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From The Sunday Times
February 24, 2008
What a difference a g’day makes
More and more Britons are emigrating to Australia — and not just for the great outdoors. Paul Ham digs deep to discover the pull of life Down Under. Portraits: Dean Golja
Adell Rees, a 39-year-old PA from Durham, recently became an Australian citizen and vowed never to return to Britain, except on holiday. The thing Adell loves most about her adopted country is its “tolerance”: “I can even wear flip-flops to work,” she says. The local attitude that lets her wear them in the office appeals: so laid-back, free, uniquely Australian, she believes.
Adell is a PA at Naked Communications, an advertising firm whose parent company is British and whose dress standards are tolerant even by Aussie standards. She has joined tens of thousands of poms who have become Australian citizens in record numbers in recent years. And thongs (Aussie for flip-flops) join the list of other Aussie icons Adell loves: the sun and sand, the perfect blue skies, the BBQ, the lack of “class” – “In England everyone’s always in their box,” she says – and the bronzed male torsos. “What else do you need in a man?” she laughs, as we down schooners in a pub in Sydney.
Adell, who answers the phone, “Naked, Adell speaking,” has gone native. She has a mane of sun-bleached hair, her skin is nut-brown, she loves the beach and, but for traces of a northern accent, she seems a true-blue Aussie “sheila” (not that the term is used any more; younger Australian women tend to be referred to as babes or chicks). The only thing missing is her bloke (or “bruce”, as Aussie men used to be called). Adell is single. One reason is her chronic restlessness: until recently, she was a “boomerang pom”, having gone home and returned to Australia many times in the past 20 years. Yet last month, after a seven-month recce in England to see if the old country held any vestigial allure, Adell declared Australia “home”.
“This time, when I got back to Sydney, I felt I was at home at last. I love Australia! I love Sydney. I’m so happy to be here. I walk down the street and say to myself, ‘How lucky am I!’ This time I feel more settled than ever. I’m home.”
Indeed, if it came to a choice, Adell says she would happily discard her British passport in favour of an Australian one (she retains dual citizenship). So would Penny Hillier, an Essex-born nurse who is about to apply for Australian citizenship. She and her husband arrived in 1978, but only just applied for an Australian passport: “We love it here. When my mum dies, I won’t be going back to the UK,” Penny says.
Similarly, Birmingham-born Ian “Dicko” Dickson (a household name in Australia as a judge of Australian Idol), who swoons about being an Aussie. “The second we moved here, I knew this was the place I wanted to watch my family chase their dreams.”
His family – wife and two daughters – became Australian citizens on Australia Day, January 26, 2007. Known for his abrasive Brummie wit and savage dispatch of aspiring local stars, Dicko got the Australian Idol job because the producers needed “a venomous British man” on the judging panel. The celebrity aimed his most controversial remark at a scantily clad contestant of voluptuous proportions: “Choose more appropriate clothes or shed some pounds!” Dicko told her with bruising honesty – to the horror of the local press and that rather surly new breed of politically correct Australians.
Yet Dicko has been well received Down Under, which has fulfilled “the passionate love affair I’ve had with this country”, he says. “It feels like my wife and I are committing marriage-style to the nation. We’re making an honest woman of Australia. We’re doing the decent thing.”
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Adell and Dicko are in good company. More British people are moving to Australia than ever. For the first time, Australia is the preferred destination for British emigrants, more popular than America and the Med. In 2006-7, 23,223 British people emigrated to Australia, according to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship; of the total, 3,837 were members of families who had uprooted, and 18,115 were “skilled migrants” granted resident visas under the more relaxed residential points system. The figure is double that of a decade ago, and compares with 18,000 in 2004.
British people make up almost a quarter of foreigners applying for Australian citizenship: in 2005-6, Australian citizenship was conferred on 103,350 people from over 175 different countries. Of those, people of British origin numbered 22,143, or 21.4% of the total.
Hundreds of thousands of British people go to Australia every year – for a holiday, a long-term stay, or to test the waters prior to emigrating. In the 12 months to July 2007, nearly 200,000 native British citizens packed their bags for Australia, the highest number to leave since the heavily subsidised mass emigration Down Under in the 1960s (1 in 12 Britons now lives abroad, a total of about 5.5m, according to a study by the Institute for Public Policy Research).
And the British easily top the census lists of foreigners resident in Australia and eligible to apply for citizenship. In 2001 they numbered 346,000, or 36.9% of the total ahead of the New Zealanders with 204,900 and Italians with 44,200. In fact, a quarter of a million British people (245,311) living in Australia claimed a British pension in 2006.
Many young arrivals have made a great success of Australia. Emma-Jane Granleese, 35, of Kew, London, came here almost a decade ago as a traveller and has recently obtained citizenship. She is now the managing director of the PR firm Weber Shandwick Australia. This year she plans to marry an Australian, Matthew Griffin, who runs a web-design firm, and with whom she lives in Bondi Beach. Her future husband is adamant that Emma-Jane fits in. Believing the new immigration test too lenient, he grills her on Aussie culture: “Matt asks me about cricket, history and books. I even had to know the author of something called Snugglepot and Cuddlepie” – a well-known Australian children’s book about two “gum-nut babies” who live in a eucalyptus tree. Oddly, he didn’t ask her whether she’d heard of Patrick White, Australia’s only Nobel laureate for literature, Robert Hughes, the acclaimed art critic, Germaine Greer or Clive James.
British public servants, too, have come Down Under in their tens of thousands, drawn by better relative salaries and living conditions (see panel, left). The state of South Australia has appealed in particular for British bobbies; and all states need British nurses and health workers.
Of the 8,000 nurses and midwives who left Britain in 2006, 3,000 opted for Australia, double the number that moved here a decade ago.
Constable Ian Crossland, 42, from South Yorkshire, arrived in South Australia as part of the first intake of UK police officers in March 2005. He left the joint Crime and Disorder Reduction Team in Westminster Council, where he was detective sergeant in charge of intelligence, to be an Australian policeman, starting again as a probationary officer. In August, his wife, Joanne, and their sons, Samuel, 12, and James, 9, became Australian citizens.
Other citizens landed in Australia by accident. Ruth Weeks, 40, from London, and her husband, Josef Dabbs, 42, from Lincolnshire, decided to settle in Australia in the late 1990s. “We decided we’d travel till we found somewhere we wanted to live,” said Ruth. The couple have two children, Maya, 6, and Dominic, 2, and live in the inner Sydney suburb of Newtown (a little like Islington). They love it here, but their chief complaint is the cost of childcare: “It’s hideously expensive,” Ruth said. Their daughter already corrects Ruth’s English pronunciation.
Local trades, too, such as plumbing, electrical services, building and bricklaying, are in need of skilled labour, and often advertise in Britain. While the salaries are about the same as in the UK, their purchasing power is greater because the cost of living in Australia is lower. Others go in search of love, or the promise of it. Australia’s outback regions are severely short of women, especially “young wife fodder”, said one farmer.
Many recent newcomers are middle-class professionals with young families, drawn by an immigration policy that appeals to the highly skilled. Australian cities fiercely compete for the most talented. Among last year’s British émigrés were a Sikh family – the father an investment banker, the mother a dentist – who settled here, their third country of residence, to enjoy better prospects and a more child-friendly environment.
And consider Andrew Woodmansey of Portsmouth, a former investment banker who met his wife, Christine, at Cambridge, where they studied languages. They moved to Australia in 2000 and have recently obtained citizenship. Andrew, 49, is now the business development director at Sydney’s Harbour Trust, a federal government agency responsible for developing the harbour for public use. The couple have a teenage son who attends Sydney grammar school, one of eight “great public schools”, as some of the city’s elite private schools are called, and which cost about $21,000 (£8,000) a year.
Andrew worked at several international banks before settling down in Australia. “Each time we went back to the UK, we felt we were becoming less and less English,” he said. “One of the great things is, you’re taken at face value. You’re treated the same as everyone else – whether you’ve been here for a few weeks or for 30 years. You’re not judged by your background or your accent. You’re judged by what you can do for Australia.”
They advise others to enjoy the unique attributes of their new home, and not to compare Australia with Britain: “If you’re just running away from something – costs, crowds, traffic – you’ll be disappointed. There’ll always be something to whinge about.”
But not all emigrants are happy; even some long-standing ones have not adapted to Australia’s coarseness, freewheeling society and the dislocating lack of a recognisable class system.
Take Maisie McDonald, from Bristol, who went there as a child, aged nine, in the 1960s, with her parents and two sisters. They were 10-pound poms (Brits who migrated to Australia under an assisted-passage scheme) and she loathed her new home – as she told the recent Australian-made documentary Ten Pound Poms, shown on BBC2. Her father lacked the money to return to Britain, so Maisie grew up in her new home and married an Australian. Yet she seems to hate her “home” more intensely with every passing year: “When people say, ‘How do you like Australia?’ you don’t say, ‘I can’t stand the place, it’s horrible.’ You just learn to live a big lie: ‘Oh, yeah, it’s great, you know. I love living in Australia’… I always learnt to bite my tongue.
“In England, I’m allowed to complain and run it down, but if you run down Australia, Australians get nasty because they think their country is the best place in the world… but not everything about Australia is perfect. But they won’t always admit to that…
“The thing I love about England is the country, the greenery, the soft rolling hills… When I compare it with Australia, Australia is so stark, it’s barren, it’s harsh. There is nothing soft and gentle or even genteel about Australia. In England birds twitter; in Australia they squawk.”
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There are many factors driving people out of Britain, despite Maisie’s twittering birds. Emigrants cite obvious factors such as the weather, hospital queues, crime rate and cost of living – variations of which exist in Australian cities, of course. And many émigrés seem shocked by what they find when they go “home” to Britain: a brutally self-confident chav culture, where good education and quality medical care are unavailable or unaffordable. The words “heartless” and “selfish” leap to mind, they say: “Everyone was looking after No 1,” Adell Rees said of her most recent trip to Britain.
Why Australia, though? Why not America? One obvious reason is the lighter residency conditions introduced last year. Britain’s love affair with Australia is, after all, a very recent phenomenon. But there are deep historical links. Not so long ago the British and Irish were forced or bribed to go there. From the day the first white settlers landed in what became Sydney in 1788, through to the early 19th century, Australia was a huge prison, the bloody and terrible terminus for thousands of British and Irish convicts, most transported for petty crimes, such as theft and prostitution.
News of Australia’s rare riches – vast fertile lands and enormous mineral wealth – spread to parts of Europe and Asia in the 19th century, culminating in the gold rush of the 1850s, which drew tens of thousands of Irish, British, Chinese and American settlers. Yet the distance and rapid exhaustion of the superficial gold fields soon pushed Australia well down the priority list for European emigrants. In fact, 100 years later, Australia was so desperate for
labour it had to pay workers to come. The nation must “populate or perish”, insisted the prime minister Robert Menzies’s Liberal government in the 1950s, after two world wars in which Australia lost more young men per capita than any other nation fighting for the mother country. But populate with whom? Asians? Definitely not. The White Australia Policy, the first law enacted after federation in 1901, and in force until 1973, determined that all new arrivals be white, and preferably British.
In the 1950s, over 90% of Australians saw themselves as proudly British or Irish, regardless of whether they traced their lineage to a Georgian pickpocket, an East End prostitute, a déclassé aristocrat, a potato-famine refugee or a family of graziers (cattle herders) and squatters.
Today’s influx has subtly different motives for emigrating: they tend to be pursuing a realisable dream, rather than escaping a nightmare. Asked why they emigrated, most cite: sun and coastal living, lots of space, affordable housing (outside city centres), a generally reliable public health system, good, cheap schools, many jobs and relative security. They are also drawn by some of the world’s last unspoilt natural wildernesses, ie, Uluru (Ayers Rock), Tasmania, Kakadu and the Great Barrier Reef. Holidays to exotic South Pacific islands – Vanuatu, Fiji, New Caledonia – are relatively cheap and a few hours away.
But the latest wave of emigrants are motivated by deeper social and economic impulses. Christopher Wade, the director of British Council Australia, said: “Australia has a great work ethic, but a very good after-work ethic too.” He especially admires the “fair go” and egalitarian spirit. This is best expressed, he said, in the culture of “volunteerism”: for example, many parents commonly coach their children’s sports teams. There is such a thing as a community here, Wade insists.
Of course, it is Wade’s job to talk up the Australian-British relationship. But the nation’s rude economic success and political stability are strong magnets. During the past 15 years, Australia’s standard of living has risen constantly and in 2006 it surpassed that of all Group of Eight countries except the US, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Since 1990, Australia’s real economy grew by an average of around 3.3% a year, coupled with low inflation averaging around 2.5% (however, it recently exceeded the Reserve Bank’s threshold, driving up variable interest rates to a mortgage-busting 8.97%, and rendering the cost of inner-city homes, as a multiple of income, less affordable than that of any other developed nation). There are jobs aplenty, however: the rate of unemployment fell from a peak of nearly 11% in 1992 to below 5% last year – its lowest level since the early 1970s.
The unprecedented Asian, chiefly Chinese, demand for Australia’s mineral resources is behind this boom. Australia has some of the world’s largest coal, iron ore and uranium reserves, and is one of the biggest gold and diamond producers. Western Australia, lavishly endowed with natural gas and minerals, is enjoying the biggest mining-led surge in its history, and Perth is one of the most expensive cities.
Buttressing that success is the world’s oldest continuous democracy. At first glance, Australian standards of public debate suggest an Anglo-Celtic version of Italy’s saloon-bar atmosphere. Yet the nation’s raucous politicians – witness the Welsh-born deputy prime minister, Julia Gillard, herself the daughter of 10-pound poms, who last year called an opponent “a snivelling little grub”, and the former prime minister Paul Keating, who regularly emerges from retirement to toss in a little more rebarbative Aussie wit (the former treasurer Paul Costello, he said last year, was “all tip and no iceberg”) – are constrained by a parliamentary system that draws on the best of the Westminster tradition and the English and Scots enlightenment. The November 2007 general election was a sublime example of Australian democracy. When the incumbent prime minister, John Howard, lost the election – and his seat – after 11 years in power, the leadership shifted seamlessly to Labor’s Kevin Rudd. Thanks to the compulsory system of preferential voting, the transition was gracious, popular, representative and bloodless.
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Australians may dislike outside criticism but they’re practised at self-criticism. Many older, better-educated Aussies are quietly appalled at the new breed of thuggish Australian chauvinists, who appear unsportsmanlike, sneering and
ugly. The boorish chant of “Aussie Aussie Aussie, oi oi oi” at sporting events suggests a lack of imagination, wit or self-confidence.
New Australia seems to have sidelined the supposedly traditional Aussie values of mateship, the fair go and self-sacrifice. Asked to nominate “true Australian values”, almost 40% cited “mateship” or “loyalty” in a survey last month in The Bulletin (itself snuffed out last month by private-equity investors who showed no loyalty to the magazine’s 128-year tradition). Yet the same proportion said Australia was no longer the land of the fair go; more than 80% said the gap between Australia’s rich and poor is increasing, and 70% said Australia was too close to America.
Asked to state what appealed to them most about their country, they replied, in no apparent order: “The Australian Rules football grand final. Mateship. The beach. Multiculturalism. The fair go. The Great Barrier Reef. The Boxing Day cricket test match. The spirit of adventure. Surfing. The Opera House. Indigenous heritage.” Not a single scientist, artist or national leader; not a single charity or cause, invention, social reform or business success.
Yet despite this vacuous ideal, a “cultural strut” seems to have replaced the old Australian “cultural cringe”, as the art critic Robert Hughes has observed. The cringe at least suggested modesty and self-effacement.
Humour is perhaps the best mirror of a nation’s psyche, and by this measure, New Australia is unrecognisable from the nation that gave us Barry Humphries and Paul Hogan. Today’s Australians are tickled pink by the silliest home videos, The Chaser (young men pulling stunts at other people’s expense), Summer Heights High (a clever mockumentary about a suburban state school) and, of course, Kath & Kim (a mother-and-daughter sitcom set in suburbia). With the exception of the silliest home videos, the new comedies tend to push a shared political view of Australia as coarse and class-ridden (along brutish materialistic lines). One Australian expatriate remarked on a website recently: “We laugh at Kath & Kim, but don’t really realise that we are Kath & Kim.”
One doesn’t have to look far to find them.
The bacchic orgy that is the Melbourne Cup – the nation’s premier horse race – fetches up images that routinely fail to edify the human race. The crowning image of last November’s event was a drunken, thickset blonde who appeared on the front pages pouring champagne from a great height into the mouth of an alcohol-engorged man lying dishevelled on the grass. And that was before the race began.
Christopher Wade saw a positive side to this behaviour: “One of the challenges for Australia in the 21st century is to adopt a more confident sense of itself, and not be so hidebound about its origins. That may play itself out in terms of boorish behaviour. But yobs are everywhere.”
By this argument, New Australia’s boorishness, beach-side ostentation, loud new money, aggressive republicanism, impatient energy and killer instincts are healthy expressions of youthful self-confidence embodied by the first lines of the national anthem: “Australians all let us rejoice/For we are young and free…”
It also signals the end of Old Australia, a land of irreverence and iconoclasm, charm and humility, dung heaps and dead ground, booze and boobs and hard, leathery men and women who survived the Depression and two world wars to build in their own good time the most durable of democracies.
The country is lavish in contradictions, of course: a monarchist nation that must slowly yield to a republic, yet with large numbers still clinging to the coat-tails of the Queen of Australia; a nation of young people who, unlike their parents, worship the Anzac tradition; and a “classless” Australia seeded with expensive private schools and controlled by powerful business and political elites. The racism – always denied – of white Australia seems most troubling for many new emigrants. It has had many disquieting manifestations. During the cold war, politicians stoked the hysterical fear of China – the “red-yellow peril” – in justifying the nation’s involvement in the Vietnam war.
In recent years the Muslim community has felt the sharp end of white Australian hostility. Consider the leafy commuter town of Camden, near Sydney, one of Australia’s oldest pastoral communities. In December, locals impaled bleeding pigs’ heads on stakes, draped them in the Australian flag and rammed them into the site of a proposed Islamic school.
The most damaging expression of racism is to be found in the whites’ treatment of the Aboriginals. An unofficial apartheid has always divided whites and blacks, as the former conservative politician Mal Brough observed last year when justifying his draconian intervention in Aboriginal communities of the Northern Territory, whose members were accused of rampant child sexual abuse. While some blacks, chiefly mothers living with alcoholic husbands, applauded the measures, others saw the intervention as another doomed attempt to legislate away social problems whose roots lie much deeper. Blacks were not even recognised as citizens until 1967, when they were granted the right to vote. Until then they were treated as a dying race, abused and forgotten. Unlike heads of cattle, they were not even counted on the census forms. Many blacks refer to Australia Day, which commemorates the arrival of the first white settlers, as “Invasion Day”.
The dismal history of white-black relations is alive in the minds of indigenous leaders. They relate many accounts of white drovers passing through their communities and raping their women; of the missionaries and government officials who took children, many of them mixed-race, from black families. The whites who ran the foster homes and mission schools that housed this “stolen generation” allegedly sexually abused 1 in 10 Aboriginal boys and up to 3 in 10 Aboriginal girls, according to testimonies given to the 1997 Bringing Them Home report on the stolen generation.
Can white Australia redeem the past? A starting point was perhaps Paul Keating’s famous speech in Redfern Park on December 10, 1992, when he said: “We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice… We failed to ask, ‘How would I feel if this were done to me?’”
Hope rests with the will of the people to acknowledge rather than deny their past. White Australians tried to do this on February 13, when the government apologised for the first time to the black people for past injustices. It will also depend on the young and newcomers to forge a constructive future with the original inhabitants. Gratitude is never far away, either. More Australians seem to realise how good they’ve got it, and how hard won. Every year more than 10,000 young Australians gather on the shores of Gallipoli on Anzac Day to commemorate the fallen Australian troops. The Kokoda Track and Milne Bay in Papua – the battleground on which Australian forces, many of them untrained militia, first defeated the imperial Japanese army on land – is now considered to be hallowed turf.
And as I watched younger Australians and British backpackers dance in the New Year and partying on the beaches of Sydney, it occurred to me that perhaps Britain had made a terrible mistake – surely they should have left the convicts at home and emigrated?
PERMANENT RESIDENCY
•British people wishing to emigrate Down Under as permanent residents must have medical checks and be of “good character”.
• As part of the General Skilled Migration (GSM) programme, they must acquire 120 points according to a checklist based on skills and experience. This is one of the most common ways of entering Australia as a skilled permanent migrant. The programme awards points not only according to skills, but also according to the demand for them.
CITIZENSHIP
•Most Britons who wish to become Australian citizens need to satisfy general eligibility requirements. These include being an Australian permanent resident, meeting the residence requirements and being of good character. Most will also have to pass a new citizenship test prior to applying.
•To meet the residence requirement, those who became permanent residents on or after July 1, 2007, must have been resident in Australia for four years, including 12 months as a permanent resident immediately before applying. They must not have been absent from Australia for longer than 12 months during the four years.
What absolute twaddle all of this is!! The article itself abounds with so many stereotypes it makes me think the writer last visited in the '80's . References to "sheilas", "bruces" , (I've never heard that one) comments about "coarseness" and lack of culture. Spare me!! And dear readers, let me reassure you that far from being racist hell -holes Australian cities are vibrant, multi-cultural and, in the main,pleasant and welcoming places. Come and see .
M. Robinson, Melbourne, Victoria
Mark Potter - with all due respect, I don't think anyone would suggest living in central London is the best place to bring up your children. I love London, and can't wait to get back there - but when the time comes to raise a family I wouldn't consider doing so anywhere within zones 1 to 3.
I guarantee that if your children's education was your main concern you would have been better off staying in the UK. As for your point on culture - what do you want your children to aspire to? I'm afraid in Australia they are only likely to aspire to people sports-people, with a minimal chance of succeeding.
There are as many run-down, miserable places where crime is rife and the streets are not safe in Australia as there are in the UK (prime example is the borough of Logan in Brisbane). I am tired of people claiming that as a reason for leaving their home country. Australia is a change of scenery and a warmer climate, that's all. If that's what you are after, then just say so.
Alan, Brisbane, Australia
My family (myself,wife.two girls of four and one of 6 ) moved from Central London five years ago to Sydney northern beaches. As people earning a reasonable income our children would have gone to a state school in central London. I did not want my kids to go to school with mainly non-English speaking kids.
Sydney has given us a great lifestyle, good careers, new friends, fantastic leisure opportunties, the state school is great (and really feels part of the community) and the focus is on cultural values I feel represent my family - there is no PC agenda, lovely neighbours,we feel a lot safer here than in London. Our children play outside in the lane everyday of the year. There is plenty going on in terms of culture, shows, events, movies. Not as much as London but show me the beach inside Zone 2 on the tube map. Who cares how many scientists or authors a country produces? What does it matter to me in my daily life? Taking your self esteem from external sources is unhealthy.
Mark Potter, Sydney,
Howard of Manchester most of the year the weather in OZ is cool to mild its only a few months during summer when you can get some hot and humid days. In South Eastern OZ the weather can get very cold and snows in the mountains.
todd, Melbourne, Australia
Spot on Sonny (London)
I have lived in Brisbane for almost two years. Leaving family and friends behind is not easy to do - and I am fast beginning to realise it is the wrong thing to do. My parents sacrificed a lot whilst I grew up - and I think it is wrong if I am not there to return the favour in their old age.
Also, I agree with your point on immigration policy. On a similar note, I believe that the underlying racism which IS widespread in Australia is really down to the lack of exposure to other races. Attitudes towards (particularly Asian) immigrants in the general population are probably similar to the UK 30 years ago - not acceptable but I would like to think it will improve with time.
Roger (Whitworth) - it always make me laugh when Aussies celebrate their climate and describe how they couldn't live with the cold overseas...then whinge about the heat when it rises above 30 degrees. The lack of distinct seasons in parts of the country is also very strange.
Alan, Brisbane,
Not once have I regretted coming here, fantastic place and much better quality of life and far more opportunities for people who actually want to contribute than in England. If you are the type of person who is content with raising little monsters and leeching off the rest of society you are probably much better off in the UK.
I noticed you had much to say about Racism and apologising for the poor treatment of aborigines in the past. That is fair enough and wonder if Britain has the urge to follow Australia's great example and apologise to the people of Ireland? Of course we could add quite a few nations to Britains list of "must apologise to".
GM, Brisbane,
I lived in Australia for four years and eventually moved back to London. It isa big country with too few people in the cities which are a long away from each other. There is little interest in world affairs, little change of ideas, people and talent and became ultimately became just a plain boring place to live. Back in London by comparison, for all its faults, it is a vibrant exciting place to live.
Paul, Lonon, UK
I'm one of those Australians who is extremely proud of his country. Moreover, I'm proud of my ancestors who were convicts who were dumped on this continent and made it what it is today. They would rank as my top 100 Australians. The only exception to this would be our first Governor Arthur Phillip who I grudgingly acknowledge was a pom. He went home to England, was eventually buried and you subsequently lost his body.
As far as being obsessed with sport I would like to highlight that Australia's third largest export is education. Two years ago two Australians won the Nobel Prize for medicine as they discovered that ulcers were caused by bacteria. Also, Australia recently developed the vaccine for killing the virus which causes cervical cancer. They may have been wearing "flip flops" at the time but I fail to see what this has got to do with the price of fish. I would like to say that other party's ignorance of our achievements should not mean they never occurred.
Greg, Sydney, Australia
More importantly, do these British "immigrants" pass the cricket test i.e. do they support England or Australia in the Ashes ? Do they "integrate" or stick to their own communities ?
A. Khan, London,
I am an Australian and I married an English girl. She wanted to live in the UK. And, generally, that's the way its been for 20 years.
When I was in my 20s London was great - lots of things to do and always something happening. Australia seemed very dull and provincial. My professional work was more challenging and Europe is just a step away.
As I got older I began to appreciate Australia - people smile more, they are more inclusive and tolerant. There is the sun and blue sky and the manifest pride people take in being Australian.
The south of England now seems cold and unfriendly - lines of grey people with long unhappy faces. No one takes pride in being British. There is lots of talk here about 'culture' - I don't see much of that in London, stepping over puddles of vomit and urine or ducking youths who want to fight.
My wife and I no longer feel comfortable in the UK - in a couple if years we are going 'home' to Australia.
Mark, Berkhamsted,
Well, from what I can tell from the comments, Australia is just the same as Britain (I can't believe Brits complain about xenophobia/racism in -Australia-!), only with a lower average rainfall.
starling, Lancaster,
Just mirroring what others have said:
(1) Grass is always greener on the other side syndrome
(2) It's not half as bad in Britain as people would have you believe
(3) Being close to family and friends in Britain is much more rewarding than being close to a beach - anyway France and Spain are only a two hour plane ride away
(4) Australian immigration policy is ostensibly geared toward attracting white people despite what they say; having said that, I have found all Aussies (and Kiwis) I have come across in Britain are really cool
Conclusion: I have always wanted to visit Australia - a beautiful and diverse place, but wouldn't dream of wanting to settle there - too much I would miss about Britain.
By the way I'll be surprised if this gets printed - none of my other comments do - maybe I am on a Times blacklist?
sonny, london,
I read the article in the paper today, it included a comparison of tax rates but omitted the fact that UK taxpayers stump up national insurance contibutions (11% for most people). The comparison of annual leave omits any reference to Australians getting long service leave (13 weeks after 10 years when I live there) and the comparison of wages omits to mention the exchange rate used for the calculation.
I lived in Australia for 13 years, family circumstances mean that I'm now back in the UK. Australia is different from the UK. It has drawbacks - it's sometimes difficult leading a normal life in the hot weather (it's much easier to get warm than to get cool), however it has some big advantages, particularly in the way that everyone is taken at face value - no judment on accent, job etc. I've read a lot of comparisons of life in the Uk and Oz over the years. This article has the balance right.
roger haigh, whitworth, lancs
Excellent article for all us ex-pats. I moved from the home country to the USA 10 years ago and I have to agree with Stevo in Cambridge. Truth is, both countries are great. However, with a young family, the quality of life and having to make a living, it's a no brainer. We do still come back once or twice a year on vacation. We never forget how lucky we are to have the best of both worlds.
Bob, Los Angeles, CA
My family has triple citizenship UK, Australian & Canadian. We choose to live in Vancouver Canada.
Helen, Vancouver,
It does sound a little concerning that the issues of prejudice are brought up so regularly in these comments. It reflects a number of comments I've had from friends who have lived there or travelled there. It really is painted as the solution to a number of problems in this country, like costs of living, weather etc. What might be useful is a realistic view of what life is like for migrants to Australia - those who are successful would always evangelise in any case and are probably not representative.
The other thing is that people are being driven down under by this country rather than wanting to go there as of right - as a doctor I know of many young trainees securing employment there as a result of the Governments' disastrous intervention in medical training, no mention of this was made in the article though the number will be thousands and thousands this August.
Rhys Thomas, London,
You forgot to mention the creepy crawlies, weird animals and crippling humidity that prevents you from getting any work done - or indeed, thinking straight.
Personally, my "land of luxury" lies in more mild climates - and no, I'm not living in it.
Howard, Manchester,
I lived in Sydney for two years - for a same sex couple its probably up there with San Francisco as the closest thing to Nirvana - friendly open minded people and a sun drenched outdoor lifestyle.
Im back here in the gloomy old UK for a couple of years, Ive got a good job earning plenty of money, but my bags are already packed to go back.
I want to live in country that is forward looking, not one that seems unable to escape the long shadow of its past.
Mike Stanton, harpenden, UK
About 180,000 people migrated to Australia in 2006-7. This is the highest level on record. During 2004-05, a total of 123,424 people immigrated to Australia. Of them, 17,736 were from Africa, 54,804 from Asia, 21,131 from Oceania, 18,220 from the UK, 1,506 from South America, and 2,369 from Eastern Europe. These are objective statistics. They tell you that no matter what your perceived impression of Australia is, record numbers of immigrants are voting with their feet and coming to Australia, presumably for a better life.
I live in Perth. Some suburbs of this city are so dominated by new immigrants (well, OK, mainly by Brits), that it feels like the Costa del Sol. Immigration levels to Western Australia from the rest of Australia, NZ and elsewhere are so high that Perth today is very different from Perth 10 years ago. House prices have gone through the roof and plumbers, electricians, carpenters and bricklayers all seem to have UK accents. Come here if you want unbelievable personal space. Come here if you want a good place for your children to grow up. Don’t come here if you are bitter and twisted and look for the bad in a place rather than the good.
Ian Wilson, Perth, Australia
Another comment I would like to comment on:
"Even though not every Australian were involved in the racist practice of the past policies, Austrialia as a COUNTRY should correct actions it performed as a COUNTRY. You can't just have a long standing policy of ripping families apart and segregation and not have a policy and a formal apology from Austrialian leaders to correct and address those past wrongs. Austrialia is not the only country that is guilty of this crime (e.g. US, South Africa, India, etc) and I am sure that Australia has improved since the 1960's, but it shouldn't pretend that nothing happened.
cn, U.S., "
We just DID make a formal apology to the Aboriginee people for our countries past mistreatment. Why are people commenting on this article overlooking that fact??
April, Adelaide, Australia
"australia knows how to look after it's own first"
really. i think the true indigenous peoples of australia would disagree with you on that one!
raymond, Liverpool, UK
Agrre with Rob. Much higher quality of life in France, as in Scandinavia, Finland, Iceland, Germany, etc. (Look at the way France organised the Rugby WC 2007. Everyone was welcome, no brawls when France lost the semi-final to kick-kick-kick England)
In the press article the UK seems to be set against OZ, and vice versa. As if there were only two decent places in the world. As a youngster in NZ I recall the tiring press articles, day by day, 'proving' by statistics that NZ was 'the best place to live'. It always had the best butter, best horses, best houses (refrigerators?), best water, rugby players, etc. The statistics always showed only a few other nations, all English-speaking. Only they counted. The same boorishness permeated the OZ media for many years too.
Myself, no, can't even imagine a holiday in the UK now. Crime, idiots on cellphones everywhere, 100 decibel Motown music in pubs, rubbish and graffiti, rudeness - and don't blame the Muslims or Poles either!!!!!
Tangawai, Oslo, Norway
amazing how you manage to avoid the obvious... why dont you print the truth that most people leave the u.k. because it is no longer a place for true english, scottish etc peoples. australia knows how to look after it's own first.
peter jones, moscow,
Hey Steve of Singapore, if a list of 100 great Australians contained mostly sportsmen (and women) that would only be because we are far too focussed on sport and overlook success in other areas.
Australia's cultural cringe is not dead, but where in the 60's we would prefer anything foreign, we're now not good at admitting where others do things better than us sometimes, even when its true.
Still, a great place to live. Come and see.
Paul, Sydney, Australia
It's good here but not perfect. Greed (sorry wealth creation)and selfishness is more evident than even post Thatcher Britain.
Aussies are sticklers for rules and with both a State and a federal parliament there are plenty of rules.
Poms are more laid back than most Aussies and often have more common sense.
It's good but not perfect mate.
:)
Colin, gold coast, Queensland, Australia
b ouduwole "Surely a classic case of 'white flight' ?"
You are very wrong. I am an indian and much of my indian family has moved or is considering moving to Australia. Its not white flight thats driving them, its skilled flight. In the UK we are taxed on average 75% of our earnings(income tax, nat insurance, road tax, tobacco, alcohol, VAT, inheritance, stamp duty etc). Of the remaining 25% we have to pay some of the worlds most expensive petrol, gas, and electricity prices then from the pittance of our remaining earnings we need to save for our pentions and then the remainder is disposable income.
This is the real reason I and may other skilled and earning people are leaving the UK.
sam, birmingham, west midlands
I (being a New Zealander) certainly have no loyalty towards Australia but I am laughing at Steve's comments below. Per capita, Australia is probably the greatest sporting nation in the world - Olympics, cricket, rugby, rugy league, netball, basketball, tennis,...any other nation would kill for their kind of dominance. And Steve claims that all derives from an inferiority complex? If so, I wish NZ suffered from such a lack of self esteem!
However, claiming 100 great Australians would mostly be sportsmen (what about sportswomen Steve?) is plain ignorant. Look at their musicians (AC/DC. INXS) actors (Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman) not to mention 13 Nobel Prize winners in science, medicine and literature. They sure can be arrogant, but they do have a reason.
Anna, London, UK
The reason so many young Aussies go to UK is because they spend 2 years there, exploring Europe while working. Then they go home and 'settle', knowing it will probably be a long time before they get back to Europe. It's not a bad thing that we can't take trips to 'the continent', it's a reality we just grow up with.
Secondly, as for racist attitudes, I think this has something to do with the Howard government, which famously wanted to return Australia to the traditional 1950s family ideals. They dissolved the ministry of Multiculturalism, and basically left all the inter-ethnic communities to fend for themselves. If there's one reason I'm glad Labor is back in government, it's because they realise that multiculturalism is ongoing, evolving and needs to be managed, not ignored at the Libs did.
Brooke, Sydney, Australia
"Secondly most Australians were never involved in mistreating aborigines. A large number of Australians have probably never met an aborigine. Therefore why should they apologise for something they never did.
David Lea-Smith, Edinburgh, U.K."
Even though not every Australian were involved in the racist practice of the past policies, Austrialia as a COUNTRY should correct actions it performed as a COUNTRY. You can't just have a long standing policy of ripping families apart and segregation and not have a policy and a formal apology from Austrialian leaders to correct and address those past wrongs. Austrialia is not the only country that is guilty of this crime (e.g. US, South Africa, India, etc) and I am sure that Australia has improved since the 1960's, but it shouldn't pretend that nothing happened.
cn, U.S.,
As for Australians not liking their country to be criticised, this is very true. But we grew up with a psyche that was passed along by our parents - we're an isolated country at the bottom of the world and long regarded by Britain to be bottom of the barrel. This article states that the British love affair with Australia is recent. For a long time, Australians were seen as second class. It will take more than a generation to chip this out of our psyche.
Brooke, Sydney, Australia
Well as someone who lived in the UK but now lives in Australia, all i can say is I hope I never have to go back to Britain. Australia really is a wonderful place, the weather, lifestyle and the food, is the best I've personally ever experienced.
But the main difference is the attitude of the people. Australians are far more laid back and friendly and aren't inflicted with the gross cynisism nor the insincere political correctness of the British. Also crime is very low here. I can walk down any street at night in melbourne and feel as safe as houses. I can go to a chip shop and order some food after a night out, without fear of anyone starting a fight.
Im glad that they are proud of Australia, they have every right to be. Maybe if Britain adopted this positive attitude instead of running down everything British and got over the gut wrentching self loathing they have, it too would once more be a nice place to live. I'm just annoyed this article is letting more people know!
Brackie, Melbourne , Australia
The most annoying thing about my time living in Sydney was the constant "we are the greatest country in the world...aren't we?" conversations that Aussies always wanted to strike up. I found the constant need for self-affirmation quite funny at first but in the end annoying and fairly pathetic.
Australians are the most balanced people in the world, they have chips on both shoulders.
Matt, London, England
Just a few comments I would like to discuss:
"I would never step foot back in Australia again. The awful racisim that permeates every corner of that society is really dreadful. They can keep it as far as I'm concerned. A more rude, ignorant bunch of people does not exsist on the planet.
Mel Barrows, Tenerife., Canary islands"
You generalizing a whole country as racist just based on the few you met is one of the most racist things I have heard recently. The only possible way you can conclude that is if you have personally met every Australian. Which, if you had, I'm sure you would find many more very nice, non-racist people than the horrible brutes you described in you comment.
"Why whinge about Britain. We are undoubtedly far superior to the country "Down Under....
B Kelsey, Redditch, UK"
And people say we are to nationalistic must have gotten it from the "far superior" Britons.
Australia is a great place, sure we have some bad points but we have many more good.
April, Adelaide, Australia
You are right Ben, its too bad there are so few Native Americans left. As an American desperately trying to move to London after studying there for a term, the number of younger English people wanting to move to Australia surprises me. A few of the friends I made while in London have mentioned wanting to move down under after they finish school whereas I can't understand wanting to leave London...the culture, the history, the pubs!
Emma, Pennsylvania, USA
l disagree that Australians are racist because of the bad treatment of Aboriginies, the worst happened over 100 years ago, The native American Indians were treated just as badly if not worse but no one says white Americans are racist because of that.
Ben, MEebourne, Australia
Regarding David of Wolverhamptons comments that China may like to invade Australia and the uK may not help. Australia stopped looking to the UK for its defence over 50 years ago and now looks to the USA. If the USA does'nt help Australia does have the worlds largest amount of unranium and a nuclear power plant which could build alot of nukes.
Jim , MElbourne, Australia
More and more brits are migrating. Yet the british people have a problem when honest, hardworking individuals want to migrate here.
Kema, London,
Amen to that. The Highly Skilled points system employed by Australia is now being implemented in the UK; whilst unskilled EU citizens are allowed virtually free passage into Britain, easily employable Commonwealth citizens are persona non grata. Both governments are equally guilty of downplaying our historical and cultural association, to their mutual detriment.
Not all Australians are devoid of culture, intelligence or respect; in fact, many of us could be an asset to Britain, given the opportunity.
Kerry, London , (soon returning to Brisbane)
A recent letter in the London 'New Statesman', responding to an article on why so many Ozzies - particularly intellectuals, academics, writers, etc - preferred to live outside OZ was that their country had been 'dumbed-down'. How? By the mass immigration of mediocre and moaning Brits. Worth taking seriously!
Many years ago I voyaged on a superb Italian liner from Auckland, around Oz, to Europe. Half the passengers where 'disgruntled Poms', enjoying their superiority onboard by loudly abusing the genial Italian personell and, at trip's end at Southampton (cuffing and snarling at their unruly kids as they went down the gangplank), boasting how they had avoided giving a tip to the attentive crew. What astounded most was their reasons for fleeing OZ, going HOME! (In the Atlantic many yelled 'British waters at last!'). Well, they despised Oz because 'the sun was too hot!', 'the fish-and-chips were no good'!, 'No Oz employer appreciated their intelligence', 'It wasnt like home', etc. WOW
Brenda, Oslo, Norway
The English need to stop worshipping a country because it seems to provide for everything they lack.
It is useless to put something on a pedestall for this reason, as it leaves you permanantly bitter and frustrated.
Though this often seems to be the English way.
Learn to appreciate what you have!
18 months living in London has certainly helped me to do that.
Happy to be going home...
As for class and culture...like attracts like!
Stephanie, London, England
as an aussie living in london for the past 3 years i can pretty much see all the points discussed. there is racism all throughout the world unfortunately, and having lived in singapore its not unique to the western anglosised world. my young family and i do look forward to going home tho, its easier having a support base around you. some things i will miss, some things i wont.. but all a part of life to see the world and grab as many experiences as you can. i will miss how international london is. i long for the space of australia. a better place to raise kids. there is crime in australia but the rise of violent crime especially amongst youths is worrying. london needs a "giuliani" to come in and have zero tolerance.
adam, london,
Most of the Aussies I know over here are good, fun people. But many friends and colleagues I know who have been to Oz say that although there is much banter and ribbing towards the Poms, Aussies find it hard to take it when it's in the other direction. Jokes about criminal records no longer being a requirement for an entry visa, or gentle reminders when Australia is winning at cricket as to who invented it and put them down there to play it, go down badly. But when it really matters and the chips are down, they are there, unlike many of our European friends.
Richard, Bexhill, UK
One thing the article does not mention is that Britain freezes the pension for anyone who dares to emigrate to Australia. Unlike emigrants to the USA, British pensioners in Australia have their pensions fixed for all time when they receive the first instalment of the pension in Australia. There are as many non-resident pensioners who get full indexations as those who have their pensions frozen. Government ministers have admitted that this is illogical. They have not yet admitted that it is totally unfair.
James Nelson, Melbourne, Australia
I am a Pom who fell in love with an Australian girl in London in 1990. Apart from many other things, I loved her wonderful free spirit and “classlessnessâ€! We have worked all over the world since that time, but settled in Perth with our children in the late 90’s. I still can’t get over how lucky I am to be here, it’s a wonderful country. Your article is pretty much a good reflection of Australia, apart from a few things. You failed to mention the personal space everyone enjoys here. I’ve never felt freer.
The Aboriginal “nightmare†perplexes me, as it is a bad reflection on every Australian. As you probably know, Australia was British until 1901 and did not become fully independent until 1931/42. Let’s face it; the early mistreatment and genocide of aboriginal people was perpetrated under British control. However, the more recent treatment of the indigenous people is just as sickening and probably more so, because we no longer suffer from the dreadful illusion of the manifest destiny of the white races. Having said that, there is a terrible malaise, high levels of self-harm and a total lack of ambition in many aspects of indigenous life. Until that is addressed too, there is no solution.
Ian Wilson, Perth, Australia
Many Australians don't take criticism too well from outsiders. We casually ask visitors "How much are you enjoying yourselves?" and would probably be horrified if there was a vaguely negative response.
I think that this comes from most Aussies having extensively traveled the world. We see how the other half lives. We see those thousands of English that have never been to London and we can't believe it. We get used to praise about Australia as a destination and about Aussies in general and start to believe the hype and then tend to gloss over the ugly side of our nation.
I am particularly embarrassed by our treatment of Aboriginals and general attitude towards Asians and Muslims. I am hopeful that a lot of this spite and fear will die out with the older generation and parts of the baby boomer generation and we can become more welcoming to all.
With the ousting of the Liberal government after 11 years, and fresh new leadership, there is now a real sense of change for the better.
Paul, Sydney, Australia
I am a Black American that spent almost 3 years in Sydney, Australia. The people are extremely nice. I would love to retire to Australia. I also had one of the worst racist experience in my life there. It was one guy on a city bus, but all the other Aussie said don't listen to him, but it was still devastating. This one person did not destroy all the great times and people that I met there.
Glenda Evans, Detroit, USA
I'm a dual UK/Australian citizen. My father is English (Londoner) and my mother is from rural Victoria. I spent my childhood shuffling back and forth between the two countries (6 years of school in the UK, 7 in Australia), followed by my undergraduate education in Melbourne and postgraduate education in Manchester. The author's perspective seems to be very Sydney-centric: it may be the biggest city in Australia but it's still only 22% of the population. So it's an incomplete picture. The racial makeup of Australia has changed a lot in recent years, though it's probably still more Anglo than the UK. Take a walk through a Melbourne public space - you'll see a multitude of different races and appearances. It can only be a good thing. My Indian friends have commented on racial problems, so things aren't perfect here. But my Indian friends in the UK also complain of this problem so it's not unique to Australia. I choose to live in Aus because my wife is Aussie, and jobs are plentiful.
Rob, Melbourne, Australia
Most of the article is correct but of course you mention extremes only. People retire to Australia for a better more social outdoor life and very much more affordable cost of living than UK. However as we love the 'fair go' which does still exist here we do not get it from the UK. The National Insurance Fund is owned by the people who paid into it the Government has annexed it as 'their' fund to cover other projects and then say they cannot afford to give all pensioners the same treatment. We live in one of the 'frozen' pension countries - most of the old Commonwealth countries are in the same boat. Pensioners in these countries never get increases to the old age pension. Those living in Europe or USA receive the correct amounts we are losing money every week. In addition the legal cases which have been going through various courts for many years to stop this anomoly are being held up due to the extra load by new EU members in the court of human rights. Give us a fair go please
yvonne faucheux-morris, Tahmoor, New South Wales
I lived in Queensland for six years but chose to return to England, however , since then I have returned several times for holidays. I love both England and Auz and feel equally at home in both places.
Linda Graham, Winchelsea Beach, East Sussex
the girl in the picture is very pretty!
riccardo, brussels,
Why whinge about Britain. We are undoubtedly far superior to the country "Down Under.
Why do you think we have the highest number of immigrants?
People will only realise how good Britain is only when you experience life outside UK.
B Kelsey, Redditch, UK
Having travelled the world many times and having experienced living in the UK, France and New Zealand, I've come to the conclusion that unless you have something to knit you into the local community, you're much better off settling in a country that shares a common language and culture.
Having a special skill, in my case as an avionics design engineer, helped a bit in France as did my ability to speak French. The thing that really made the big difference was having the kids going to a local school and making local friends that way. Without them it would have been tough. You can see why immediately if you ponder the question "How would a very well educated English speaking Frenchman get on in 'Who wants to be a millionaire'?" - not too well.
Going back to this article, I'd agree with most of the comments about the youngness of Australia. It really does show, but of all the places I've spent time, it is the one place that really does have opportunities like no other for the brave.
Steve S, Wiltshire, UK
All true. Oz is a far better place than England. Give their politicians time, though, and they'll follow Poundland into oblivion, in the same way that we did the US.
One bad thing though. When the Chinese start to look for conquest, as they will, when their economy overheats and they need to expand, they won't come looking at deadbeat England, but somewhere close to home, whose economy is strong but who are militarily weak. If, by that time Oz is a republic, they won't be able to look to England for help.
David, Wolverhampton,
How about that debaucherous national horse race, hey ... Anyone been to Royal Ascot lately? Memories of 'ladies' hiking up their finery and dropping their stockings for a cheeky pee beside in the buses outside the People's enclosure is likely to put a smile on even a leathery old dial.
Renea, Newcastle,
Six months in Blighty and six months in OZ and obviously in summer that would be the ideal. It is interesting that those who migrate disparage their origins. I suppose one has to fortify one's own insecurities so one stays. Both countries are great and I am proud to be a member of both.
Stevo, Cambridge ex Sydney
stevan milson, cambridge, uk
Why all this emphasis on the weather as a reason for leaving the UK? Whilst the changing seasons here are very important to me, I find disliking the weather a very shallow reason for emigrating to Australia.
Brian Taylor, Oxford, England
I've seen several articles in British papers about POMs migrating to Australia, I haven't seen any in Australia about Aussies going to Britain. Did someone mention inferiority complex?
Unfortunately I don't have a column to climb on my soapbox, however:-
Ask the average POM or American what they know best, sports stars, or artists and scientists? Thought so.
Aussies don't venerate "artists" who spend most of their time overseas but still claim to be Australians; most of the ones you've nominated, keep 'em we have others.
The "nobel savage" view of aboriginals will not fix the problem. It is complicated, and will take work on both sides. Child rape, and domestic violence is higher in the communities than the national average, and it''s perpetrated mainly by aboriginal men - FACT.
There is more British humour than "On the Buses" Aussies have better than mentioned here. Explore, Learn.
I love Britain, the history, the countryside, the galleries; I just don't want to live there.
Maggie, Melbourne, Australia
B Oduwole is wrong. Most skilled migrants in recent years have come from Asia. Asian students who study in Australia can migrate and become citizens because, as graduates from Australian universities, they automatically have the right local skills. This is a good thing for Australia, because it strengthens ties with Asia.
Every country has racists. So does Australia. A shameful history in many respects. But no one could deny the incredible changes that have taken place in the last two decades. Australia is not the same white Anglo-Celtic monocultural country it used to be.
Barrie Hughes, Singapore,
Oh and to Mel Barrows from Tenerife, I'm sure Australians will be gald to hear you have no plans to visit us anytime soon. To label an entire country as "racist" and an "ignorant bunch of people", merely shows us your ignorance and not theirs.
By your mantra, maybe we could say that Tenerife is full of bitter, jealous and miserable cretins? But thankfully I'm sure you are not typical of the entire population of Tenerife. Just as who ever you supposedly met in Australia, does not equate to the rest of the 20 million or so that inhabit the country.
Brackie, Melbourne , Australia
Having read this article maybe we should be thinking about what this says about the state Britain.
A good example is what appears to be a stark difference in attitudes to workers at many levels. I saw a programme called "wanted down under" where a carpet fitter was astonished to find out that he would be paid travel expenses when travelling from one job to another. In the UK this would be unthinkable, I.E. if you don't like the job, just leave, there's plenty more where you came from. It's not just the working classes that can be ignored, we have apparently trained too many doctors, thus when many young and talented doctors complete their training that by the way costs about £250,000 , they may not have jobs to go to!
Too many doctors seems like a contradiction in terms and one that I'm sure Australia will benefit from!
Polish workers have come here in huge numbers, yet when asked about working conditions by the BBC, 30% were not even earning the minimum wage, I arrest my case.
Graham, St. Albans, UK
I have lived (years at a time) in 9 different countries including Australi; in fact was in Sydney yesterday. It's a 'good' place in many ways but NOT the 'greatest' it thinks it is. In fact its quite frustrating that when I go to Aus (a daughter lives there) its very frustrating as its got expensive and all my Aussie born and bred mates now live in England so no one to party with....
I am not knocking the place at all but have a healthy reality check and realise a huge proportion of immagrants go back and a huge number of Ausiies live elasewhere.
Andrew, Hove, uk
In your whole article there is not a single,Singh,Oduko,Ming Lee,etc.
So does one assume it is for Anglo Saxons only? or are you one of those 'keep Australia white'campaigners.
dan , london,
Not for me, thanks. Lived in Oz twice, now happy in Arctic Norway. A nation that allowed 'mates', well brutes, several of them abusive drunks and public vomiters, like Ming Menzies (he even HATED Australia), Alan Bond, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, John Kerr, Rupert Murdoch, Bjelke-Pedersen (he was persuaded to sit in a car that could be fuelled by water, and waited ages formit to start!) and then the whining rodent John Howard to perpetrate so much corruption (tax-free perks worth billions) for so long needs to make a headlong rush to a corner and stand there with head drooped for a decade. And stop thinking about surfing, cricket or nitwit barbecues (Good luck to Rudd though! His apology to the aborigines was heroic!)
Vino Rosso, Oslo, Norway
I would never step foot back in Australia again. The awful racisim that permeates every corner of that society is really dreadful. They can keep it as far as I'm concerned. A more rude, ignorant bunch of people does not exsist on the planet.
Mel Barrows, Tenerife., Canary islands
"Also the 'highly skilled immigration policy ' is merely a continuation of white australia immigration." - B Oduwole, New York, USA
As far as I am aware, the highly skilled migrants program is based on a series of boxes you have to tick, based on the experience and qualifications you have gained up to the point of application. If you are implying that non-white people are less likely to fit the required categories, I would recommend looking at your own country. If they haven't had the same opportunities for education and career advancement before arriving in Australia, that seems like a fairly sad situation to me.
Chris, Camden, London, United Kingdom
There is a lot going for Australia but housing, childcare, food and clothing are terribly overpriced. In SA we have no water security just now and the power supplies are a bit irregular. It gets really hot in summer (over 40C and gets to zero in winter) so yes, you do need a cardie and a coat. Jobs are plentiful but only in specialised areas. People are always welcome but I advise a holiday first just to be on the safe side. I have a couple of English born friends who were a little miffed at being given the wrong impression of what they would find. I do actually have a kangaroo and koala wander up and down our street but we are in a special spot in the city where they are still safe.
Ann, Adelaide, South Australia
I have met superb Aussies here and also some who act condescendingly towards the locals (the hosts!). It takes all kinds of people to make the world. One must not generalize as it all boils down to an individual's upbringing and education.
SD Goh, PJ, Malaysia
Not a mention in the article of a key reason why we emigrate..
As more and more people came into the UK, unchecked, undeserving and unrepentently refusing to integrate into British culture, more and more people have left.
We came to Aus, because it protects its culture - Aussie culture stands for many things we 'British' used to hold dear and they dont let people take advantage of their hospitality over here..
Emigration is a majority middle class thing to do now, as people make choices about how they want to live their lives and the world they want their children bought up in. Britain has appeased so many minorities it doesnt know what it stands for anymore.
A happy Pom, Sydney, australia
I wonder if Australia still has rules as to the Colour of its immigrants. I recall the embarrasment in the 1970s, when a doctor friend was about to take up a senior post at a Sydney hospital, part of his deal was that his Barrister wife was also to get a post in the public prosecuters office. A month before departing they went to Australia house where it was "noticed" that the wife was from Kingston Jamaica, not Kingston London. Needless to say that a great deal of money changed hands ad they remained in Britain
P Santamaria, Granada, Spain
I lived in Australia for four years. I am Brazilian. The first thing all Aussies told me was that Australian beaches and bbqs were the best in the world. I laughed to myself, better not try to argue about this. Now I live in the UK, where no one goes around boasting about London being the greatest city on Earth, even though you could make a case for it. Hopefully I will never have to go back to Australia, I do not want to die of boredom.
Roberto, London, UK
The reason you can't criticise Australia is because Australians have an inferiority complex. This is exemplified in sport, where their winning mentality comes from having to prove themselves. Let's face it, in a list of 100 great Australians, the majority would be sportsmen!
Steve, Singapore, Singapore
Seriously, the saddest thing is that us poms refuse to see the good in England. I live in Australia and wish the English would take a bit more pride but maybe not as much pride as the Aussies take in Australia. That's just annoying,
I personally cant wait to come home. Rule Britainnia!
Laura, Sydney, Australia
Having lived in England as recently as last November I must admit (as a very proud Australian) that England is great , the only thing which annoys me is when Australia is ticked off for culture or rather lack of , well name a famous play , book , poet , painter , author etc who is not available in Australia . While in London I saw the ads for various cultural happenings which are available in Australia or turn up eventually ....we really have everything that England has , sometimes with an Australian slant , but it is still there.....especially popular culture i.e. ' Top Gear" .
Peter holles, brisbane, Australia
As an Australian living in Britain I can say that the main differences between the two countries is that Australia has more sunshine and far more space but less history and it takes alot longer to get anywhere. There are more similarites than differences which is ultimately why nationals of each country feel comfortable in the other. I will just comment on two things. Don't listen to David Merriman. He clearly hasn't spent much time traveling around the country. Melbourne and Sydney have some of the best and most varied cuisine in the world as do many other Australian cities. Australia does have culture, architecture etc. Each major city has theatres, symphonies, opera etc not to mention world class sporting events. Secondly most Australians were never involved in mistreating aborigines. A large number of Australians have probably never met an aborigine. Therefore why should they apologise for something they never did.
David Lea-Smith, Edinburgh, U.K.
and look at all the Aussies in London!!!!!
Rob, Paris, France
As a recent British migrant to Australia I can say that it is a wonderful place- welcoming, pleasant and easy to live in. Right now I am writing from my study, overlooking Sydney harbour, it is 25 degrees beautiful sunshine and blue skies outside.
However, being a migrant means dealing with an 11 hour time difference when you want to talk to your family, enduring 30 hours of travelling when you want to go home not to mention the 5000 pounds my wife and I have to spend to go back for 2 weddings this year.
A lot of people migrate thinking it to be paradise here. It is not, it is just a more pleasant, easy going, sunnier place. You still need friends, a good job and a positive outlook to make it work.
Personally I love it here though, you just can't beat it as a place to live.
Chris, Sydney, Australia
Emigrate to Australia if you are comfortable with prejudice. The comments about racism in this article understate its impact in Australia.
Jacqui, Melbourne,
"In England, I’m allowed to complain and run it down, but if you run down Australia, Australians get nasty because they think their country is the best place in the world… …"
True. My Melbourne-born husband confesses that his nation is a bit 'up itself'! Whereas the British and our media compulsively knock Britain (perhaps unfairly), Australia is enviably certain of its 'best country in the world' status.
(I wonder if the gap between the boast and the reality may account for all those disillusioned 'whingeing poms' who discovered too late that their country really did have the best pubs and TV in the world, if nothing else!)
Britons moving here should also be warned that the Aussie media can demonstrate a spiteful, chip-on-the-shoulder about the 'poms' that some may find hurtful and unfair.
But on an individual level I find the Aussies very friendly, helpful people. And I revel in the bright skies and open spaces. I never regretted moving to Sydney.
Janet Davis, Sydney, Australia
Thats nice, Australia is tolerant and you can wear flip-flops to work. Who wants to wear flip-flops to work??
As a business owner who has employed many travelling students from Australia I found nothing more irritating than this blase "no worries" attitude that everyone is expected to appreciate. It doesn't translate so well when problems actually crop up and we do have "worries" to think about.
Sarah, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Having lived in Australia for two years after emmigrating from Glasgow I can honestly say thay that the place very pleasent but slightly overated. For anybody thinking of moving here the pros and cons are as follows:
Pros:
Lots of sun (but cover up)
Career opportunities
Winter (none)
Cheaper property (higher interest rates though)
Nice Beaches (so has Cornwall)
Ideal place to bring up kids
They drive on the left (slowly)
They speak English (Strine)
Relaxed attitude to almost everything
Friendly people
A sense of nostalgia (you do feel your living twenty years ago)
Cons:
The isolation (no more weekend breaks to the continent)
The History (none your allowed to talk about)
The Culture (none- you'll understand once you've lived here)
Architecture (arrived in a cardboard box, except opera house)
Food (get your own cuisine!)
Expats ( who's 'Dicko'?)
Hope this helps some disgruntled Brits. I would say overall UK and Europe has more to offer. Back in ten years.
David Merriman, Perth, Western Australia
Its hardly suprising how many people are now fleeing the country after the destruction inflicted upon us all by the Labour Party. If I qualified for Australia, I'd be on the next flight - one way.
David Forward, Malmesbury, United Kingdom
Retirees can also get a four year renewable visa based on good health and private medical insurance.
oldasiahand, Guildford, UK
1 million Australians, out of a population of 20 m, chose to live outside Australia. Why is that?
Kathy King, sydney, australia
As one who has fled the nausiating political correctness of Toronto Canada, (a disease that I understand is now raging through Britain) , I am very happy here in Brisbane, Queensland. And no snow either.
Relations among various ethnic groups, white and otherwise are good and bad here like everywhere else. Generally there is better understanding among higher socio- economic groups. Probably because the professional immigrant is generally aspiring and assimilating. Nothing new there.
The major difference in Australia is that unreasonable double standards by advocacy groups doing perpetual agitprop for greater degrees of cultural change will simply not be accepted
by ordinary Aussies. Period.
The eminent and scholarly Dr. Rowan would have to resign his office here, I fear .
Jay Fitzgerald, Brisbane, Queensland , Australia
Each to their own. I've been to Australia and liked it, but I would never leave the UK for good.
I've nothing at all against Australia but people are too quick to run down Britain. Those who feel city life is too fast and grey should get out into the fabulous countryside all around us.
There are a lot of Aussies here - let's have a similarly long article on what they like about living in Britain?
Richard B, Plymouth,
My great-great-grandfather (a landless younger son from County Carlow) arrived in Queensland, Australia, in 1864 with his wife and five children. Rural properties were suffering from a labour shortage, as the younger men had gone off to the gold rushes in the southern states. Desperate property owners offered assisted passage to married men with familes (considering they were less likely to decamp) in return for a term of indentured service.
He remained on that property after his indenture finished (and in fact died of old age there). His sons and grandsons moved into a variety of rural trades (including horse-breaker and miner). About half of his descendants are still in the same area (Darling Downs and Toowoomba) but the remainder are spread from Cairns to Melbourne (and even some in New Zealand and the UK).
I'm Australian - but happy to call my ancestry British (the Irish got mixed in with Glasgow, East Anglia and Cardiff along the way).
Phil, Brisbane, Australia
While there is much exaggeration in this article especially in the areas of race and aboriginal issues there are many truths as well. However, there are two important omissions which all immigrants should know:
(1) Australia is the land of the inverted snob. English immigrant Adell Rees is reported as saying what she loves about Australia is its tolerance. I challenger her to turned up at work in a business suit and propers shoes, my bet is she will be sent home to change because she is not fitting in with the office culture.
(2)The Australian sun kills. It is so sad to read that new immigrants like Adell have adopted the bronzed look. A message from the New South Wales government states "a sun tan is your skin in trauma". If she doesn't die from melanoma beforehand she will look like shrivelled prune in a few years.
Ian Davis, Sydney, Australia
Australia is good for white British people. But if you look anything but white, you will be treated like a a second classed citizen, just like Aborigines. It is definitely not as international as London. Your choice if you want to go.
John, london,
Surely a classic case of 'white flight' ? I'd wager that these Britons are exclusively white and that they are fed up with struggling on an overcrowded Island full of immigrants taking their jobs.
Good riddance to them. Anyone who wants to bat for the other side shouldn't be allowed back. Also the 'highly skilled immigration policy ' is merely a continuation of white australia immigration.
B Oduwole, New York, USA
More and more brits are migrating. Yet the british people have a problem when honest, hardworking individuals want to migrate here.
Kema, London,
Come to France...great food, beautiful intelligent people, fine arts at the centre of Europe...much higher quality of life!!
Rob, Paris, France