Interesting article from the AUE's first day:

"The centre/center question is a good example of why this is difficult. "Center" is a phonetically correct spelling throughout much of North America, but in Australia (and I think also in England), the spelling "centre" is a better representation of the pronunciation.

Spelling reform is possible, and some influential people are pushing for it; but it is going to mean a much larger separation between the written forms of American English and British English.

Spelling reform has worked in other languages because of the existence of a dominant group which was able to enforce its own pronunciation as the "standard". In the case of modern English, there are two dominant groups, neither of which would be willing to accept the spelling or pronunciation of the other. (Meanwhile, those of us in the non-dominant groups will, as usual, be crushed in the middle.)"

Why can't the Brits change their spelling to accomodate our* pronunciation, being that it's the *correct English pronunciation and we also have a majority of English-speakers. Plus, foreigners learn to speak "American"; not Irish.