IF AUSTRALIA'S education system was perfect, and if every Australian had a perfect memory, and if all tourists spent hours in a library before they got on the plane, this book wouldn't be necessary. But it isn't and we don't and they don't, so this is the next best thing.

In theory, this book contains the minimum information that every Australian needs in order to function in modern society — the vital stuff we forgot from our schooling and all the useful stuff they never taught us. In theory, this book is the only reference work that should be in every Australian home, and the first guide for any visitor who wants to understand our culture.

In theory, I should be a millionaire by this this time next year. In practice, of course, you could set 100 authors the task of listing the essential knowledge for Australians and they'd produce 100 different books. What one person considers crucial data is someone else's trivia quiz. But somebody had to start the ball rolling, and I was the fool who nominated himself.

My plan was that this would be a very small book — just 100 crisp paragraphs, each summarising some helpful fact or idea. Each bold assertion was meant simply to point the way to further reading for those who had the time, while giving busy readers enough to bluff their way through everyday conversations ... Patrick White's most accessible book is Voss, Australia was discovered 50,000 years ago by Indonesians, Vegemite is American-owned, Grange Hermitage is our greatest red wine (but Jasper Hill shiraz is better value), Gough Whitlam was our most interesting politician. And so on.

A bit of history, a bit of culture, a bit of sociology, some practical advice, and home for tea. Then I made the mistake of getting too interested in what I was researching, and of wanting to tell people about it, and the result is that this book should really be called The 3000 Things Everyone Needs To Know About Australia. Just look at the index. I must admit that I included some things because I thought they were interesting, even when I suspected they were not essential.

I mean, you could probably get through life without knowing that this continent might have been called Psitaccoria instead of Australia (see chapter 5) or that the world's first call girl service was operating in Melbourne in 1891 (see chapter 99).

I also couldn't resist throwing in a couple of provocative ideas as talking points — such as the case for abolition of state governments and the need to add an octopus to the coat of arms. Now the book is published, I'm constantly thinking of more vital facts I forgot to include.

I wonder if there should be a chapter that gives the phone number for emergencies (000), the speed limit in built-up areas (60 kph) and how much alcohol you can drink and still be allowed to drive if stopped by a police breathalyser (two glasses of wine in an hour). But where would I stop?

The best judge of what is missing is you. If you notice any glaring omissions - any fact that you think every Australian needs to know but which I have failed to include-or if you find any errors, please write to me care of the publishers, or to ddale@essentialideas.info. I hope to do regular updates and, between us, we can make this book perfect by the year 2010.

The pace of social change in Australia is so fast that this book needs to be substantially rewritten every 18 months or so. When I was first putting it together at the beginning of 1996, Paul Keating was the prime minister, we were heading towards a republic, and we knew nothing of Pauline Hanson, Titanic, Care Blanchett, Olympic scandals, Michael Hutchence's belt, and Mark Taylor's retirement from Test cricket.

Many readers suggested improvements to the first and second editions, and thanks to them, this edition is a more thorough summary of a nation's collective wisdom. I'd welcome more letters about this edition, so that we can approach perfection in the new millennium.

The following publications have been valuable sources of information and inspiration during my researches, and I commend them to those who want to go deeper into this country's essential knowledge:

Year Book Australia 1997 (published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics);
Book of Australian Facts (Reader's Digest); Reinventing Australia by Hugh Mackay (HarperCollins); The Australian Book of Lists by Michael Morton Evans (Simon and Schuster); Suburban Icons by Steve Bedwell (ABC Books); Australian Icons
by Peter Luck (William Heinemann); The New Guinness Book of Records 1997
(Guinness Publishing); Great Australian Sporting Heroes (The Five Mile Press);
The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes (Collins Harvill); The Dictionary of Famous Australians by Arm Atkinson (Allen and Unwin); Chronicle of the 20th Century (Chronicle Penguin); The Book of Australian Firsts (Guinness); The New Shell Book of Firsts by Patrick Robertson (Headline); One Continuous Picnic-A History of Australian Eating by Michael Symons (Duck Press); What Happened When by Anthony Barker (Allen and Unwin).

>>To buy THE 100 THINGS EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT AUSTRALIA, go HERE