if the child (or anyone, in fact) has an accident where they are deemed at fault, then they will be up for the repair bill for all damaged property. either directly to the repairer, or the other persons insurer can send you the bill if they choose to use their own insurance.

the kid will need to then sort out a bank loan to settle with the insurer.

if the child injures the other person, then the CTP insurance should pick that up.

if child doesn’t pay the repair damage bill, the insurer can involve debt collectors. if child still doesn’t pay and the matter goes to court, the court will recognises that there is a debt owed and then this ends up as a black mark on childs credit history. bit of a rubbish way to start your adult life.

third party property damage insurance is not THAT expensive, compared to full comprehensive. in WA, for a 17 year old, you can get third party property damage insurance for under $ 200 a year. seriously, if you can’t afford AT LEAST that, you shouldn’t be driving.

put yourself in the other persons shoes. i’d be pretty annoyed if some kid smashed into my car and wasn’t insured. i’d have to claim on my own insurance, lose my no claims discount and pay the excess, all for something completely not my fault.

To get a mortgage you have to be earning a decent amount or money and have been in your current job for a decent length of time. The absolute minimum to get a loan is 3 months for a full time job, 6 months for part time and 12 months for casual. However for such a large loan they would quite easily be able to ask for longer.

You also have to have a deposit saved up, the minumum is 5% (so for a $ 300k home loan you would need to give the bank $ 15k up front) but some places ask for more, especially if you are a bit of a risk (young, not a very high earner, dont have a great credit rating etc)

Australia is a very dry country. It is also a very big country, so the climate is very different in the north compared to the south. The centre is desert and most people live along the coastline.

Most jobs are in the major cities, which are suffering from population stress. House prices in most of our major cities are among the least affordable in the world. Interest rates have been rising because of the American sub-loan crisis, so our interest rates are over 8% at the moment and going up. Some people are paying around 9.5%.

Thousands of people have lost their homes because they can’t afford the repayments. Those people have put pressure on the rental market. In many cases people can’t find any accommodation at all. We also have many homeless people, of all ages, some of whom have mental illnesses.

Most cities have strict water restrictions. For example, I cannot wash my car. There are places where people have to buy their drinking water from the supermarket. There are also many places outside of the cities where people have to get trucks to deliver water for household purposes.

Some cities have major transport problems. People can stand for over an hour trying to get a taxi from an airport. People can stand for hours trying to get a bus to go to work. It depends on the city. Many people travel hours to reach their place of work. The reason they live so far from their jobs is because accommodation near their jobs is unaffordable.

Gas (known here as petrol) can cost as much as A$ 1.53 a litre at some petrol stations. That is currently about US$ 1.40 a litre. The price of gas fluctuates widely on a daily basis. 1 US gallon = 3.785 litres, so from my calculations that would be about A$ 5.80 or US$ 5.30 a gallon. Here is a good site to get some information about fuel and cars.

http://www.mynrma.com.au/cps/rde/xchg/mynrma/

I’m given to understand that our cities have not been designed to be public transport friendly. Plus most places in Australia are far apart from each other. So most people need to have a car.

Research has suggested that Australian workers work longer hours (many unpaid) than their counterparts in other parts of the industrialised world. Currently there is a lot of focus on addressing the stress this has placed on the family. Many people are sinking under the stress and seeking alternative lifestyles (much poorer but more time for loved ones).

There are some very beautiful and peaceful places in Australia, but most of them don’t have job vacancies or adequate health services. Most young people in towns find that they have to move to the cities just to get work. Having said that, there are vacancies all over the country for doctors, nurses, teachers, to name three occupations.

Our health system has been under enormous stress in recent years. Not enough doctors or nurses. Not enough funding for the hospitals. Waiting lists for surgery are very long. I had cancer and had to wait for 6 months to have surgery and I was lucky (I had a doctor willing to lobby for me). The hospital wanted to make me wait 12 months. People who are just about to go into surgery can also be sent home at the last minute. On the morning of my surgery I was told that they might not be able to fit me in and I’d have to be rescheduled.

Nevertheless, in this country, to my knowledge just because someone does not have private health insurance doesn’t mean that they are turned away from a hospital when it is a critical emergency. Although there have been some tragic situations where people have died in the emergency areas because they were not attended to in time or they have died at home because they were sent home in error when they should have been given emergency treatment.

Dentists here are very expensive. There are public dentists but I think their waiting lists are very long, and I don’t know who in the population would qualify to be able to access a public dentist. Probably pensioners.

There is private medical insurance available from many companies. Most people with a decent income buy that insurance. There is a medical levy (percentage of income) that most people have to pay as part of their income tax. Some people are exempt from the levy. You might wish to read:

http://www.aph.gov.au/Library/Pubs/RN/1996-97/97rn26.htm

We do have unemployed people. Some of these have been retrenched from companies that have collapsed or from jobs that have been transferred to developing nations where there is cheaper labour. Of course there are many other reasons why people are unemployed. Probably similar reasons to those of the American unemployed. But generally there is plenty of employment for people who have good skills.

We have a multicultural society. Roughly 29% of our population were born overseas. A large proportion of our population are the children or grandchildren of immigrants. We also have our Aboriginal population. This mix of backgrounds makes for a culturally rich society. There are tensions from time to time based on race, ethnicity, and religion but most of the time people are very accepting.

While a lot of my assessment sounds gloomy I have to note that I love my country. My family has been here for over 200 years. With our new government now in place I have a lot of hope for our nation.

Sorry this is so long, but I hope it helps a bit. Email me if I missed anything important.