Well, it depends on what package you're after. According to my sister (She's in charge of paying the bill and taking care of our internet line.), compared to Malaysia & Thailand, ADSL is quite expensive compared to the prices we get back home. Basically, we're paying more for less. And to make things worse, internet censorship trials are now in effect down under (Oh come on, this isn't China for gods sake.). A lot of people are making noise over this. No Internet Censorship for Australia: Secret report confirms what we all know: Trial a waste of time. GetUp! Campaign Actions Learn - No Clean Feed - Stop Internet Censorship in Australia Computerworld - No opt-out of filtered Internet
I'm not sure. I didn't know porn was illegal in Aussieland but that was what they were searching for. I'm not sure if it's even legal for them to search without probable cause!
Must be a random search. When I arrived at Perth airport, all that I needed to do was to put it in the x ray machine (We went through the Red lane as we have food.). Although sometimes, the customs can over do things, which annoys people. In one episode of Border Security - Australia's Frontline, the customs was making a big fuss over a wedding ring worn by a middle aged Vietnamese lady. Source: Border Security - Australia's Frontline | Throng Border Security: Australia's Front Line - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Turns out, she's innocent & can afford the ring. My mother found this ridiculous and would hate to see this happening to herself and other people. btw, in another episode -> YouTube - Malaysian Chinese caught at Sydney airport trying to bring in illegal workers to Australia. I remembered years ago, an Asian couple (Brother & sister) was asked at the ridiculously long customs line. "Anything to declare?". Couple:Oh, just some dirty shoes. Customs Officer: Nah, you're fine mate. You're being too honest! Oh yea, you can't bring in Chi Kit Teck Aun pills anymore, because one of the ingredients is an endangered cactus!
They're generally looking for stuff like underage pronz. It's generally random, although i was stopped for a bomb check . LOL. Those ion scanners even detect gun powder, but i had my Weapons act license on me, so they allowed me to go. And customs didn't mind me bringing in sambal in a bottle, as long as it was sealed and cooked. On another note, Internet is seriously expensive here. I pay 200 dollars a month, inclusive of line rental for ADSL capped at 60gb a month with 15c per MB excess fee. Ouch. But i share it with my house mate, so we generally pay about 100 a month. Still, that's expensive and we usually have to keep tabs on our usage. But atleast i get 20mbps.
As long as you don't bring in porn that would would consider "underage", you're fine. Although this also applies to Anime/Manga/Cartoons, yes it isn't real but the Aussies think it's just as bad. So no loli lol. My motto is, if there's hair on the cat, it's all good
Here the law is a bit special, you have state law, which is held up by the individual states, or state law that is common to all states due to agreements (Firearms are generally unified), state law dictates that police officers must have probable cause to search you and provide the cause after that in written detail with a report, and even at that, probable cause is extremely limited in warrantless situations, only applying to dangerous weapons and explosives. The thing is that in Australia, airports are considered privvy to Federal law which is far different, that's why airport policemen aren't from the state in which they serve in, but under the AFP/ Federal Police, and yes, they can legally search you and if you don't comply, they will make your life extremely hard.
Wow... The law there is indeed very different. Does it feel like a big brother state, or is that just paranoia talking?
Depends lah. I've gone through police checks for my; 1) Driver Authority (public vehicle driving auth) 2) Police Certificate (for my employer) 3) Firearms License 4) Join Pistol Club 5) Queensland Bluecard (anybody who wants to work with kids will need this, regardless of occupation) I've been here 1 year plus and i've already been assraped with police checks lol, i swear it's paranoia, but in some cases i believe it's very justified. But when it comes to internet, yeah, you generally have the right to be paranoid because under the idea of child protection, cops have a free reign on monitoring PC traffic. Good with Bad i reckon . But on a nice note, if you ever wanted that dream house and that dream stake in Rio Tinto or BHP, now's the time to buy lol.
