Australian cities fend off insults

A trans-continental war of words broke out between Australia's smaller cities this week, with Perth flinging accusations that Hobart and Adelaide were boring and backward-looking.

Regional rivalries have long been a feature of Australian life, with competition between Sydney and Melbourne particularly intense. Despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that Australia is culturally homogenous, people living in different states love to trade insults with each other.

The inhabitants of New South Wales call Queenslanders 'banana benders' while South Australians are known as 'crow eaters'.

Canberra is stereotyped by the rest of the country as being dull and full of faceless bureaucrats, while the Northern Territory is caricatured as a haven for dim-witted rednecks.

But this latest row was much more ill-tempered, and began when Colin Barnett, the leader of Western Australia's opposition Liberal Party, said a brain drain of young professionals meant state capital Perth ran the risk of becoming as dull as Hobart and Adelaide.

He said the cream of Perth's young people were heading to the bright lights of more dynamic Sydney and Brisbane in search of better work opportunities.