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Until the late 1960s, many have argued that Australian popular music was largely indistinguishable from imported music: British to begin with, then gradually more and more American in the post-war years. The sudden arrival of the 1960s underground movement into the mainstream in the early 1970s changed Australian music permanently: Skyhooks were far from the first people to write songs in Australia, by Australians, about Australia, but they were the first ones ever to make money doing it. The two best-selling albums ever made (at that time) put Australian music on the map. Within a few years, the novelty had worn off and it became commonplace to hear distinctively Australian lyrics and sometimes sounds side-by-side with the imitators and the imports.

Australia's comparative advantage in primary products is a reflection of the natural wealth of the Australian Continent and its small domestic market; 19 million people occupy a continent the size of the contiguous United States. The relative size of the manufacturing sector has been declining for several decades, and now accounts for just under 12 percent of GDP.

The geography of Australia encompasses a wide variety of biogeographic regions being the world's smallest continent but the sixth-largest country. The population is concentrated along the eastern and southeastern coasts; regular, tropical, invigorating, sea breeze known as "the Doctor" occurs along the west coast in the summer.

Many raw materials (including resources postulated to exist but yet to be discovered) remain mostly unexploited. Australia is often referred to by economists as the "world's farm", but despite this emphasis on the agriculture sector, in recent years the Australian government has been focusing on the tourism, education and technology markets.

According to Reporters Without Borders in 2004, Australia is in 41st position on a list of countries ranked by Press Freedom; well behind New Zealand (9th) and United Kingdom (28th). With the Howard government taking control of the Senate in mid-2005 after the 2004 election, media ownership regulations are likely to be relaxed so as to allow the further concentration of media ownership in the hands of a couple of entities.

Australia has had a significant school of painting since the early days of European settlement, and Australians with international reputations include Sidney Nolan, Russell Drysdale, and Arthur Boyd—not to mention the prized work of many Aboriginal artists. Writers who have achieved world recognition include Thomas Keneally, Les Murray, Colleen McCullough, Nevil Shute, Morris West, Jill Ker Conway, Booker Prize winner Peter Carey and Nobel Prize winner Patrick White. Noted expatriate writers include Germaine Greer and Clive James, who are sometimes better known in the UK than they are in Australia.

The land that is now Australia was first discovered by Europeans in 1522 by the Portuguese explorer Cristóvão de Mendonça, but it was only in the 17th century that the island continent became the subject of European exploration, with several expeditions sighting Terra Australis: The Dutch explorer Willem Jansz (1606), the Portuguese explorer Luis Vaez de Torres in Spanish service (1607), and the Dutch explorers Jan Carstensz (1623), Dirk Hartog and Abel Tasman (1642), after whom is named the island of Tasmania, but which he himself originally named after Anthoonij van Diemenslandt.

Darwin has a tropical climate with distinct wet and dry seasons. The dry season runs from May to September, in the coolest months of June and July daily temperature range is 19 to 30°C. In the Wet season is associated with tropical cyclones and monsoon rains, the majority of rainfall occurs between December and March, thunderstorms are common and humidity is regularly over 70 per cent.