Australia is famous for its "big things", and the 230-or-so novelty landmarks can certainly divide opinion.
Back to ruffle some feathers, the satirists from Shit Towns of Australia have put it to a vote and compiled a shortlist of what people believe are the most unusual or underwhelming "big things".
Some people reckon the "shittest" poll is a bit of fun that helps draw attention to their towns; others take exception to being spoken about in such unflattering terms.
Kalgoorlie no stranger to the competition
The city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder is well known by some of the 560,000 followers of Shit Towns of Australia's Facebook page, where polls are conducted to decide which town is the nation's worst.
The competition caused division in the Goldfields city in 2019 when it was in the running to take the national title of "Shit town of the Year".
A group of local residents saw the competition as an opportunity to attract tourism and campaigned for people to vote for Kalgoorlie-Boulder.
However, the city's mayor, John Bowler, was concerned the attention would deter people from moving to the town amid a worker shortage and asked people not to engage with the competition.
The 2019 title was taken out by Logan in Queensland, but Kalgoorlie has been named "WA's Shittest Town" for the past three years.
It's now in the running for "Australia's Shittest Big Things" after thousands nominated its self-proclaimed World's Tallest Bin, which sits at the top of the main street on a patch of red dirt known as World's Tallest Bin Park.
The bin is a long piece of pipe standing eight metres tall.
According to local historian Tim Moore, it was installed in the early 1980s during a campaign to clean up Australia.
While he remembered throwing cans into it as a kid, Mr Moore said there was not much else to it.
Creators receive death threats
Like the bin, Geoff Rissole — who co-created the "shittest" competitions with Rick Furphy — also has a self-appointed title as an expert in sociology, travel and culture, which he claimed after the pair's Shit Towns books, blogs and social media page took off.
Mr Rissole is from New Zealand but said he and Mr Furphy had lived and travelled extensively in Australia.
"[We] found that Aussies and Kiwis share a similar self-deprecating sense of humour," he said.
He draws inspiration from his hometown across the pond, which he declined to name due to the backlash from fellow residents.
"We periodically receive death threats from humourless man-babies, plus locals have begged us not to tell anyone because they don't want to be associated with us," he said.
Mr Rissole said his top pick for the new category was the Big Merino in Goulburn, New South Wales, but it failed to make the final cut.
"It's supposed to be a giant ram but it doesn't really look like a sheep," he said.
"It looks like it was designed by someone who's had a sheep described to them over the phone, rather than ever actually having any interactions with the animal itself."
Mr Rissole said he was surprised the bin was in the top four but appreciated the lack of consideration into what it represented.
"Most big things will be promoting some aspects of the town, like an industry or some sort of tourist attraction.
"Kalgoorlie has gone, 'Nup! Just a giant bin, that's what we're about'."
Captain Cook bought for $1
He said the big bin was tracking well among voters, alongside the controversial "Nazi-saluting" Captain James Cook which stood a whopping eight metres high in the tropical Queensland city of Cairns for 50 years.
The statue was considered offensive and was sold for $1 to a private buyer who relocated it to their property in Mount Molloy this year.
Mr Rissole said another semi-finalist, the Big Potato, had a less political and more unhygienic kind of controversy surrounding it.
"You used to be able to go inside it, but they had to shut it recently because people were using it as a bathroom," he said.
"I don't know whether that's going to propel it to the top, but it's pretty bad."
Not everyone thinks it's funny
While Mr Rissole said the competition was intended to be a bit of a laugh, the owner of the Giant Koala, Patricia Crute, did not think it was funny.
Ms Crute's daughter made her aware of the fact the koala, which is actually a gift shop along the Western Highway in Dadswells Bridge in western Victoria, had made the shortlist.
She said she was offended by the caption which depicts the koala as "a gigantic red-eyed, hairy-eared replica of the only creature with more chlamydia than a local youth".
"I was a bit disgusted actually by the comments that were put on there, because it's not like that at all," Ms Crute said.
"It's a tourist attraction that everybody admires."
Ms Crute said there was a boost in visitors to the koala after it was voted "Australia's Best Big Thing" in another online competition a few years ago.
But she wasn't sure winning the title of "Australia's Shittest Big Thing" would have the same impact.
"Whether they come to make fun of our koala, I don't know," she said.
But like Kalgoorlie locals a few years back, Grampians Tourism chief executive Mark Sleeman believes the light-hearted competition is a good thing for the region.
"This is a whole lot of fun and just helps profile our region and get our destination front of mind," he said.
"We've got the koala and I'm happy to stand by that.
"Whether it's the shittiest, the biggest or the loudest, we'll own it as it gets people talking about our region."
