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Doing business in Australia - a handbook

Introduction

Australia’s history is a story of the struggle for survival by Europeans perched on the fertile fringe of an essentially arid land.

They prevailed in that fringe, and by and large have stayed there. As a consequence Australia’s population is fairly dense around the south coast and in pockets along the southern and south west coasts of the continent. This means that a people populating an area which is, in total, about the same as the populated west coast of the USA have a hinterland of some 2 million square kilometres as their backyard.

It also means that Australians, the youngest Western style society on the planet have been living a life of urban settlement and commuting to work from dormitory suburbs for longer than any other western cultural group. Business, industry and closely settled, egalitarian democracy have been the reality of Australia for longer than anywhere else in the world, despite the image of the “Crocodile Dundee” bushwacker that many people hold in their mind’s eye.

The country is divided into six states and two territories which reflect the original sovereign colonies from which it was federated in 1900.With a population of just under 20 million, a pleasant healthy climate, immense natural resources and an educated, industrious people, Australia makes a prime business destination.

A nation of immigrants

The history of Australia is a history of immigration; of the arrival of new energies and new ideas as the upheavals of the old world produced waves of refugees. It is a history that parallels that of the United States of America
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Similarly to the people of the United States, Australians rejected the strict social arrangements of Europe and built a hugely prosperous nation based on a sort of knock about freedom. In America the basis of that approach is protected by a constitution purposely set forth by revolutionaries to ensure that no government could ever deprive people of their liberties. Despite the best efforts of 200 years of civil servants, that constitutional guarantee more or less survives. The Australian constitution largely was written by small businessmen and farmers. under no threat of war. It guarantees free trade between the states, and not much else. As a result it fairly can be said that nearly all the old fashioned freedoms of Australians have been eroded severely by the pressures of modern society.

Business as a national sport

It is in business that Australians quietly take their next greatest joy after physical sports. And as most Australians are more spectators than players in the sports, it could be said that their first and real sport is business.

Business law is well developed and most regulations at least express a desire to assist businesses in tbhe conduct of their affairs.

Each state has its own peculiarites, and it is not long ago that corporations and businesses were subject to seven different sets of rules. The basic business law of Australia is now governed by the "