Answer Australians work longer hours than just about anyone else on the planet, with the possible exceptions of the Japanese and Americans. According to one estimate, Americans work one hour per year longer than Australians. So we are not all that "laid back".
Australians are not big church goers. Maybe about 5% of the population go to church regularly. More than half the population are nominally Roman Catholic. Many Australians regard certain types of Christians as "God botherers" who are always bothering God with cries about this and that.
Austrslians are supposed to be great beer drinkers. This might have been true once upon a time, but it is not true so much now.
The most important single industry in Australia, so far as export earnings are concerned is coal mining. The third most important export industry is education, there are many thousands of people in Australian schools and universities whose tuition fees are being paid by parents or others overseas.
Important Australian Inventions
The first practical refrigerators used to ship frozen beef from Australia to Britain.
A stable vaccine against anthrax.
Possibly the first ever medical X-ray by Bragg when his son broke his arm.
The box kite, which was used by the Wright brothers in their first successful airplane flight. - Lawrence Hargraves
The radial engine, once widely used in aircraft. Also Lawrence Hargraves
Froth flotation separation of minerals from waste rock.
All those were in the 1800s or very early 1900s.
More recently
The atomic absorption spectrophotometer - Alan Walsh
The flame ionisation detector
Improved rotary lawn mowers
Improved rotary clothes lines for laundry use (!)
The multi-channel cochlear implant for the profoundly deaf
Biological control of pest species like the prickly pear and the rabbit.
Scientific discoveries.
In astronomy, pulsars, I'm fairly sure of that. New types of Cepheid variable stars too.
In immunology - the theory of clonal selection - Nobel Prize to Sir Macfarlane Burnet
In medicine - Discovery that helicobacter pylori was the main cause of stomach ulcers, not stress or some other factor - Barry Marshall - Nobel Prize
Also in medicine, Australian medical scientist Sir Frank Fenner was instrumental in getting the entire world immunised against smallpox. Another Nobel gong.
War
Boer War
First World War from 1914 until 1918. First major action at Gallipoli peninsula (part of Turkey)/ Australian causualty rates were among the highest for all Allied nations. On the western front, mostly around Bullecourt, Ypres and Posieres.
In Palestine, Australian mounted infantry captured Beersheba, a place known to Abraham, in the last successful horse mounted charge in history.
A battle planned by John Monash in August 1918 was called the "black day of the German army" by the German commander in chief. Monash was promoted in the field to General and knighted by King George, also in the field, the first officer to have such a distinction for huindreds of years.
Second World War
From 1939 until 1945, at first mainly in North Africa - see the Rats of Tobruk and the battle at El Alamein. Later in the Pacific against the Japanese, see the Kokoda trail. Took part in the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first major reverse for Japan. Town of Darwin bombed in two raids by the Japanese on 19 February 1942 and again later..
Assisted the US in Vietnam. Main battle at Long Tan.
Gulf war mark 1, Gulf war mark 2, Afghanistan.
Australian Writers
Henry Lawson
A. B. (Banjo) Paterson
Steele Rudd (Arthur Hoey Davis)
Henry Handel Richardson
Ruth Park (she might have been from New Zealand)
Kylie Tennant
Ern Malley- check him out.
Nevil Shute (migrated to Australia from England)
musicians
Joan Sutherland -opera
Nellie Melba - opera
June Bronhill - musicals and light opera
Gladys Moncrieff - musicals and light opera
Peter Dawson baritone singer Recorded on all media from cylinders to LP records.
Men at Work - rock n roll
AC/DC more rock n roll
Other notable people
Sidney Cotton - aviator and photo-reconnaisance pioneer.
Herbert Hinkler -aviator
Charles Kingsford Smith - aviator
Sir Donald Bradman - Cricketer. The finest batsman ever seen and rated as the best player of any team sport. His average score is 30% better than any player of any sport, ever, including baseball, any form of football, basketball, you name it. Also a state champion golfer.
Walter Lindrum - world billiards champion.
Movies
Gallipoli
40,000 Horsemen
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Bliss
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Breaker Morant
The Year of Living Dangerously
The Man from Snowy River
dozens more
