Although Australia is the largest island on earth and contributes a continental land mass in its entity, it remained undiscovered for a considerable length of time. This paper deals with those who did not discover Australia, why, and the implications of their non-discoveries.

The Australian Aborigines were the first people to not discover Australia. There are a number of theories put forward by a number of leading experts as to why this is so. It is generally accepted that the Aborigines failed to discover Australia because they had:

-no guns -no Bibles -no diseases such as the plague, small pox, etc. -no flags -no title deeds -no monarch Furthermore, current theory is that they may have crossed over from Southeast Asia by a number of land bridges caused by the Ice Age, which would have been cheating, since all discovery had to be done by boat. In addition, the Aborigines are not of European descent, and it is universally accepted that discovery can only be an act of white races.(1) At any rate, this all took place long before the Age of Discovery and therefore can and should be discounted. Therefore Australia remains undiscovered.

The next group of people not to discover Australia were the Dutch, which is somewhat surprising considering the number of times they ran into it on their way to subjugating Java and laying the foundations of apartheid in South Africa. In hindsight, however, this may be rather fortunate(2) since otherwise we would all be Reformed and speaking Dutch. This is why Australia is known as "the Lucky Country".

The Third people not to discover Australia were the Spanish (or Spaniards, as they are sometimes called). The Spanish (or Spaniards) sailed throughout the Pacific Ocean(3), naming almost everywhere they discovered after their saints and conquering South America and the Philippines. Incredibly, by the time they discovered Vanu Atu(4) they had run out of saints. Naming the largest island Espiritus Santo, they returned home to obtain the latest list. Again, this proved fortunate since Australia would have been the next destination, and we might all be Roman Catholic, had the Inquisition, and speak Spanish (or Portuguese, as the Brazilians call it.)

The French (bastards!) also did not discover Australia. They sailed around the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, carving up an empire in and enslaving the people of Africa, the Middle East, India and Indochina into colonies, thus promoting liberty and equality. This was done to prove French superiority to the nations of the world, despite the fact they couldn't even win a war against England. That they failed to discover Australia meant that we have been (largely) free of quiche, atom bombs and /Chiraq/.(5)

The English were the last people to not discover Australia, in spite of the huge number of fleets sent out to discover it. That so many commissioned explorers somehow managed to miss a land mass of such magnitude may help explain England's demise in the arena of international cricket. England then colonized Australia, sending out fleets of settlers. Traditionally, it was thought that most of the early settlers were undesirable elements of English society, but recent research suggests otherwise.(6)

Finally, Australia was not discovered by Indonesian fishermen, seafaring Chinese of the Ming Dynasty, or Japanese tourists. These people are known to history as Et Cetera.

(1) Other examples include China (discovered by Marco Polo, not the Chinese) and the Americas (discovered by Colombus, not the Indians) (2) Those who doubt the validity of this statement usually change their opinions when their attention is directed to Anita Keating. (3) This was named by the Spanish (or Spaniard) explorer Magellan, who originally intended to name it The Ocean. He was allegedly requested by his first officer to name it more specifically, upon which he renamed it The Specific Ocean. (4) Vanu Atu was not discovered by the Melanesians. See above for reasons. (5) Chirac (pron. Shi-rack) Fr.= military disaster. (6) This would explain the presence of whinging poms, soccer hooligans, cockneys, and Take That in England, and their absence in Australia.