Australian residential building quality is generally bollocks. We learned this early into our time in Australia while we were briefly living in the People’s Socialist Republic of Balmain.

Here’s an example of what the majority of Australians live in. This photo was taken on a rainy drive up the coast today, there were literally hundreds of similar fibro and tin boxes to choose from.

Captures the heat in the summer and draughty as hell in the winter.

Barring painting the roof black and knocking a few more holes in the walls, I doubt you’d be able to come up with a worse idea for material and building design for a sub-tropical climate.

Charlie asked me “why, if Greeks are poorer, do they still build with more appropriate materials?”

There must be a proper answer but all I can think of is “3,000 years more experience of similar climatic conditions”.

When Australians build from brick or concrete, the results are rarely much better either.

The brick houses often remind me of those crappy out of town “executive” estates that are so prevalent in the non-metropolitan parts of England. I’m thinking Sadly Broke Bradly Stoke in particular. It’s worse here, of course; not only are they thrown up by barely-competent brickies with undue haste but with bargain basement materials; brown aluminium window frames anyone?

As for the concrete monstrosities, P. J. O’Rourke’s description of Soviet buildings come to mind;

CommiesAustralians love concrete, but they don’t know how to make it. Concrete is a mixture of cement, gravel and straw? No? Gravel, water and wood pulp? Water, potatoes and lard?

So really no-one should be surprised when things like this happen;

Balcony collapses because it was held on with less nails than those at the end of Def Leppard’s drummer’s limbs.

Architecture…….. Some of these buildings are over 20 years old.

UPDATE: It gets worse; they can’t even install a pole correctly. Pole dancers injured when pole breaks.