The influence of immigration and weather on culture is so much clearer when travelling around the country.
Just one example: gardening.
Melbourne, at least the north where there's been a lot of southern European and middle eastern immigration, has just tonnes of food gardening in back and front yards. Olive and lemon and pomegranate trees are standard front yard staples, backyards are very often mostly made up of veggie beds, and there are plenty of permaculture-ish "nature strips" or verges. A lot of the weeds are edible too, and people collect them (mallow leaf, nettle, wild fennel).
Less in the rural areas as you head north, because farms. Then in Albury and the towns in Southern NSW it starts up again, but the vegetable patches are smaller and there are fewer olive trees.
Canberra seems to be getting more into veggie beds since I left in 2009, but the weather there isn't super kind to water-and-warmth loving annuals.
Cabramatta, where the dominant culture is Vietnamese, is back to the Melbourne-ish gardening. Different plants due to weather and culture, but every little space is used.
In Newcastle it's hard to find any real evidence of food gardening at all. I suppose it's more British, historically? The weather would be great for it, if you could handle the rain. Mangoes grow here! There are a few little community gardens in the hipper areas, but none of the visible margin-gardening I'm used to at home.
I'm not saying I fully understand what's going on exactly, but the difference is clear.