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To be accepted into Australia under the migration program a person must be a skilled migrant or sponsored by a family member that already lives in Australia, a third class covers special eligibility migrants which includes Australians returning to Australia that had to give up citizenship to live overseas.

Although Australia has scarcely more than two persons per square kilometer of total land area, this raw figure is highly misleading: most of the continent is desert or semi-desert and of no agricultural value. In consequence, Australia is one of the world's most urbanized countries: less than 15% of the population live in rural areas.

Probably the most well known Australian food is Vegemite. Similar to the British Marmite it is a strong tasting, yeast extract spread, common in sandwiches or on toast. Some Australian sweets, such as the Violet Crumble chocolate bar, are manufactured in Australia and are sold within the country, as well as a few international places such as Hawaii. Tim Tams are a chocolate biscuit, generally only common in Australia.

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.

With a population of approx. 170,000 people in the city proper (known as the "city of Sydney") and a metropolitan area population exceeding 4 million, the Sydney metropolis is the larger of the two main financial, transport, trade and cultural centres of Australia (the other being Melbourne, Sydney's long term rival to the title of pre-eminent Australian city).

Rainfall in Australia is highly variable, with frequent droughts lasting several seasons. Occasionally a duststorm will blanket a region or even several states and there are reports of the occasional large tornado. Rising levels of salinity and desertification in some areas is ravaging the landscape.

Emigration now also plays a role in changing Australian demographics. The term, Australian Diaspora, refers to the 850,000 Australian citizens who today live outside Australia. This phenomena is relatively new in Australia's history, estimated as having occurred over the last 40 years. Awareness of this demographic (almost 5% of the Australian population) is growing and supported by government initiates.

During the period of 1855-1890, the six Crown Colonies each successively became self-governing colonies, which managed most of their own affairs. British law was adopted in each colony at the time of the granting of responsible government, and was subsequently modified by the individual legislatures. The British government retained control of some matters, especially foreign affairs, defence, international shipping. Despite its heavily rural based economy Australia remained significantly urbanised, centred particularly around the cities of Melbourne and Sydney. In the 1880s 'Marvellous Melbourne' was the second largest city in the British Empire. Australia also gained a reputation as a 'working man's paradise' and as a laboratory for social reform, with the world's first secret ballot and first national Labor Party government.

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.

While Australia has ubiquitous media coverage, the longest established part of that media is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), the Federal Government funded organisation offering national TV and radio coverage. The ABC, like the BBC in Britain, is a non-commercial public service broadcaster, showing many BBC or ITV productions from Britain.