Don't concern yourself about whether there is short selling or not. Just focus on your own capital management and trading plan for any Index,Industry,Stock. And never blame shorts for any loss, any loss is your own just learn from it and move on.
As for shorts on ASX, not sure about brokers but individuals with large accounts on margin can short ASX stocks, however first there has to be the stock to borrow in the first place to short. I can short about the top 50 ASX stocks and that's it, simply because smaller stocks don't have shares to borrow.
US stocks (not OTC) I can generally short almost any stock, larger market more liquid, more volume you can nearly always find shares to borrow. Except for new IPOs sometimes they control amount of stock on offer and avaialble to borrow.
Naked Short Selling however is a different matter completely and was banned across most markets post GFC.
Don't restrict yourself just going long, there is nothing wrong with playing the game both sides some of my most profitable trades have been very long term duration shorts that lasted almost two years until the company finally folded.
However you need to learn to sell before you can short.
Going long is all very well during a bull market as we've experienced for the last 5 years, but when the market reverses into bear market not being able to short will leave you without a trading strategy, possibly for years.
