1301.0 - Year Book Australia, 2000 ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 25/01/2000 MEDIA RELEASE January 25, 2000 Embargoed 11:30am (AEST) 6/2000 Attention: program producers, announcers Knowing Our Nation - live read radio scripts AN INTRODUCTION: The Australian Bureau of Statistics' 2000 Year Book Australia is being released nationally today as part of the Bureau's 'salute' to Australia Day 2000. To help publicise this publication, and the vast amount of data on the ABS website, we have prepared a series of live read radio scripts for your announcers. The series, called "Knowing Our Nation", will be released in six packets of eight scripts. The following is the first of those six packets. We welcome your feedback on the usability and popularity of these scripts for your needs. This first batch may assist your Australia Day coverage. We thank you for your anticipated use of this material which, like all ABS information, is thoroughly reliable and objective. Yours sincerely, Stephen Dangaard Director, Media and Public Affairs Unit: Tel (02) 6252 7197; Fax (02) 6252 8002 E-mail [email protected] "Knowing Our Nation" 8 x 30 second (approx) Live Reads Series One Script One:- POPULATION CLOCK Did you know...there are five times as many of us calling Australia "home" as there were at Federation back in 1901 ? Last August we welcomed our nineteen millionth Aussie. He or she might have been born here or might have been one of the seventy seven thousand people who chose to make the land down under their home that year. Oh, and bushies we aren't. Half of us live in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and nearly all of us live in towns. Check the latest information on the population clock at abs.gov.au or get the Australian Bureau of Statistics' 2000 Year Book. Everything you need to know about our nation. Script Two - MUSIC INDUSTRY Did you know...our music industry is worth more than a billion dollars a year ? More than a million of us heard a live symphony concert last year, a quarter of a million saw the opera and we've exported more than Silverchair. Musica Viva picked up 50,000 customers in its first venture to Singapore. Take a bow there ! Feel a need to start up the band? Pick up the beat at abs.gov.au or see the Australian Bureau of Statistics' 2000 Year Book. Everything you need to know about our nation. Script Three - SPORT Australians are champions. We're talking sport here. Rugby, we brought 'Bill'* home. Cricket what a come back! Hockey, men's or women's. Netball. Take your pick . No wonder ... did you know that last year almost half of us played organised sport ? If you're under 25 there's a seventy percent chance you hit a ball, pulled an oar, fired an arrow or just plain ran with a sports team. And paid some of the eight hundred and fourteen million dollars to wear the right gear for the game. The big five organised sports are... sorry , not rugby, forget cricket. Aerobics, golf, tennis, netball and lawn bowls that's how we spend our time. So the game's up. Surf the net at abs.gov.au or get the Australian Bureau of Statistics' 2000 Year Book, our nation's score card. *World Cup Trophy Script Four - THE FILM AND VIDEO INDUSTRY So, you want to be in the movies? You and nine thousand four hundred and thirty-eight other people in Australia. That's what it takes to turn out the TV, movies and ads that bring in better than a billion dollars a year. Did you know our movies come in at 197 million dollars... about two Titanics ? We spend five hundred and thirty three million dollars making TV programs and one hundred and ninety seven million dollars on ads to interrupt them... You want that take again? The action's in the Australian Bureau of Statistics' 2000 Year book. And check out abs.gov.au. Everything you need to know about our nation. Script Five - LEISURE ACTIVITIES Quiet I'm listening ! Most of the day in fact. Did you know we spend four and a quarter hours every day listening to radio and watching TV and under two hours talking ? Every year we listen and watch more and talk less... Well, most of us that is. How do I know? The Australian Bureau of Statistics' 2000 Year Book. And for other great facts check out abs.gov.au. Everything you need to know about our nation. Script Six - AID Did you know that twenty-two countries will get help from Australia this year ? They'll get food, Australian goods and a sizeable chunk of help with education at home and here in Australia. The help goes near, to the Pacific Islands and as far as Africa. Bougainville gets special help to rebuild after the war. In Africa we're doing our bit to help with the AIDS epidemic. Being a good neighbour is part of Australia's business. For more details about our nation, visit www.abs.gov.au or check the Australian Bureau of Statistics' 2000 Year Book. Everything you need to know about our nation. Script Seven - WEATHER OK, it's official. Did you know it rains harder in Sydney than it does in Melbourne ? After eighty two years of records Sydney comes up with 340 mm in 24 hours. The best Melbourne can manage is 130 mm. Want to talk about hail storms? The big one that hit Sydney last year damaged 35,000 roofs, lasted five and a half hours , cost one and a half billion dollars and produced hailstones as big as a soft ball and we hadn't seen anything like it in two hundred years. Hottest spot in Australia? Cloncurry ... 53.1 degrees Celsius. Need to find out the chances of the track being wet? It's in the Australian Bureau of Statistics' 2000 Year book, with some help from the Bureau of Meteorology. For other great facts check abs.gov.au. Everything you need to know about our nation. Script Eight - SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Did you know in the last ten years Australians have doubled their efforts to find new ways of working smarter ? Industry, government and universities spent more than ever on research and development and almost two million Australians now have university qualifications. Industry spends its research dollars on engineering and technology, agriculture comes out on top in government spending and the universities spend most on health research. But it's a tough world out there. Korean and Japanese businesses still spend two and a quarter times as much as we do on research and the Finns outspend us two to one. To plan for our future check abs.gov.au or the Australian Bureau of Statistics' 2000 Year Book to see how our nation stacks up in the R&D world. Series Two Script One - WHO'S GOT THE MONEY? How heavy would a million dollars be? What would it smell like? The staff at your local bank should know. All together our banks are worth $654 billion. How many banks? Fifty five ... though the chances are you're with one of the big four, they hold more than half of that total amount. You can get at your money through more than eleven thousand branches or agencies and about 9,000 automatic tellers are waiting to spit your card out. Money, money, money. It's in the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2000 Year Book or on the net at abs.gov.au. Everything you need to know about our nation. Script Two - CRIME Whoever said, "you can never find a policeman when you want one," hasn't been counting. We have forty two thousand seven hundred and seven of them. Statistics for all crimes except break-ins are down. Victoria is the safest place to live, Western Australia the least safe. Assault is our most prevalent crime. You have a zero point seven percent chance of being assaulted this year but, I'm happy to say, your chances of being murdered are zero point zero, zero, zero one five. Sleep easy. Pick up the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2000 Year Book or visit abs.gov.au. Everything you need to know about our nation. Script Three - THE NET Read those stories about teenage Americans making millions on the Internet? No wonder ... we're all dying to dive into cyberspace. Better than five and a half million Australians logged on at some time last year and one in five now regularly boots up the computer at home. About half a million used the net to buy something and most of them spent more than $500. Catch the new wave to the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2000 Year Book or surf the net at abs.gov.au. Everything you need to know about our nation. Script Four - UP IN THE AIR. Name the fifty five international airline companies that fly into and out of Australia... Didn't get Continental Micronesia? Shame. Nearly seven million passengers a year pass through Sydney International Terminal... break that down into taxi trips .... We have thirteen international airports ...Cairns handles three times the traffic that Adelaide does ... and we exchange one hundred thousand tonnes of air cargo with Singapore every year. Where do all the people come from? Traffic at Brisbane and Cairns actually fell in 1998 as fewer Asians came down under for their holidays. If it's in the air it's in the book. The Australian Bureau of Statistics 2000 Year Book, or on the net at abs.gov.au. Everything you need to know about our nation. Script Five - AGEING To live long and prosper move to Japan. Women can expect 83.6 years and the men 77. We make it into the top five. Australian women can plan on living to 81.3 years while our men do five years better than the allotted three score and ten…you know the length of time we are supposed to live. Take comfort. All we Australians are living longer than our grandparents... just as well, since 1976 there haven't been enough babies born to replace us. Do something about it. Look up the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2000 Year Book , or on the net at abs.gov.au. Everything you need to know about our nation. Script Six - SHOP 'TIL YOU DROP Put another prawn on the barbie to welcome the better than four million tourists who come to Australia every year... We're talking a sixteen billion dollar plus business here. Better than half are on holiday, most will be Japanese and the Chinese are the champs when it comes to shopping. Each of them will tickle the till to the tune of $810. If you ever invited the person next to you on a plane to "look me up if you're ever in Australia" watch out... tourists stay longer when they're visiting friends. Travel to the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2000 Year Book for the answers, or visit abs.gov.au. Everything you need to know about our nation. Script Seven - SLIP ... SLOP... SLAP Vanity thy name is... Girls will slop on the sunscreen and slip on the sunnies but the guys slap on a hat or a T shirt. Better than eighty percent of we Bronzed Aussies protect ourselves from the sun. Fellas over fifty five still favour the leather look but most of us have the message. More than half of us now regularly check for freckles and spots. Come in out of the sun, turn off the sun lamp and check out the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2000 Year Book or on the net at abs.gov.au. Everything you need to know about our nation. Script Eight - WHERE DID THEY GO? We're losing real Australians at a terrible rate. In two hundred years 7 percent of our marsupials and 15 percent of native rodents have been killed off! The count last year was 96 species of birds and 55 species of mammals, endangered or vulnerable. Since 1800, a hundred and ten unique Australians have gone for ever! It's the world's worst record for protecting mammals. Action starts with a visit to the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2000 Year Book or visit abs.gov.au. Everything you need to know about our nation. 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