Waiting for the best
By Doug Hendrie | smh.com.au | 06 October
Drive time
Wait for a Porsche 911 Turbo Coupe ($361,000, plus on-road costs): two to six months
Back in 1998, when Sunday Life published a story investigating waiting lists for everything from sports cars to a brand-new hip, it took seven months to get a Porsche. In our 2008 round-up, we found the process is just a little, well, faster.
"Ideally, we'd like to fill demand as quickly as we can but the factory can only make so many of these cars, and Australia is fighting with other markets," says Paul Ellis, press relations manager for Porsche. "Because demand is so high, the normal haggling is no longer part of the equation. If you really want one quickly, there's no discussion [about price]."
Wait for a Volkswagen Polo ($16,990 upwards, plus on-road costs): one to 12 weeks
After a Polo? You can take one home within a week if it is silver or black but be prepared to wait up to three months for a red one, according to sales consultant Simone Hill, from Camberwell Volkswagen in Melbourne.
Hair line
Wait for a haircut by the Hairdresser of the Year: six weeks
"Robert Bava has always had a huge waiting list," says Ashleigh Mann, head technician at Parlour Hair in Adelaide. "But it's gone up again since the win [at the Australian Hair Fashion Awards in March]." For those seeking a date with scissors wielded by Bava, the 2008 Australian Hairdresser of the Year, think six weeks ahead. Bava owns one salon, on Rundle Street, and franchises another. He charges $95 for a cut lasting up to an hour.
Having a bad hair day? Parlour Hair boasts a standby list, so take a number and hope. A decade ago, the wait for an $80 cut by the then hairdresser of the year, Antony Whitaker, was 16 weeks but that was in Sydney - a city with 3 million more residents.
Aisle wait
Wait for a wedding at the Cardinal Cerretti Memorial Chapel, Manly: 12 to 18 months
Wait for a wedding at St Patrick's Cathedral, East Melbourne: 12 months
When Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban tied the knot at Manly's Cardinal Cerretti chapel in 2006, the picturesque gothic-style venue was already booked out a year in advance. But two years on, the chapel is experiencing a belated surge.
"All of our recent inquiries are from people who want to get married where Nicole and Keith did," says chapel manager Charmain Frize. "I'm already taking bookings into 2010." Book a winter wedding at Cerretti and the wait shrinks to two months.
Competition for wedding locations has only intensified - a decade ago, betrothed couples could have married within three months at popular St Mark's in Darling Point, Sydney. In Melbourne, this year's spring and summer wedding season is already booked solid at St Patrick's Cathedral, so aim for September 2009.
Pet project
Wait for a Scottish terrier: 12 to 18 months
Wait for a Maine Coon cat: three months to two years
A decade ago, West Highland terriers were all the rage due to a small dog named Wee Jock in the TV police series Hamish Macbeth. In 2008, the related Scottish terrier has surged in popularity, while long-time breeders retire. "The majority of people have to look long and hard, even importing them from New Zealand," says Geoff Dryden, secretary of the NSW Scottish Terrier Club.
In the past four years, the striking Maine Coon cat breed has gone from anonymity to cult kitty, says Ian Rivett, president of the Cat Authority of Victoria. The striking cats can weigh 10 kilograms plus, courtesy of tough ancestors that were used as ratters on US farms. Cath Walker, a breeder in the Blue Mountains, NSW, says waiting three months is common, and a bred-to-order kitten could take two years.
Dinner date
Wait for a table at Tetsuya's, Sydney: one to nine months
Wait for a table at Vue de Monde, Melbourne: one to 16 weeks
The world's ninth-best fine dining experience in 2008, according to the S.Pellegrino World's Best Restaurants list, is located at 529 Kent Street, Sydney. Is it any wonder that the next available Saturday-night table for two at Tetsuya's is next June? If you can't wait that long, the restaurant's reservation manager suggests getting on the standby list or choosing a Tuesday night to sample owner and chef Tetsuya Wakuda's signature dish, a confit of ocean trout served with unpasteurised roe. Failing that, try travelling back in time to 1998, when the average wait was only six weeks.
In Melbourne, the buzz about chef Shannon Bennett's twist on modern French dining means a wait of up to four months for a Friday or Saturday table for two at his Vue de Monde restaurant. "It's been like this for two years," says marketing assistant Alison Stringer. Willing to venture out on a school night for the sake of Bennett's lauded double-vacuum crayfish and buffalo milk bouillabaisse? The wait could be as short as a month.
School terms
Wait for a place at Melbourne Grammar primary school: five years
Wait for a place at Santa Sabina College secondary school, Sydney: 12 years
So, you've conceived? Check the gender and start the paperwork if you want access to Australia's most sought-after private schools. "We have people six weeks pregnant coming to us. We get calls from hospitals from mothers of two-day-old babies," says Di Bambra, director of admissions at Melbourne's Lauriston Girls' School. "Most register their children at birth." The prestigious school has thousands of children on the waiting list and parents enrolling their newborns for a 2020 admission.
Celebrating 150 years this year, Melbourne Grammar has a reputation that ensures a similarly high demand for scarce and pricey places. Registration at birth is crucial, with up to 300 parents on the list for prep and 80 places on offer, according to an admissions spokeswoman. Fees start at $16,320 at prep and rise to $19,920 for senior years.
At Catholic school Santa Sabina College, in Sydney, competition for places is so strong that doting parents rush to the phone to register their four-day-old, according to admissions co-ordinator Elizabeth Burrell. Fees start at $7842 for kindergarten and rise to $12,597 for years 11 and 12.
Waiting times haven't changed in a decade for Sydney's elite boys' school Knox Grammar - birth registrations were essential in 1998 and in 2008.
The continued high demand for independent schools represents a slow but steady trickle away from public schools, which educate 66 per cent of all Australian children as of 2007 - a figure that has fallen by an average 0.4 per cent a year since 1997.
Donor list
Average wait for a kidney transplant: 3.8 years
Average wait for a heart transplant: 145 days
Australians with failing organs live on the cruellest waiting list. Last year, 880 NSW and ACT residents, along with 492 Victorians and Tasmanians, waited patiently for a new chance at life. Kidneys are the most sought-after organ, just as they were a decade ago, when the average wait was up to three years. According to organ donor registry figures from 2006, patients now spend an average of 1386 days waiting for a kidney. If a living donor (usually a relative) can be found, the wait drops to 504 days. In both cases, the wait depends on the donor organ's compatibility with a new immune system.
At the start of 2008, 125 people from the four regions were waiting for a new heart, lung or both, but the wait can be as little as a year. Australia has long had a low organ-donor rate at nine donors per million people compared to Spain's world-leading 34 donors per million.
First published by Smh.com.au on October 06 2008
Visit smh.com.au for the latest news updated throughout the day
