Government Campaigns to warn of the dangers of smoking.

Australia has only 32.5 % female representation in Parliament. Sweden leads the World with 43% Representation and the USA, 15% and United Kingdom, 18%.

The Nile is the longest River in the World 6,695 km

The Murray River is 3,750 km

Murrumbridgee River is 1,690 km

Lakes: - Lake Eyre 8,900 km sq 15 m below sea level

Lake Torrens 5,780 km sq

Both lakes are normally dry salt pans; fill in very heavy rains, like right now

(About every 7 years)

The Tallest Mountain Mt. Kosciusko 7309 ft is

under half the size of Mt. Wilhelm 14,793 ft. New Guinea

Great Victorian Desert is 647,000 km sq

Lake Torrens 5,780 km sq

Highest recorded Temperature Cloncurry 53.1C

Lowest Temperature Charlotte Pass -23 C

Driest Place is Mulka 103 mm annual rainfall

Australia has been experiencing a severe drought in many parts of the Country for up to four years. This year there has been more rain and flooded several of these dry lands and a lot of the smaller towns 6 to 7 metre of water rushing though the town. This is a disaster with say 20 Feet of water rushing down the Main Street to devour you.

A question you may be asking is why the

Land of Waltzing Matilda?

The original lyrics were written in 1895 by the poet and nationalist Banjo Paterson, and it was first published as sheet music in 1903.

Extensive folklore surrounds the song and the process of its creation, to the extent that the song has its own museum, the Waltzing Matilda Centre in Winton, Queensland.

Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson (17 February 1864 – 5 February 1941)^[2] was a famous Australian bush poet, journalist and author. He wrote many ballads and poems about Australian life, focusing particularly on the rural and outback areas, including the district around Binalong, New South Wales where he spent much of his childhood. Paterson's more notable poems include: -

"Waltzing Matilda",

"The Man from Snowy River"

"Clancy of the Overflow".

"Waltzing Matilda" is Australia's most widely known Folk Song, and one that has been popularly suggested as a potential National Anthem.

The song narrates the story of an itinerant worker making a drink of tea at a bush camp and stealing a sheep to eat. When the sheep's owner arrives with three police officers to arrest the worker, he drowns himself in a small lake and goes on to haunt the site.

Here are some of the words you should become familiar with: -

billabong

An originally aboriginal word for a section of still water adjacent to a river, cut off by a change in the watercourse, cf. an oxbow lake. In the Australian outback, a billabong generally retains water longer than the watercourse itself, so it may be the only water for miles around.

billy

A tin can, maybe two litres (four pints) in capacity, usually with a wire handle attached to the top rim, in which 'swaggies' (and contemporary Australian campers) boil water to make tea (and to kill the beasties in the water they've taken out of the billabong).

coolibah tree (also coolabah)

A particular kind of eucalyptus that grows beside billabongs.

More specifically, a friend tells me that it's eucalyptus microtheca, a small to medium-sized tree to 20m, widespread in arid and semi-arid areas near watercourses and seasonally inundated areas in open woodlands, found in all states except Victoria and Tasmania.

jumbuck

A sheep.

The Macquarie Dictionary suggests that the term is an Aboriginal corruption of 'jump up'. A correspondent, Leslie (Lee) Harvey advises me that the term derives from 'jombok'. "Jomboks are those big, white, fluffy clouds that typically drift across the inland Australian skies in late summer and Autumn. When the aboriginals first saw sheep they were reminded of jomboks and they just changed one letter to avoid confusion in their spoken language. I also think the first European translators misspelled the word jumbuck".

Sheila

A name In Australia and New Zealand for a young Girl or a woman

squatter

As Australia was settled, there was of course little or no authority and bureaucracy in place. People 'squatted' on patches of land, grazed their animals, grew their crops and built their houses and fences. In due course, as authority arrived, it generally accepted the claims of whoever was in apparent possession of the land (aboriginals had been no match for armed white men, and anyway were largely nomadic across reasonably large areas). Particularly in good quality grazing country, squatters quickly became relatively very well off, hence the term 'squattocracy' which blends 'squatter' with 'aristocracy'. The constabulary tended to work with them to maintain law and order. To non-land-owners, squatters were an object of resentment.

swagman

A gentleman of the road, an itinerant roaming country roads, a drifter, a tramp, a hobo. Carried his few belongings slung in a cloth, which was called by a wide variety of names, including 'swag', 'shiralee' and 'bluey'. Given the large number of names for them, they must have been a pretty common sight.

troopers

A cavalry soldier, or perhaps a mounted militia-man or policeman. To a swaggie, what was the difference??

tucker-bag

A bag to keep tucker in. Tucker is grub, victuals/vittles, or food.

waltzing matilda

Matilda was a mock-romantic word for a swag, and to waltz matilda was to hit the road with a swag on your back. Very few non-Australians seem to understand this, and hence regard the song as gibberish or cute, something like 'Jabberwocky' set to music. "'Twas brillig and the slithy toves ..." indeed.

The term is thought to come from a German expression. Auf die Walz gehen means to take to the road (as of apprentices in the Middle Ages, who were required by their Master to visit other Masters and report back, before they could secure their release. In some trades, at least in some parts of Germany and I believe Denmark, they still do). The dance, anglicised as 'waltz', came several centuries later). Matilda is a girl's name, applied to one's bed-roll. As a correspondent point out, this is a bit of a come-down for a name that originated as the Teutonic Mathilde - 'Mighty in Battle'.

So the poem (doggerel? folk song?) can be interpreted as yet another Aussie complaint about them in authority. We're one of the most urbanised nations in the world, who sort-of yearn for the wide open spaces (there's so much of it out there!), and the freedom that goes with it (or at least seems to go with it, to those that don't live there). Waltzing Matilda strikes a chord, generation after generation, for the same reason that Crocodile Dundee was as popular here as anywhere else.

"Waltzing Matilda" is usually sung in informal settings, but it was played with a 90 piece orchestra and the 100 voice Melbourne Chorale at the 2005 Classical Spectacular.

The song has never been the officially recognised national anthem in Australia. The song was one of four included in a national plebiscite to choose Australia's national song held on 21 May 1977 by the Fraser Government to determine which song was preferred as Australia's national anthem. "Waltzing Matilda" received 28% of the vote compared with 43% for "Advance Australia Fair", 19% for "God Save the Queen" and 10% for "Song of Australia".^[1]

"Waltzing Matilda" was used at the Montreal Olympic Games in 1976, and, as a response to the New Zealand All Blacks haka, it has gained popularity as a sporting anthem for the Australia national rugby union team. It is also performed, along with "Advance Australia Fair", at the annual AFL Grand Final. As of 2007 it has no official status as a national song of Australia, but it continues to be used unofficially (and sometimes in error, for example as the national anthem in the EPYX computer game series Summer Games ) in many contexts.

It is used as the quick march of the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment. It is the official march of the U.S. 1st Marine Division, commemorating the time the unit spent in Australia during the Second World War.

It is also partly used in the British Royal Tank Regiment's quick march of "My Boy Willie," because early British tanks were called "Matildas."

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong,

Under the shade of a coolibah tree,

And he sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled

"Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me?"

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda

"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"

And he sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled,

"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".

Down came a jumbuck to drink at the billabong,

Up got the swagman and grabbed him with glee,

And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker bag,

"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda

"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"

And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker bag,

"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".

Down came the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred,

Up came the troopers, one, two, three,

"Where's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?"

"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda

"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"

"Who's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?";

"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".

Up got the swaggy and jumped into the billabong,

"You'll never catch me alive," said he,

And his ghost may be heard as you passed by that billabong,

"Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me?"

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda

Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me

And his ghost may be heard as you passed by that billabong,

"Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me?"

As of yesterday 23 January 2008 Australia

Has a New Matilda.

Daughter of Heath Ledger

The Death of a Legend

“For Whom the Bell Tolls”

Banjo and the swagman have long since gone,

but the land is still there and waiting for you now.

Australia’s mighty Actor has now gone

and will be sorely Missed by all.