I'm on a journey around Australia.
A country the size of a continent.
This is a vast land with extraordinary wildlife.
A rich, booming country, on the edge of Asia.
It's not just cricket and kangaroos.
Thanks, ladies. That's all right. You're welcome.
If you think you know Australia, think again!
On this leg of my journey, I'm travelling from the Gold Coast
in the east, down to Sydney, and finally to Melbourne,
just in time for Australia's national birthday party.
Behind the sun and the surf of its beautiful coastal cities,
I'll find a side to Australia that visitors rarely get to see.
Is it respect or fear? If people fear us, they've got to fear us for a reason.
In Sydney, I meet a billionaire property king.
That is a view!
I get up close to Australia's iconic wildlife...
.. and to devastating bushfires.
Look at this! A line of flames here!
I'm beginning another leg of my journey around Australia,
this time travelling down the east coast towards the cities of Sydney and Melbourne.
I'm starting here, at a place called Surfers Paradise.
This area is the Gold Coast.
It's like an Australian Las Vegas
and attracts more than 10 million tourists a year
with stunning beaches, brash nightclubs and casinos.
The weather conditions here are perfect for one of Australia's national obsessions.
Surfing arrived here from California.
For years, Aussie surfers were rebels and dropouts,
but now the sport's gone mainstream.
Across the country, surf bums have been joined on the waves
by everyone from accountants to vicars.
Two million Australians are now regular surfers
and it's become a huge, multi-billion pound industry,
thanks to surf tourism and surf shops.
Anyone spotted that there's a "Danger - No Swimming" sign here?
Yeah, you're going right here. Here we go.
Even with a bit of help, it's not as easy as it looks.
Ah, the indignity of it.
I just fell really hard on my bum.
I've just had my surfing lesson, just come back to the car,
and our ticket had expired, parking ticket,
and we were thinking, "Oh, dear, we might be in a spot of bother",
and, genuinely, I know this sounds completely unbelievable,
but look who turns up here to help you if your ticket runs out.
Thanks, ladies. That's all right. You're welcome.
We top up expired meters just to help out as best as we can
and we've been around for 48 years, so welcome to Surfers Paradise.
That's quite a spiel,
and you buy people whose tickets have expired a new parking ticket.
Yeah! That's very kind.
And it says, "You've just been saved from a parking fine
"by the famous Surfers Paradise Meter Maids."
Thank you very much indeed. Stay safe out there! We will.
All right, cheers, ladies. See ya. Thank you!
As night falls on the Gold Coast, the action moves from the beach
to the city's hundreds of bars, clubs and casinos.
Tacky to some, paradise for others, the area is party central
for tens of thousands of visitors who arrive here every weekend.
But, in recent years, the Gold Coast has developed a reputation
for having a sleazier, darker side.
At one of the city's central police stations I was allowed out on patrol
with a local beat sergeant and police union official, Simon Tutt.
This is your patch tonight, is it? Tonight it is, yeah.
It's just called the CBD, Central Business District, Broad Beach.
There's about five nightclubs.
You've got a nightclub here by the look of it
with the usual queue outside. Called Love, yeah.
What are the main issues you're dealing with,
you and your officers are dealing with out here of a night?
It's drunkenness and, you know,
people obviously affected by drugs as well.
They have drugs before they come out...
and then, of course, they want to fight each other.
We can see a few hanging around outside.
The problem with the drug and alcohol-fuelled violence
is that it's unrelenting and it's every single weekend.
It's like a zoo.
Although Australians have a reputation as big boozers,
they actually drink much less than Europeans.
But Australians are among the largest users of illegal drugs in the world,
fuelling the narcotics trade and creating a huge problem with organised crime.
How serious a problem is crime here in the Gold Coast?
It certainly is the crime capital of Australia.
It has a high density of organised crime.
It has a lot of targets who are engaged in organised crime
and why wouldn't they?
If you wanted to set up an organised crime operation, there's a ready-made population
who you may want to have access to in terms of a market
and that's why it becomes the crime capital.
It's a fantastic place to come, as long as you're aware
it has that... seedy underbelly component to it as well.
The police believe organised crime here is dominated
by so-called outlaw motorcycle clubs or biker gangs.
The most famous are the Hells Angels
and, here in the Gold Coast, their notorious rivals, the Bandidos.
The Gold Coast just has a very high density of outlaw motorcycle gangs.
The outlaw motorcycle gangs are certainly the most obvious face
of illegal activity.
So what's down here?
This is the Bandidos' clubhouse, up here on the right.
The Bandidos?
They're quite a fearsome motorcycle gang, aren't they?
That looks like a fortress!
Yeah. You can't just walk in there off the street.
In recent years, violence between rival biker gangs
has erupted in public.
What's the reason for us being here? What happened here?
There was a shooting in broad daylight in the shopping mall
in front of thousands of people and an innocent person was shot.
Crime is no longer just between underworld figures,
it's actually spilled out into the broader community
and I think criminals, certainly on the Gold Coast,
have become far, far more brazen.
I think people for a time after that felt, "Who could be next?"
Were they safe going about their daily business, or could they be caught in the crossfire?
'Police say that tit-for-tat violence
and decades-old vendettas between biker gangs
has led to hundreds of shootings and scores of killings across the country.
Outlaw motorcycle clubs are now also accused of involvement
In prostitution, drug production, money laundering and gun running.
One estimate suggests that serious organised crime in Australia
costs the country around 10 billion pounds per year.
Something rather strange has happened.
One of the biker gangs in this area,
one of the biggest biker gangs, who never talk to outsiders,
has agreed to meet us
and we're now on our way to their clubhouse
which, I suppose, is like their headquarters really.
The Australian authorities have launched a massive crackdown
on biker gangs, who they blame for much of the organised crime.
The bikers' clubhouse was tucked away on an industrial estate on the edge of town.
He's a big bloke!
The Finks are one of the largest and among the most feared
of all outlaw motorcycle clubs in Australia.
Is that, sort of, security blocking the entrance, then? Yeah.
He said he'd be out in a minute.
Who's coming out, Greg or...? Yeah.
Can we walk over or do you want us to stay here? Oh, we'll just wait.
Greg Keating is the club's sergeant-at-arms, or enforcer.
Is one of you gentlemen Greg? That would be me. Hi, Greg.
How you doing? Simon Reeve. Nice to meet you, mate. Nice to meet you.
Thanks for agreeing to see us. Yeah, no worries.
I gather it's not something you do very often. No.
Harry. Harry! Pleased to meet you.
Hello, mate. Simon Reeve. Nice to meet you too.
How are you? Very well, thank you.
Hello, sir. Simon. Ferret. How's it going, mate?
The Finks had called together some of their local members
to put on a show of strength for us.
(ENGINES ROAR)
The noise, you will not be surprised to know, is unbelievable.
Members of outlaw motorcycle clubs say they're enthusiasts
brought together by a love of motorbikes
and it's unwise to mess with their machines.
This sticker on here, is that the best theft deterrent?
That just means someone in our club owns that bike.
It means "don't touch it", doesn't it? It means "don't touch it", yeah.
If you owned a nice car, you wouldn't want people coming down the street, scratching it.
It's easier just to say you're part of our club, leave it alone.
Yeah, but if I put on my car that it belongs to me,
nobody's going to give a monkey's, are they?
They're not going to stop themselves taking it because of that, but this is...
It's about respect.
We've earned respect and people understand that's ours, leave it alone and you won't have a problem.
Is it respect or fear? I don't think it's fear.
Bit of both? Maybe a little bit of fear, but people instil fear in themselves.
Like, you have no problem with us, you have no need to fear us,
neither does your camera crew because you've done nothing wrong to us
and we have no need to fear you because we've done nothing wrong to you.
So if people fear us, they've got to fear us for a reason.
There are thought to be 39 outlaw motorcycle groups in Australia,
with around 4,000 patched, or official members.
So, gentlemen, tell us about this place.
This is our gym where we train. Every gym's got to have a stripper pole.
It's not a gym without a stripper pole. That's right.
Which one of you gets the honour? On the stripper pole? Not me!
As part of the government crackdown, the Finks were the first biker club in the country
to be declared a criminal organisation
under the kind of laws rarely used in modern democracies.
You've got some pretty heavy-duty security.
You don't leave your front door open at home and sit out in the backyard.
Yeah, but I don't put a vehicle
across the entrance to my street though, do I?
It's 2013, mate.
Control orders have been used against members of the Finks
to restrict who they can associate with and their freedom of movement, including against Harry.
Bikers say they're being made scapegoats
and the laws are an infringement of their human rights.
I'm virtually under house arrest.
You don't look like you're under house arrest, Harry.
Well, I'm controlled, aren't I, Simon? I can't talk to my next-door neighbour.
I'm not allowed to talk to my next-door neighbour. Why?
Because he's not a member of my immediate family.
I can't talk to my next-door neighbour.
I can't go to a pub, a club or a restaurant.
It's something you would think that only in China or maybe Burma.
And you see these things and you think, you know,
for years, and you've seen all those issues overseas
and you'd never think that'd happen in Australia.
Several bikers have already been arrested for breaking their control orders.
Even talking to a TV crew like us could get someone like Harry arrested.
Come down to the spa.
You've got a Jacuzzi spa in the back here. Yeah.
Every gym should.
I saw one report that said 45, I think,
45 of your members at least have got criminal convictions.
Is that true?
You need to look at what the criminal conviction is, OK?
Most of them will be small things as speeding offences.
They said we had 1,500 convictions.
That's why we're a criminal organisation.
But what sort of convictions were they and how were they dealt with?
And they were only dealt with by way of fines.
And the interesting part was, when we had a good look at it and the lawyers had a look at it,
we found most of the offending was done by members before they joined the club
and the offending dropped once they joined the club.
Are you trying to say that the club actually reduces crime?
Absolutely it did. With these particular people it reduced crime.
It reduced their offending.
And it reduced their offending because you have a sense of family here and a brotherhood.
The police say your members have been involved in murder, beatings, robberies
and that you're a criminal organisation involved in, quote, "serious criminal activity."
Look, if that's the case,
we are sure there are adequate laws in place right now
that can deal with those people.
There is no need for any legislation to be introduced that takes away
the rights of everybody in this country.
I think these ladies have just got into the tank behind us
as some sort of distraction or diversion, I suspect.
No, no, this is how we roll. I'm going to stay focussed on our...
It won't divert us because we're used to it.
But, look, I hear what you're saying about it's a club of members.
Can you not see how... intimidating
and terrifying you guys look from the outside
to your average Australian citizen
who's going about paying their taxes?
I mean, Ferret, look at yourself, mate, you're covered in ink. You look a scary bloke.
People have been getting tattooed for 5,000 years.
The Australian public I know don't have that perception. They don't have that fear.
You said, you know, they're scared of you and they're intimidated.
Are they intimidated, because I don't know any that are?
Bikers are now challenging the draconian new laws in the courts
and they've even got some human rights groups on their side.
But the police claim they're criminal gangs
and the government here shows little sign of backing down.
Well, that was one of the more... extraordinary encounters I have had,
I have to say.
The bikers see themselves as rebel outsiders
but most Australians have a very different dream.
The aspiration for many is a house with a pool, perhaps in one of
the huge suburbs that ring the eastern coastal cities.
This is a hugely attractive area to live in
and as people are moving to the coast and building new houses
there are, of course, consequences for the wildlife,
including for one Australian icon.
Morning. Jon? Hi, Simon.
Hello. Simon. Very nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.
The guy we're going to catch today, Mekani,
he's just down in the bush down here, off this property,
and we're not sure where he is
so what we might do is just go and track him down, see how we go.
You're going to catch a koala? Yeah. Yeah. That's the plan.
Is that a tricky endeavour?
Ah, look, we've got about 50-50 chance.
A couple of helpers, so we've got a tree climber and the other field guys
who are going to help us with the capture of Mekani.
Vet Jon Hanger rescues and treats injured koalas.
In suburbs like these and across the country,
an estimated 4,000 koalas are killed each year by dogs and cars alone.
Thousands more are injured.
This direction. You already found him?
Well, this antenna gives us a vague direction,
so, sort of, a ball park direction.
Jon has fitted a koala that was bitten by a pet dog
with a radio collar and it's time for him to give it a check-up.
I've just spotted him. Have you?
Yeah, so if you come with me, I'll... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So he's in this grey gum. Right.
If you follow the right-hand fork and then follow the right-hand fork again... There he is, look.
Yeah, that's him.
How exciting! It's a koala.
Koalas are a symbol of this country loved by millions,
but the cuddly creatures are in crisis.
Jon, it strikes me that we've got this koala in a tree
on the edge of somebody's garden
on the very edge of suburbia.
The problem for koalas is that humans are advancing
into what was their land, I think, isn't it?
That's exactly right.
And we know that koalas don't cope well with being so close to human habitation.
Unfortunately, a lot of good koala habitat, the habitat they prefer, is also the habitat that we prefer.
Experts think there were up to 10 million koalas in Australia
when Europeans first arrived here.
Now just a tiny fraction of that number remain.
The koala to Australia is a bit like the panda to China.
It's an icon of the country.
And yet even this isn't deemed, it seems,
worthy enough of providing exclusive areas.
I think a lot of the population really don't grasp the trouble that the koala's in.
They don't think the koala will ever go extinct.
Could it? Yeah, I think it can.
We see localised extinction happening all over the place now.
Let's say we've still got 100,000 koalas, 200,000 left.
The rate of decline is such that we're foolish if we don't think
that we're facing extinction at some time in the next decade or two.
Decade or two? As quickly as that? Yeah, yeah.
For Mekani to be given his health check,
he first had to be persuaded to come down from his tree.
The fact that we can't even arrest the decline of such an iconic animal
just, I think, is a shame for us.
It's a disgrace that we can't do that.
We still think that people being able to live wherever they want to live is more important.
Stop.
(KOALA SCREECHES)
Good boy.
What a...
Well done!
It's a bit undignified for him but it's over fairly quickly.
Mekani looked in good shape.
Jon decided it was time to remove his radio collar,
which required a small dose of anaesthetic.
Just relax. Just relax, little fella.
(KOALA SCREECHES)
Yep.
Aw!
This is a big moment in the life of this koala, isn't it?
You're about to cut the tracking collar
and that means you won't be able to locate him anymore.
He'll be free without big brother or dad watching him.
That's right, he will be. He'll be on his own, so to speak.
But, you know, the community around here is fairly aware of koalas
so we can feel reasonably comfortable that if someone saw that he was sick
or injured, that they'd call us and let us know.
Look at that!
Perfectly suited for shinning up trees
if, of course, it's got trees to climb.
There you go, mate.
You ready? Good luck.
What a cutie.
I think we're going to leave this lad here and creep away.
Like other industrialised nations,
Australia doesn't have a great record for protecting its wildlife.
but surely they need to move heaven and earth to save a national icon.
This looks like smoke just here.
Anywhere else I'd say it was a mist,
but I think this is definitely smoke and we're here in bushfire season.
This is the hottest, driest continent
and fires are a massive problem here.
Yesterday, as well, was the hottest average day in Australia ever.
I was heading south towards Sydney.
My route took me towards the Liverpool Plains
In the heart of New South Wales.
We've left the coast and we're heading inland
into farming country.
Goodness, look.
Five or six fire vehicles there.
There are huge bushfires in this area at the moment as well.
Almost everywhere we've been on this part of the journey,
there's been bushfires.
Australia's famous, of course, for having plenty of parched outback,
but this is a huge and diverse country with rainforests
and snow-capped mountains.
and it has enormous cattle ranches and farms
that have long been crucial to the economy of the country.
The Liverpool Plains region is renowned as Australia's food bowl.
I can see somebody waving over there. Tommy?
OK. Thank you!
Tommy and George Clift are in their 80s.
Their families have been farming here for seven generations.
Hey there, George.
Simon. Lovely to meet you, sir. You too.
What a beautiful patch of planet Earth you've got. It's unbelievable, isn't it?
And you've got a house in here? Yeah, the house in the jungle.
Look at your place! It's beautiful!
How much land have you got here? We've got about 12,000 acres.
12,000 acres? Acres, yeah. That is... sort of, a small country!
How good is this land in terms of farming?
Is it quality land or do you have to work it hard?
I beg your pardon. No. Likened second to the Nile Valley.
It's only likened second to the Nile Valley.
Because you can grow two crops a year here.
You're saying it's some of the best farmland in the world? I'm not saying it, it's proven.
I'll take you there and show you, if you like, the crops there.
The Liverpool Plains comprise an area of 5,000 square miles
with land that's so productive, farms here churn out more than 500,000 tonnes of cereal crops.
See how it holds the water here? My goodness, it's sort of damp, isn't it?
So, just beneath the surface, it's... Just beneath the surface.
..it's got spongy qualities to it?
Goodness.
That's not easy to get out, is it? There's no soil in the world like it
It's as good as that? It's as good as that.
And I'll fight anyone that says it's not.
These small roots go down probably a metre and a half, two metres
under the ground, and that's where it gets the moisture coming up
and brings it up into the... you can feel the moisture in the roots if you feel them.
So it's not just the soil that's fantastic here for farming,
it's the fact that you've actually got water under the ground,
you've got a huge aquifer underneath you? A huge aquifer.
There's just about as much water as there is in Sydney Harbour - fresh water.
That's a lot of water.
How important is this area?
It's more than important.
It's critical.
Here, we're producing huge amounts of food
for the rest of the world.
For Australia and the rest of the world.
There just aren't words that can describe the value of this country.
The land here might be valuable, but the big money in Australia
is being made by ripping it up to get at the mineral wealth that's underneath.
A massive coal seam has been discovered beneath the Liverpool Plains
and the land next to the Clifts' farm is now being test drilled by a Chinese mining company.
This is the edge of your land here, is it?
There's one foot in China and one foot in Australia.
That's their test holes. Just here? There, yeah.
Test holes for what? What are they drilling for?
Coal and gas - whatever they can come up with.
In Australia, it's the state, not landowners, who own the rights
to explore for minerals under the ground.
This highly unusual legislation has helped to fuel Australia's extraordinary resources boom,
which has seen vast tracts of land torn up for coal, gold and iron ore.
Many farmers on the Liverpool Plains fear their land
could go the way of the nearby Hunter Valley,
which is now being mined by giant corporations.
Many farmers here have sold-up and thousands of acres are now being strip-mined.
I'm starting to get a sense of the scale of the mining that's going on here.
Enormous mine underneath us. More mining over here.
We've got the power stations up ahead that are helping to power the machinery involved in this.
There's another mine over there. We've got a mine behind us as well.
The place is riddled with mines!
It starts to look a little bit like Swiss cheese!
Australia's now one of the biggest exporters of coal in the world,
mostly to Asia.
Coal exports bring in more than 30 billion pounds a year to the country.
The huge sums involved make this a get rich quick boom that's hard to resist.
but when a mining company tried to start test drilling back on the Liverpool Plains,
they didn't reckon on the reception they got from George and Tommy and some of their neighbours.
That's probably Tim there. Is that Tim? Yeah.
Tim Duddy's a central figure in the ongoing campaign
to stop corporations from mining this land.
Hello. Hello. Tim Duddy. Simon Reeve. Lovely to meet you.
Welcome to Rossmar. Thank you very much indeed.
So, this, I'm putting the twos and twos together to understand,
this was the site of the blockade?
Yeah, and BHP... Mining giant.
.. yeah, were trying to get access to a pass of land
just up above where we are.
We got to the stage that they were coming on at some stage.
We were speaking to their lawyers, they were speaking to us,
but it was pretty nasty.
And I was in Sydney one day and my younger brother rang up
and said, "Oh, they're driving down the road with a load of fences on."
And I said, "Well, you'd better go and park the road in." It's like an invasion. An invasion!
And he said, "Well, I'm not doing that. I'm not going to jail. I'm not doing this."
Anyway, I rang Tommy and George and about half an hour later they were parked here,
and they'd gone and got our grader and parked across one end of the road
and they'd got George's grader and parked across the bottom end of the road and the rest is history.
683 days later, we took down the blockade,
having beaten BHP in the Supreme Court.
These are extreme measures, aren't they? They are.
But we're talking about massive sums of money, aren't we?
There's huge wealth under the ground here.
Well, there's a minable resource of about 550 million tonnes of coal.
So you're talking about... you're talking about $130 billion.
That's nearly 100 billion pounds, just trying to get my head around it,
of coal under the ground around us.
That's exactly right.
Why won't you just let them in?
Why won't you let them search for the coal
that the Australian state seems to need?
As a country you're making such a huge amount of money
off your resources boom, why shouldn't it happen here?
Mining is good in the right place.
The Liverpool Plains is not the right place. Why?
This is the jewel in the crown of Australian agriculture
and if you dig a hole in here for a mine, it will be destroyed forever. There is no turning back.
Mining companies have promised they won't have a long-term impact on the most productive farmland.
They say they won't destroy Australia's food bowl.
but the campaign to keep them away from the Plains continues.
Has your campaign, has it generally made you more in touch or brought you more into contact...
Heavens, yes. .. with your neighbours and community?
Well, there's nothing like wartime to unite people,
and that's the truth.
That's how you think of it? Absolutely. Battle? Absolutely!
Australia's had a very interesting relationship
with mining in recent years, I think.
I don't know how you would characterise it,
but it's been almost a love affair really.
It's more like an addiction.
And eventually they have an overdose. Mmm.
And that's where we're at.
At the end of this, you know, you can mine our resources out,
but what is Australia going to be left with?
Australia's going to be left with nothing.
We'll not have a manufacturing industry - we hardly have a manufacturing industry now.
We will not have an agricultural industry.
The politicians, and I'm not talking about any particular party,
the whole damn lot of them ought to sit down one day and wake up because it's going to be too late.
On my journey, I've seen how natural resources
have made Australia wealthy, and it's avoided the recessions
that affected other industrial nations in recent years.
but in the long-term, many believe this country's become over-dependent
on a resources boom that one day will surely come to an end.
The next morning, I drove for five hours.
We're back near the coast and I'm heading south
and my next destination is a place I'm really excited to visit.
And there it is! Look at that sight!
I arrived in Sydney, one of the great world cities.
Oh, I can see the tip of the Opera House just over there.
The city itself is much more imposing than I expected,
but the bridge is really quite awe-inspiring, actually,
looming above you.
One of the things that's most surprised me about Australia during this journey
is just how closely linked the country is with Asia.
I think, before coming here, I rather outrageously thought of
Australia as being a bit of Europe on the other side of the planet.
When you come here, you realise that economically, politically,
even militarily, this is a country that's closely connected with
and partnering with, even competing with,
the new emerging Asian superpowers.
But more than that, the identity of Australia is really changing.
Look at the faces around me now.
This is a multicultural country where a quarter of the population was born overseas
and where more than 10% of the population are of Asian origin.
Australia's changing. In fact, Australia's changed!
and the new arrivals don't always want the traditional Aussie dream
of a suburban house and a pool.
I went to meet the billionaire who's helped to turn Sydney into a city of skyscrapers.
Hello. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Hello, Simon. Harry. Simon Reeve. Lovely to meet you.
My goodness!
Harry Triguboff is one of the richest men in Australia.
Yes, it's the tallest apartment in Sydney.
Now that is a view.
I hear you're known as High Rise Harry.
Can you explain? It seems obvious given that we're on the 78th floor, I think,
but can you explain how you've come to acquire the nickname?
Well, I think I'm the only one in the world that has built so much residential,
but has never built any cottages.
Never built even one cottage.
I always wanted to be higher and higher and higher because I think it's better.
Now, my average development
is probably 600, 700 apartments.
600 or 700 apartments?
I read that you were born in China to Russian parents, I think.
You came here when you were very young... 14.
You even worked... At one point you drove a taxi. Well, I had a taxi, yeah.
Were you a good taxi driver? Hopeless.
Dreaming all the time, dreaming all the time, can't concentrate.
I mean, I can go from here to there, but not all day.
What proportion of your properties are selling, I mean, just roughly, to Chinese buyers?
And are these Chinese buyers from Chinese Australians or Chinese from China?
Mainland. Mainland. Mainland. Mainland China.
Of course some Australian Chinese buy too, but it's mainland Chinese.
I would say probably 70% come from China.
70%? Yeah.
Why do the Chinese, particularly, love your apartments so much?
Because I give them what they are looking for.
They want to live where there is work.
He wants to be on transport and he wants to have good schools.
It's quite simple. The recipe is quite simple.
What have you built here, as we look out over Sydney?
I'll show it to you. Here is Meriton, right? Right, yes.
That is where our head office is, and we have 450 serviced apartments there and some shops.
450 apartments in the tower there? Yeah.
You see that one with the white and the black top?
Oh, yes. There is another block there, also serviced apartments.
220 apartments there.
I read somewhere that 3% of people in Sydney
live in one of your homes.
Well, if you work out that between...
I would say 6%. 5% to 6% at any one time.
Did you just do all the maths then just at that speed? Yes.
That's why you're one of the richest men in the country.
You see that other one... It would take me a week and a calculator!
Ah, you've no confidence. You've built half of Sydney! Not half, no, no.
Millions of immigrants have come from Asia,
particularly from India and China.
This is a dramatic shift.
Until they were finally ended in the early 1970s,
white Australia policies restricted who could come here and the rights of non-whites.
Some studies suggest Australians are now less racist than Europeans and Americans, but tensions remain.
Sydney's now home to a sizeable Muslim community.
I went off the regular tourist trail
to one of the beaches Muslim families traditionally use.
Hello! Amna! Yes, how are you?
Salam alaikum. Very well, thank you. How are you?
Salam. I'm good, thank you! Your name? Simon. Simon.
Hello, hello! Hi, Simon.
Hello, ladies! Hello! Hello! Hello! Hello!
I was meeting a group of young Muslim women
who've started playing a uniquely Australian sport.
You're a team of what? Tell us about your team.
So Lael and I co-founded the Auburn Tigers Women's AFL team.
And AFL is what?
AFL's Aussie rules.
Aussie rules football.
Yeah, Aussie rules football.
For those of us who are unfamiliar with Aussie rules football,
can you describe it to us?
There's a lot of tackling, a lot of barging, it's...
Basically, you just go on the foot and run after the ball.
You just run back and forth, run back and forth.
And it's basically you get the ball and kick at goal.
It's a hundred times harder and tougher than rugby.
It's a better game. It's a better game.
Why did you think it was the best sport to choose for your team,
for your friends to play?
What inspired you to get involved in it
and set up the team in the first place?
All my brothers played AFL growing up,
so that was something that I always followed.
All your brothers. How many brothers do you have?
Nine. Nine older brothers!
Wow! OK, and so you're their princess inevitably?
I'm their princess but I'm better than them on the field so...
Are you now? Yeah.
The group's engaging with Australian life in a way
immigrants are often accused of failing to do.
Ready, girls?
So it begins.
And to my untrained eye they seemed to score
plenty of points for enthusiasm, at least, at this training session.
This is a whole new world, isn't it? You enjoying it?
It's a whole new world. I remember things like...
There's still stuff I don't know like, "Go to the fat side."
I'm like, "What's the fat side?" you know,
when I was at coaching class, seminars and stuff.
There's lingo that I still don't get but that's OK, you know?
Like the full-back and the full-forward
I still get muddled, but, you know.
So it being new, they're not familiar with the language
so we're all learning together.
Goodness me!
Good work!
Racial tension has long been a problem here.
In 2005, these beaches were the scene
of some of the worst race riots in Australia's history.
What were the consequences of the riots for you?
This is the beach that my family would come to,
and when I say my family,
I'm not talking about my parents and siblings - whole family.
So it was a huge occasion for us to go to the beach on the weekend.
At some point, those visits stopped entirely.
By the time it hit 2005, that was just a no-go,
we stopped coming to Cronulla.
Because of the riots?
It was never said by my parents but subconsciously, when they saw
that on TV, it reinforced this migrant thinking,
that we don't belong in this country,
we're sort of hubbing here temporarily,
we're not really wanted, that one day we'll have to migrate back home.
But what's your view of growing up,
living now in modern Australia as a person of Lebanese descent
but also a Muslim who wears the headscarf?
Do you get abuse? Do you get harassed, hassled or anything?
It's funny you should say that. I was abused two days ago...
Not even, I think it was yesterday, actually.
I went to Lael's house and I was crying.
I was totally overwhelmed by the fact that some angry Anglo person
came out of the car and went off their nut at me
at the service station and I was like, "Wow!"
What did they say, or do?
He got out of his car, started yelling, swearing,
and I was just like, "Whoa!"
About what? At you or...?
At me for no reason.
Did you report them?
No, I didn't report the guy in the petrol station.
I think quite often when those experiences happen that women
don't report them because they feel like there's going to be no outcome.
Like I know the AFL, at the elite level, are really strict,
for example, if someone from the crowd will call out a racist comment,
that that person, like, has to make a public apology.
They have to go to counselling, like they've got some measures in place.
But that's in a very specific setting.
What happens when this stuff is happening out on the streets
and it's not being dealt with?
Australia now wants more skilled immigrants
to help economic expansion, and racism's an issue
Australians must deal with if the country's going to be
a harmonious society that makes the most of its position
on the edge of Asia.
What's fascinating about that
was there was no doubt in any of their minds, of course that
"We're Aussies, we're Australians and we're proud of it!"
Other people might see them as outsiders
but they see themselves as being Aussie to the core and,
my goodness, what amazing young women they are.
I set off towards Melbourne, a 500-mile journey that took me
across one of Australia's most spectacular mountain ranges.
What a magnificent view.
This is such a beautiful country.
So these are the Blue Mountains which are part of the great
dividing range which runs down much of the east of Australia,
and separates the outback, which is on that side to the west,
from the coast over my shoulder.
One of the big misconceptions about Australia is that most people
here live some sort of rugged, outback life when, in fact,
most of them live thataway in the big coastal cities.
They're actually one of the most urbanised people on the planet!
Australians are heavy users of energy, powering their homes,
mod cons and air-conditioning, and they consume huge amounts
of electricity mostly generated by dirty old coal.
Australians are among the very worst emitters of carbon in the world
so they're among the most polluting people on the planet.
It's very hard really for us still to fully be certain
of what the consequences of that will be, but I'm heading now
to an experiment that's being run
which should give us at least a clue.
Here we are!
I went to visit the woodland site of a unique experiment.
Somebody's waving.
Professor David Ellsworth is investigating the consequences
of increasing levels of carbon dioxide
from fossil fuels like coal in the atmosphere.
In this research station, there are these whopping towers!
So, Professor, what exactly are you doing here?
We're trying to create the atmosphere of the future
that we expect in about 35 years to be able to understand
how that affects plants and animals and critters in the ecosystem.
So you're creating the atmosphere of the future how?
This area is exposed to a high CO2 atmosphere
by emitting bits of CO2 out of these perforations in those pipes.
We don't need to enclose any of the vegetation,
we can do it in the out-of-doors, and we can do it in these big plots.
CO2 or carbon dioxide levels have increased by more than a third
since the industrial revolution.
Most of that increase has happened since the 1950s
and the level's now increasing even faster.
Still quite a long way down, but what a sight you get!
You do get a real sense of the scale of what you're doing here.
That's right. But you have to do the experiment at a large scale because,
in fact, climate change is happening at a large scale.
Increased levels of carbon dioxide
are predicted to dramatically change our global climate,
but it'll have different impacts on different plants and animals.
Clamp it into the chamber and start measuring.
What are you checking for?
I'm checking about what is the rate of photosynthesis in the leaf
and has it been increased by an increase in carbon dioxide.
What I see is really quite a high photosynthetic rate.
Photosynthesis can be stimulated by a rise in CO2.
Stimulated would suggest to me that you're wondering
whether photosynthesis actually increases,
whether there's more growth with increased carbon.
Well yes, that's what makes some plants winners
and some plants losers.
And this is a chance to actually be ahead of the game
and not be sitting here saying, "Oh, well, we released gigatonnes of CO2,
"teratonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere,
"now figure out how we fix it."
Let's rather understand ahead of time what it's looking like
and maybe that's going to help us actually do something ahead of time
that's going to avoid some of the negative consequences
we don't want out of that.
Certain plants might thrive,
but scientists expect that the changes in our ecosystem
will be catastrophic for much of Australia's biodiversity.
Well they look like pods, really, don't they? Alien-looking pods.
But they are... You have covered these,
these are strange greenhouses.
These are covered, and the reason why is to warm an area
when the air is mixing is actually hard to do
and by covering, you can use conventional technologies to do it.
OK, so this one, this is a proper time machine.
Increased levels of carbon dioxide
and a plus three degrees on natural temperature here.
Now that's the prediction for when?
That's the prediction for about 2060 or 2070, around then.
Now, everywhere I've been, almost,
on the journey, there's been bushfires, there's been scares
where towns have been threatened by fires.
Bushfires are such a huge issue in Australia.
Is there any connection between bushfires and our change in climate?
If plants actually produce more in a CO2-rich atmosphere
and they also cast off more leaves, then that means more fuel
essentially that's available for fires.
And there is a big, big concern about that spectre
of increased bushfire, increased fuel loads, and we're very worried
about what to do about that if that's a future that comes to pass.
More fuel on the ground poses an enormous bushfire threat
to Australia in the future. But scientists also warn
that Australia is likely to be one of the first countries
that experiences the severest effects of future climate change,
Including prolonged droughts and extreme weather conditions.
but will we heed their warnings?
The thought does really strike me that the people we rely on
to protect us and look after us for the future,
our politicians, in Australia, as almost everywhere else,
are elected for short-term periods and they've got no real incentive
to ask us to do something difficult, like use less energy,
use less oil or coal, because they want our votes!
They want to keep promising us the good life!
They're thinking short-term and we need to be thinking long-term.
Thank you very much. And you. Bye-bye.
Look at this.
A bushfire is burning and not far from here.
Bushfires have been such a feature of this part of the journey.
They've been everywhere we've been.
I really think we need to try and get up close and see one.
The bushfire that made the front page of the local paper
was being fought from an airbase
near the small town of Myrtleford in Victoria.
Fire-fighters in helicopters were directing fire crews on the ground.
Larger choppers were being used as water bombers.
Brett Newman has been fighting bushfires in this part of the world
for more than 30 years.
We're at the airbase just out of Myrtleford.
The fire at the moment is running along this mountain top here,
putting the Hotham Heights and these villages and towns under threat.
What area is this fire burning over at the moment today?
This particular fire was 2,500 hectares.
That's huge!
But the fire down here is 67,000 hectares
and that's 260 square miles.
That's abso... That's...
That's about half, something like half the size of London!
That's vast! It's a big fire.
There's a constant cycle of helicopters coming in here
and landing and refuelling.
It's a little bit like an airfield at war. At war with the fires.
Brett had agreed to try and get me closer to the blaze.
There are more wildfires in Australia than anywhere else in the world.
They're mostly natural events,
but often lives and livelihoods are at risk.
The smell of smoke is really thick in the air now and beneath us
looks like it's all burnt through in this area.
The trees look not wiped out, curiously,
but the hillside looks really scorched.
So just ahead of us over here now it's like a volcano is erupting
this extraordinary plume of smoke.
And you can actually see the flames there.
The town is just beyond us there, look.
It really is advancing through the hillside in a real line of fire.
This fire had already claimed one life
and destroyed more than 20 homes.
Imagine how terrifying that is.
I wonder if they were there when the fire started heading into their land.
This is completely taken. Oh, my God, look at this.
That's horrendous.
Now you can see the car and the trees burnt out
but that certainly looks like somebody's home.
All that was left of one house was three chimneys.
Bloody hell! Look at it.
Utterly blackened beneath us.
Fires have killed scores of people here in recent years
and caused billions of pounds worth of damage.
but if the worst fears about climate change are realised,
wildfires here will only get worse.
I drove another 200 miles to Melbourne
and I arrived just in time for Australia Day.
So we're getting close to the end.
Australia Day commemorates the arrival of a British military fleet
In Australia in 1788 and the declaration of British rule.
Just over two centuries later,
Australia is, by some measures, the wealthiest country on the planet.
Melbourne's even been described as the best city in the world to live in.
When you think that among the 1,500 people who arrived
on the First Fleet more than 200 years ago there was just
one experienced fisherman and not a single decent botanist
or a good gardener...
they've done all right, haven't they?
but like any country, it's had a chequered history.
Its treatment of its Aboriginal people has been horrific
and many still suffer today.
My journey's shown me
that Australians now face many challenges.
They need to wean themselves off a dependence
on just digging up and selling natural resources.
They need to harness the talents of their newly diverse population
and secure and exploit their position on the edge of Asia.
For a Brit, Australia is a curious mix of the familiar and exotic.
On my travels, I've seen another side of a country we think we know.
I have seen a dark side to life here,
including the destruction of wildlife and the environment
and some communities blighted by addiction and crime.
But I've also seen that for most Australians this place
really does seem to justify its nickname as the lucky country.
Perfect timing.
I'm bowled over by Australia.
Remember, this place used to be seen as something of a backwater
on the other side of the planet and now it's ideally placed at the
edge of perhaps the most dynamic and exciting region of the world, Asia.
And the country is well placed to prosper for many years to come.