Just around the corner from the Murdoch camp, Guardian Australia has snuck up on everyone including the Australian’s Media writers.

The site announced that it was live today (and may have been yesterday for all we know) while Nick Leys in the Oz – which also has its head office in Sydney's Surry Hills – was still suggesting a possible June launch date.

Guardian Australia has appeared at http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia (but with a promise that this will simplify to theguardian.com shortly).

The team is led by editor-in-chief Kath Viner – who is also deputy editor of the Guardian – and includes a mix of English and Australian staff including David Marr and economics writer Greg Jericho. Among them is Warren Murray, “site editor for the Asia-Pacific timezone”… a statement of further intent if ever there were.

The publisher claims more than 40 million readers worldwide, “most of them outside Britain” with already more than a million in Australia.

Most initial comment has been favourable, except for a complaint from a reader of more than 50 years who was switched from the UK site without being asked.

And football: With English owners and a team in which about half are expats, it’s hung up on the idea that football (as in the A-League variety) is soccer. “We need to stick to 'soccer' as there are four different types of football in Aus,” says Viner (although today’s pages suggest they may be fast learners).

Generally however, the response has been to wish it ‘the best of British’.

Established as The Manchester Guardian just over 192 years ago, The Guardian belongs to the Scott Trust, and with no proprietor or shareholders, claims its journalists are “free to say anything”…. an assertion which has already been challenged by readers.

There are also other cultural differences. As someone who recruited an Australian sub-editor to an English weekly 35 years ago, I shall watch with interest.

Peter Coleman