age spoken by children after English was Arabic, followed by Vietnamese, Greek, Chinese, and Hindi.
Between 200 and 300 Indigenous Australian languages ??are thought to have existed at the time of first European contact, of which only about 70 have survived. Many of these are exclusively spoken by older people; only 18 Indigenous languages ??are still spoken by all age groups. At the time of the 2006 census, 52,000 Indigenous Australians, representing 12% of the Indigenous population, reported that they spoke an Indigenous language at home. Australia has a sign language known as Auslan, which is the main language of about 5,500 deaf people.
7. Religion
has no state religion; Section 116 of the Australian Constitution prohibits the federal government from making any law to establish any religion, impose any religious observance, or prohibit the free exercise of any religion. In the 2011 census, 61.1% of Australians were counted as Christian, including 25.3% as Roman Catholic and 17.1% as Anglican; 22.3% of the population reported having «no religion»; 7.2% identify with non-Christian religions, the largest of these being Buddhism (2.5%), followed by Islam (2.2%), Hinduism (1.3%) and Judaism (0.5%). The remaining 9.4% of the population did not provide an adequate answer.
Prior to European settlement in Australia, the animist beliefs of Australia's indigenous people had been practiced for millennia. In the case of mainland Aboriginal Australians, their spirituality is known as the Dreamtime and it places a heavy emphasis on belonging to the land. The collection of stories that it contains shaped Aboriginal law and customs. Aboriginal art, story and dance continue to draw on these spiritual traditions. In the case of the Torres Strait Islanders who inhabit the islands between Australia and New Guinea, spirituality and customs reflected their Melanesian origins and dependence on the sea. The 1 996 Australian census counted more than +7000 respondents as followers of a traditional Aboriginal religion.international survey, made by the private and not-for profit German think-tank, the Bertelsmann Foundation, found that «Australia is one of the least religious nations in the western world, coming in 17th out of 21 [countries] surveyed »and that« Nearly three out of four Australians say they are either not at all religious or that religion does not play a central role in their lives. »While weekly attendance at church services in 2001 was about 1.5 million (about 7.8% of the population), a survey of 1,718 Australians by the Christian Research Association at the end of +2009 suggested that the number of people attending religious services per month in Australia has dropped from 23% in 1993 to 16% in 2009, and while 60% of 15 to 29-year-old respondents in 1993 identified with Christian denominations, 33% did in 2009.
8. Education
School attendance, or registration for home schooling, is compulsory throughout Australia. Education is the responsibility of the individual states and territories so the rules vary between states, but in general children are required to attend school from the age of about 5 up until about 16. In some states children aged 16-17 are required to either attend school or participate in vocational training, such as an apprenticeship.has an adult literacy rate that was estimated to be 99% in 2003. However, a 2011-12 report for the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that Tasmania has a literacy and numeracy rate of only 50%. In the Programme for International Student Assessment, Australia regularly scores among the top five of thirty major developed countries. Catholic education accounts for the largest non-government sector.has 37 government-funded universities and two private universities, as well as a number of other specialist institutions that provide approved courses at the higher education level. The University of Sydney is Australia's oldest university, having been founded in 1850, followed by the University of Melbourne three years later. Other notable universities include those of the Group of Eight leading tertiary institutions, including the University of Adelaide (which boasts an association with five Nobel Laureates), the Australian National University located in the national capital of Canberra, Monash University and the University of New South Wales.
9. Health
has the fourth highest life expectancy in the world after Iceland, Japan and Hong Kong. Life expectancy in Australia in 2010 was 79.5 years for males and 84.0 years for females. Australia has the highest rates of skin cancer in the world, while cigarette smoking is the largest preventable cause of death and disease, responsible f...
