The article is myopic, not the Australian population.
Cody,
Believe me it really doesn't give me any satisfaction at all to contradict you on the Australian population bit. The real Australians who are rapidly losing the country to less than benevolent interests are myopic in the extreme. By real I mean the descendents of those who built this Nation, fought for it, died for it, made it prosperous & generally had all the right mentality to make Australia into the great Nation it used to be. It's a typical scenario of spoiling the brats & eventually they waste all the good efforts to give them a better life.
The inheritors take it all for granted hence the zilch appreciation factor. I say it serves them right but the bigger problem is that they're dragging us down the drain with them.

Here we go again;
Articles such as this are built up on a myth and an old Dutch cartographer called Mercator.
Now hear this !
Europe is closer to Asia than Australia, but no one suggests that Europe is part of Asia.
Beijing is closer to Europe than Australia.

I will bet quids that the author went to school with Mercator's projection world map on his school wall.
Whole generations have a faulty image of the world due to Mercator.
Teachers see this myth on their classroom wall every day every year
so it is no wonder that students accept the myth.

While a very few high school students ever even hear about great
circles I guess we will be stuck with the myth that Australia is part of Asia.
Incidentally for your information neither Indonesia, the Phillipines or Papua New Guinea are part of Asia.
Like Australia and New Zealand, they are part of Oceana !