Garie Beach

Questions about Sydney, Australia?

1. Do the trees lose their leaves during fall and winter? 2. How cold does it get? Cold enough to get frost, cold enough to wear a jacket? 3. How many days of sunshine does Sydney get per year? How many hours per day does Sydney get sunshine? ( The hours change each month so could you also add which month has a certain amount of sunshine hours) 4. How many inches of rain does Sydney get per month? Does that rain come from a few large storms, or a lot of smaller storms. 5. Average water temperature per month. (For Bondi Beach and the Harbor) 6. Why do they say Surry Hills and Bondi Beach, etc... is part of Sydney, but then they have " The City of Sydney" and "Sydney Metropolitan Area" In the Simplest of Terms, is "The City of Sydney" Bondi Beach and Surry Hills districts of Sydney like Manhattan and The Bronx in New York? Or are they completely different towns? ( and i know each of those areas have a different "Council" Im just so confussed with this. And if they are just districts, can you name all the districts there are? 7. About how many homicides are there per year in Sydney? 8. In general is it a safe city for its size? 9. What is their emergancy number, like America has 911, what their emergancy number? 10. What kind of money do they use? 11. What is their goverment like? 12. Are they in any kind of debt? 13. What age are you able to start legally driving? 14. Is tennis a popular sport? Are there alot of tennis courts in Sydney? 15. Are most people generally friendly? 16. I heard Sydney's averge low temperature is getting higher? Is this true? And Please add any other information i might want to know! I want to know anything and everything i can before i decide I should move to Sydney. ( Maybe adding more questions soon) Also how many square miles is the Tangora Zoo? And what special skills would i need to immigrate to Australia? Please dont give me a link. Just tell me some jobs that would be considered a "Special Skill" I would like my job to be about tennis or a job that has to do with history or geography.

Public Comments

1. 1. The trees do not lose their leaves in winter. 2. Winter can get as low as 0c but usually 5 to 10c minimum is normal. It is cold enough to wear a jacket but it won't snow unless you are in the mountains. Frost is pretty rare. The last time downtown Sydney had snow was in 1836. 3. Sydney has on average 340 sunny days a year. On average it has 6.75 hours of sunshine per day (7.7 hours per day in November, 5.4 hours in June). 4. Sydney averages 3.9 inches of rain per month. Rain comes from low pressure weather systems (not necessarily storms) throughout the year. The first half of the year is typically wetter than the latter half. 5. The water temperature off Manly beach averages about 22C in January. 6. Sydney is governed at a local level a great number of local councils. The city does not have large scale counties in the same way say New York does. The Sydney city council for instance covers the central business district (downtown) and a few suburbs south of there. Surry Hills for instance is governed by Sydney city council. Bondi Beach however is comes under Waverley council. All of these local government councils make up the greater area that is Sydney (the metropolitan area). There is no governing body at a metropolitan level. The levels go Local Government, State government then Federal government. Often the state government will control infrastructure across the city such as roads, water, power etc. 7. As a comparison, in 1992 Los Angeles reported 1094 homicides. In the same year Sydney reported 53 homicides. 8. For a city of 4 million, I tend to think so. You do have be aware of what is going on around you, but its a lot lot safer than any American city would ever be. 9. The emergency phone number, Australia wide, is 000 for police, fire and Ambulance. 10. Australia uses the Australian dollar. There are notes for 100, 50, 20,10 and 5 dollars. There are gold coloured coins for 2 and 1 dollars. The are silver coloured coins for 50, 20, 10 and 5 cents. Australian notes are made of polymer plastic and are considered the most secure (difficult to counterfeit) in the world. Each denomination note is a different size and colour). 11. Australia has one of the most stable governments in world. There is typically a two major parties (roughly equivalent to the US) - the Liberal Party and the Labour Party. There are also minor parties and Independent members of parliament. 12. Prior to the economic downtown, Australia had about 10 years of economic surpluses year on year. The current government has put the country into a lot of debt in combating the recession. Even so most of the country has yet to feel much effect from the downtown. Economic analysts believe the country has avoided a technical recession. 13. You can get your learner drivers permit at age 17. 14. Tennis is a popular sport. The Australian tennis open (the grand slam) and the hopman cup are major international tennis tournaments. Former tennis grounds such as Kooyong and White city were reknowned during their times. There are a lot of both public and private tennis courts all over Sydney and Australia. 15. Australians are direct. They call a spade a spade. They are also reknowned for their friendliness and generosity. Sydneysiders do suffer a bit from the big city syndrome, just like New Yorkers do. But this is part and parcel of living in the fast lane. The great majority of Aussies are a friendly bunch. 16. If anything the weather is getting milder. Winters are getting warmer, summers aren't so searingly hot.
2. Regarding the immigrtion requirement - what are the jobs/skills now will not be on the list in two years time. E.g. teaching is on the list maths and science only - but last year all teachers were on the list. Next year no teachers are likely to be on the list. The majority of skills are not "history/geography etc" but electrician, plumber, technical skills no university education skills. We need people to do the grudge work we have enough university educated people of our own.
3. cc has given an excellent answer. Just to add about the 'special skill', the main skills are in health care eg doctor, pharmacist, dentist, or in surveying or engineering. I'm afraid there isn't anything relating to tennis, history or geography. You don't want the link, but it's easier to just look at the list on the department of immigration website. There is a huge demand to migrate to Australia, only the most qualified applicants are eligible. Also, just to clarify the answer to the first question, it depends on the tree. Our own native trees don't lose their leaves, but most introduced species from Asia, Europe and the Americas do.