I know certain places where they wire devices up just by shoving the bare wires straight into the mains socket without any plug attached. If you try hard enough, you can stick anything you like in the sockets, but that doesn't mean you should.
There are a lot of old gadgets in Australia that use the piggy back plugs, but for some reason you cannot get re-wireable piggy back plugs anymore. Handy, but some idiot made an extension cord out of two piggy back plugs. Any product which allows stupidity-induced death is fine by me.
I like the safety features of modern Aussie plugs. There is a sheath that covers the first half of the live and neutral pins, and the earth pin is totally unexposed. It is good for preventing accidents in some cases like when plugging things in the dark, or bits of falling metal shorting the pins if it isn't plugged in all the way due to a worn-out socket.