About 60,000 years, which has given them plenty of time to learn what things to avoid that are likely to kill or maim you.
European colonisers have had much less time. And are generally slow learners.
Personally, Australia is one country that I am completely disinclined to ever want to visit - somewhere where EVERYTHING wants to hurt or kill you has no place on a pleasure trip itinerary.
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Do not taunt Happy Fun Tree.
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The Giant Hogweed was brought to Britain by Victorian collectors, from Russia. There’s a Genesis song about it. Most of our native stingy, bitey things are relatively benign, it’s the recent arrivals that are a nuisance, like Japanese Knotweed, Himalayan Balsam, False Widow spiders, and now Brown Recluse Spiders! 
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I’m a fan of Genesis, hence the “Return of the Giant Hogweed” reference.
Knotweed I have dealt with (in my time as a gardener - it’s a pain, but like you say, benign.
I found a False Widow in my shed at the allotment (and have a horrible story of a friend of mine who encountered one of these buggers up a ladder with his hands full - bit him on the upper lip - necrosis).
But Brown Recluse - not heard of them, they sound nasty…
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I don’t particularly believe this, but I’m still intrigued by funnelweb spiders. The Sydney Funnelweb has a particularly nasty venom that will kill [1] within a few painful hours, but only primates. To every other living creature it’s more like a bee sting; dangerous if you’re allergic, but otherwise just annoying.
A friend’s dog was playing with a funnelweb, to my friend’s distress. He managed to get the dog away from it, and phoned the vet in desperation.
Friend [nearly sobbing]: “My dog! He’s been bitten by a funnelweb! It happened a few minutes ago!”
Vet [sounds bored]: “Oh yeah? How does he look?”
Friend [a bit puzzled]: “Um, fine, actually?”
Vet [still bored]: “Yeah, cool. If he was deadly allergic, you’d know already.”
Friend [happy, but confused]: “So do I need to…?”
Vet: “Just keep an eye on him for swelling. He’s probably fine though. Just don’t get bit yourself, ok? Main way to do that is: don’t be that dopey bugger who tries to save the day. Alright?”
Friend: “Sure thing.”
[1] Note: nobody has died from a funnelweb bite in Australia since the anti-venom technology was sorted out in the early 80s.
edit: tyop
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First hand experience here, yes it works exactly as described. Intense pain, worse with cold initially lasts for 12-24 hours, then settles into a different but still very unpleasant pain that lasts for 6 - 8 months.
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Yes, yes it is!!
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Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball
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A short history: Sometime around 40,000 years ago some people arrived in boats from the north. They ate all the available food, and a lot of them died. The ones who survived learned respect for the balance of nature, man’s proper place in the scheme of things, and spiders. They settled in and spent a lot of the intervening time making up strange stories.
Then, around 200 years ago, Europeans arrived in boats from the north. More accurately, European convicts were sent, with a few deranged people in charge. They tried to plant their crops in autumn (failing to take account of the reversal of the seasons), ate all their food, and a lot of them died.
About then the sheep arrived, and have been treasured ever since. It is interesting to note here that the Europeans always consider themselves vastly superior to any other race they encounter, since they can lie, cheat, steal and litigate (marks of a civilized culture they say), whereas all the Aboriginals can do is happily survive being left in the middle of a vast red-hot desert, equipped with a stick.
Australia, the Confusing Country, Jeremy Lee aka Orinoco on the H2G2 forum, 1999.
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I’d heard about this plant, but the post got me wondering - as a Victorian relocating to Queensland - whether it would be anywhere near us, and yes, it grows all the way from Cape York into northern NSW, including around Brisbane. I’m going to pay very close attention when I’m bushwalking.
My googling through, threw up seeds and plants for sale:
Dendrocnide moroides - Gympie Stinger (seed) | Herbalistics
Dendrocnide moroides - Gympie Stinger (plant) | Herbalistics
Hope they sell hazmat suits as well.
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Harry Harrison has entered the chat:
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I thought coconuts were among the most dangerous.
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Didn’t one conk Keef Richards on his conk?
/asks the Gogol
Nope. He apparently fell outta a coconut palm…
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Sometimes it’s not so much the plant as us having an unusual susceptibility to it. Catnip gets no value out of attracting cats, it just doesn’t want to be eaten by bugs. Magic mushrooms don’t care if they make you see things, just that herbivores leave them alone. Maybe the important thing here is not to touch and it’s just chance how much humans regret it.
If I had to guess, though, it would be an arms race against some particular herbivore. Not necessarily anything big…just with mechanisms to detoxify the stuff, like how pandas can huge amounts of the cyanide from uncooked bamboo or monarchs can handle milkweed toxins. And so in trying to keep them deterred, the plants end up with something really nasty to the recent immigrants with no such resistance.
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I dunno, they definitely look like they’re plotting something.
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I think they can hear you all the way from Hobart!
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Yep, thinking the exact same thing…
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