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Migrants leaving Australia

IWC2006

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Migrants leaving Australia
January 25, 2012, 6:18 pm Adam Marshall Today Tonight

They flew in from around the world, chasing the Australian dream, but now they can't wait to fly right back out. So what's causing this mass exodus?
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The latest figures show that migrants are leaving Australia in record numbers.

There are those who want to stay, and those who can't wait to leave. The grass is supposed to be greener, but it seems ‘the sunburnt country’ is losing its appeal.

Last year alone the number of people coming here to live dropped by nine per cent to 127,000. As well as that 88,000 left, planning to never return. That's double the number of a decade ago.

More stories from Today Tonight

Big change in Aussie migration
Population explosion
Reverse racism


Travel agent Lisa left the United States ten years ago, and now she's among the tens of thousands of migrants who wants to move back home.

“I find Australians in general not as accepting of foreigners. TVs, fridges, cars - they're double or triple the price here. Movies take like three months to get here and there's nothing to do at night. All I think about is going home,” Lisa said.

Joining the queue are ping pong poms, Kevin and Lynne Ward. The couple moved back home to England after a month long visit to Perth.

More stories from reporter Adam Marshall

When they first applied to come to Australia, Kevin - a qualified plumber - was told he'd be in demand. It was good enough to get a Skilled Migrants Visa, but not good enough to get a job when he finally arrived with his family.

“If you're an English plumber, with all the qualifications under the sun, you might as well throw them in the bin - they're not worth the paper they're written on,” Kevin said.

But when the Wards finally arrived, Kevin was told to retrain. They’ve called it quits, and back home it was - feeling like they were sold a dud.

They went back home - a 30,000 kilometre round trip.

“We ended up ringing the shipping company and saying ‘leave the stuff on the container, just send it straight back again’,” Lynne said.

The adventure down under cost them a $100,000.

Daphne Loffman is a nurse who’s just moved to Perth from England with her family, hoping for a better, easier lifestyle. But it's been anything but.

“Everything's more expensive,” she said.

“We wanted to stay. We didn't spend that money, and all that time and effort, for a laugh, and to sit here and moan about it,” Daphne said.

Coming to Australia is a huge commitment, and an expensive exercise.

“They told me that it would be ten to fifteen years, and if I wanted citizenship, I'd have to fork out about $34,000,” said Jan Peters.

Peters is the flip-side. She actually wants to stay in Australia, but fears she'll have to move back home to New Zealand.

“It leaves a sick feeling in your tummy, even though you're contributing, you're working hard, and you're making a good life - you're doing all the right things,” Peters said.

Like so many other migrants, it's Australia's rules, regulations and red tape that's putting her off, and forcing her aboard the migrant merry-go-round.

“I've had the advice, and I don't see the point in going through the process of applications, so I haven't done that. Maybe I should,” she said.

TV and radio personality Jono Coleman thinks “Australia does have a bit of an image problem.”

According to Coleman “life is more expensive, petrol's more expensive, and going to the supermarket is more expensive.”

Coleman's parents were ‘ten pound poms’. He chased fame and fortune back in the Motherland, before returning home to Australia.

Seeing it from both sides, he says it's time for an image overhaul as Australia's reputation overseas is getting trashed.

“There's a joke that goes around in the UK: ‘What's the difference between a tub of yoghurt and an Australian?’ And they say ‘the tub of yoghurt has got more culture’,” Coleman said.

And Australia’s also getting more expensive. A report by public policy think tank, The Centre for Independent Studies, has found our cost of living is spinning out of control.

Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are now among the top twenty priciest cities in the world, where a decade ago they would've just scraped into the top 100.

“That's one of the things we don't realise about Australia - we're not just a great immigration country, but we're a great emigration country,” Professor Graeme Hugo, the head of The Australian Population and Migration Research Centre at the University of Adelaide, said.

Professor Hugo says it's time the Federal Government focuses more on stemming the stampede abroad, rather than trying to keep the migrants out.

“The increase in cost of living in Australia may be one of the factors which is encouraging some people to go back. I think a lot go back because they miss that interaction with family, and also lifestyle factors. You know things don't turn out quite as they expected they might,” Professor Hugo said.

The worst part is we are losing our best and brightest as highly skilled workers, our most educated, are lining up to live elsewhere.

“I often think that Australia could well do to have an emigration policy as well as an immigration policy,” Professor Hugo said.

But it may be too little too late, especially for those migrants already on their way home.
 

neddy

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Not surprising. Australia is not for everyone.
Those who make it here can stay on.

It is really about the lifestyle choice.

Pauline Hanson moved to the UK but now has crawled back to Australia. (Brit reject or unrealistic expectations?)

Good for people who want to migrate to Australia to think.
 
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neddy

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Australians Once Were Worriers But There's Blue Sky Ahead
January 25, 2012, 4:30 pm Tim Harcourt Yahoo!7
On Australia day we love to question how our nation is faring. So Tim Harcourt is here to clear the air of some great Aussie myths, so we can really say "no worries!" on the 26th


As Australia Day approaches, the great Aussie annual introspection starts. We ask questions about who we are as a nation, how does our history stack up, where are we heading and what our values are. We even have debates about whether we should have Australia Day at all.

Of course, having a bit of a national conversation with ourselves isn’t a bad thing. It’s healthy to ask questions, and there can be some spinoffs. A bit of navel gazing by Australians lead to Dr Karl Kruszelnicki‘s mini-thesis and why belly button fluff is always blue (true blue that is, or is it green, Karl?)

But as healthy as questioning is, it is important to have a good amount of evidence on side to really get a handle on things. In these days of 24 hour news cycles and instant opinion making, having a loud megaphone and the capacity to put the boot into someone or some group seems to carry more weight than a considered opinion based on research or a fair-minded assessment of a complex issue affecting the nation. Whether it’s a shock jock at home or a celebrated expat touching down on an airport tarmac to launch a diatribe on the national character, some of the louder voices of public opinion drown out the voices of other Australian citizens.

But as we approach January 26th, we should clear the air by disposing a few great Aussie myths, which will fill the air waves this week. By doing that, we’ll have a better informed dialogue about the future of the nation. If New Zealanders once were warriors, Australians once were worriers. As a result of our mass worrying several myths are created as fact, and distort the debate. So if we can dispose the myth, then we will literally have no worries. Let’s take a few myths that you always hear around this time of year.

Myth one is one we always hear that ‘Immigrants take our jobs.’

This has come to the fore recently in the form of Liberal MP Theresa Gamboro’s ‘scientific’ observation that immigrants don’t know how to queue or use deodorant. Putting the great Rexona question aside, in the labour market the evidence shows that immigrants make a positive contribution to the labour market. Immigrants make good exporters.

According to Sensis research, 50 per cent of all exporters are born overseas. They bring skills, networks, language culture and a bit of entrepreneurial flair and enrich us as an economy and a society. Think Westfield, TNT, Myer, Bing Lee, Crazy Johns - all started by migrants. Think of the Australian business hall of fame. Names like Lowy Abeles Parbo come to mind. Immigrants make good employers and good workers. Exporting businesses (many started by immigrants) pay 60 per cent higher wages than other companies, and provide job security and higher occupational health and safety (O H & S) standards. As employees, immigrants are often highly skilled and work ready. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows that while immigrants account for less than 30% of the labour force, they have claimed more than half the jobs created since the start of 2010. Immigrants are both employable and self-employable.

Myth two is that ‘we’re experiencing a brain drain’

Apparently all our best and brightest are leaving and this is harming our economy. Well, it is true that there are 1 million Aussies overseas, according to the seminal work on this subject by the Lowy Institute, but it is more ‘brain gain’ than ‘brain drain’.

Many Australians work and study abroad – especially in their younger years – get experience and like a boomerang, they come back, especially when wanting to raise a family. But it’s not a bad thing for Australians to have overseas experience, and if some stay on and become Vice Chancellor of Oxford University, editor of The Times, or hold down key positions in Shanghai, Seattle or Sao Paulo, that just opens up strong networks for the rest of us. Also with the global financial jitters affecting northern hemisphere financial markets, more expat Aussies will be coming home than we thought.

Myth three is ‘Australian workers are bludgers’

When Jeff Kennett was Premier of Victoria and attacking public holidays, annual leave and penalty rates, labour market research showed that Australia was mid-table in terms of public holidays and most countries paid annual leave loading, annual leave and leave bonuses. On international comparisons, Australians are relatively hard working; they focus more on practical productive outcomes (than clocking up hours at the office or other workplace) and have a moderate amount of public holidays. We’ll be taking Australia Day off, but Chinese New Year holidays and celebrations last 2 weeks and other countries have similar festivals. According to international brand surveys, Australians are perceived to ‘work hard and play hard’ and their easy going nature should not be confused with sloth or laziness.

Myth four is ‘We’re just China’s quarry and Japan’s beach'

This pops up from time to time along with the comments that we are not clever, innovative or ‘high tech’ enough. Australia’s chief scientist (along with the head of Hewlett Packard) said 10 years ago that Australia needed to forget commodities (he said this just before our record terms of trade boom) and build a strong technology sector like Taiwan of the Australian dollar ‘would be 30 cents US by 2010’.

The comment ignores the fact that innovation comes from many industries including Australia’s traditional areas of comparative advantage in mining and agriculture. Everywhere I go in the world, I meet small Perth companies that sell technology to the Siberian or Brazilian mining sectors, McLaren Vale winemakers selling marketing software and services to Argentina and France, and everyone knows about the innovation in Australian surf wear, surfboard and sports innovation. Check out how many Billabong boardies you next see in Bordeaux, Bali or on the surf coast of Brazil, Peru, Chile or South Africa. Innovation comes from many places, not just the computer industry.

And finally, there is a myth that ‘We are too far away to matter.’

Well that may have been so in 1788 when we were a convict colony waiting for ships to come from England. The brilliant and eminent Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey wrote eloquently about this in his famous treatise The Tyranny of Distance. Now in the 21st century, Australia finds itself at the right place at the right time in the Asian time zone, and supplying what China, India, ASEAN and the rest of the emerging world need. With euro-gloom and American blues economically, the rise of Asia may well see Australians talking less about ‘the Tyranny of Distance’ and more about ‘the Power of Proximity’ in years to come.

Happy Australia Day!

Tim Harcourt is the JW Neville Fellow in Economics, Australian School of Business, UNSW and author of The Airport Economist



>>>>>>>>>> Tim Harcourt is the "anti-Singapore" economist and half the time, I think he is an air-pot. I still believe in the so called myths. They are actually true. :biggrin:
 

IWC2006

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Not surprising. Australia is not for everyone.
Those who make it here can stay on.

It is really about the lifestyle choice.

Pauline Hanson moved to the UK but now has crawled back to Australia. (Brit reject or unrealistic expectations?)

Good for people who want to migrate to Australia to think.

depending on which country you are from, really.

Bottomline, Oz is losing it's appeal - tourism suffers the most especially.
There's other choices - NZ, canada, US.

Initial settlement cost is very high, if you have been here for a long time - good, otherwise, not recommended for new migrants.
 

chupacabra

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Comparing peesai and OZ is a no brainer. At least OZ gives a choice between staying and or leaving. In Peesai lots of migrants/workers ( much more than OZ) are stuck, they can't stay because its expensive and they can't go home cause they owe lots of money to come to peesai in the first place.
 

neddy

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Not surprising. Singapore is not for everyone.
Those who make it here can stay on. Those who cannot will migrate to australia.

Totally agree.

Unfortunately, it is those who can make it in Singapore that are obtaining additional passports. :biggrin:

From LKY's grandkids to President Tony Tan to the bankers to the top bureaucrats, all have lobang to move overseas.

In today's Australian citizenship ceremony, I noticed 144 nationalities getting Australian citizenship. The question is no longer about migration, but the ability to live around the world as you please.

However, Singaporeans can forget about this mobility beyond sovereign states. Because Singaporeans, esp the men, are not given a choice!
 
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Don Muthuswamy

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Nothing new. Its globalization wer the world has got smaller. Der r immigrants cuming & going. Der r oso immigrants leaving USA & Europe now due 2 the GFC & meltdown.

BTW: Any stats on how many Sgpns hav left Spore? :confused:
 

neddy

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Nothing new. Its globalization wer the world has got smaller. Der r immigrants cuming & going. Der r oso immigrants leaving USA & Europe now due 2 the GFC & meltdown.

BTW: Any stats on how many Sgpns hav left Spore? :confused:

I think in Singapore, some people considered that State Secret, so secretive that ministers will not reveal the actual figures under Parliamentary privileges. :biggrin:

But it is OK, more Chinaporeans taking over the Singaporeans who left.

A lot of migrated Singaporeans do shuttle service between their country of birth and their adopted country, esp those in Australia. So , no one actually notice that they have "migrated".

Just like this computer web server, it is based in earthquake-prone NZ.

Pity megaupload.com. Some migrants subscribe to that to watch HK/Asian tv shows.


u comparing yourself with tony tan son and lky grandson?? wow. really thick skin.

u should compare yourself with jobless morons and bangla rubbish collectors. closer to you. :smile:

I do not WISH to be compared to tony tan son and lky grandson, they are not worthly. AT LEAST I COMPLETE MY NS IN A COMBAT UNIT, even though I agree with your President that NS is for poor stupid peasants. His son is too precious for NS. Only conned people like you will give the Lees and Tans respect and money. :biggrin:
 
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axe168

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Wow ! Singapore is not for everyone.. Hmm..those who can make it are the Chinamen and India-nese ?

Those who migrated to Australia are celebrating Australian Day today ? Happy Australian Day !


Not surprising. Singapore is not for everyone.
Those who make it here can stay on. Those who cannot will migrate to australia.
 

axe168

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sound like a loser to me.

Bro, I can be honest.. I am always a loser in the eyes of your govt, my parents & my peers, the efficiency, growth & family life. This is why I choose to sampan to Oz and seek for a lazy life.

I am currently under going self-training to be a super slave, I am still applying my job in SG, I'm joining you soon!
 

tanwahtiu

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NSF officer? lagi malu to be SAF officer, most of them bully and tuang king, jiak leow bee cho boh lan. No officers have gone to real war experiences only pretend war exercises - kam lan!

:confused: AT LEAST I COMPLETE MY NS IN A COMBAT UNIT,

big deal? limpei is NSF officer ok. better than you but still no big deal :wink:
 

tanwahtiu

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Can't blame you to go back Sinkieland - You stared at rotating ceiling fans all day for 6 months, jiak leow bee, when you first arrived in Australia.


Bro, I can be honest.. I am always a loser in the eyes of your govt, my parents & my peers, the efficiency, growth & family life. This is why I choose to sampan to Oz and seek for a lazy life.

I am currently under going self-training to be a super slave, I am still applying my job in SG, I'm joining you soon!
 

tanwahtiu

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Bring in the lazy Malaysia m&ds and lazy Ozzies will get along with them for sure.



depending on which country you are from, really.

Bottomline, Oz is losing it's appeal - tourism suffers the most especially.
There's other choices - NZ, canada, US.

Initial settlement cost is very high, if you have been here for a long time - good, otherwise, not recommended for new migrants.
 

Ash007

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Indeed, I have a kiwi colleague that asked why I migrated to Australia. I asked back the same question that he came from NZ as well. He was stumped from a moment. I later on mentioned that human beings like to move and migrate from place to place. Be it to a new country of back to where they come from. If humans did not migrate tens of thousands years ago, then we would all still stuck in Africa today.

depending on which country you are from, really.

Bottomline, Oz is losing it's appeal - tourism suffers the most especially.
There's other choices - NZ, canada, US.

Initial settlement cost is very high, if you have been here for a long time - good, otherwise, not recommended for new migrants.
 

neddy

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Indeed, I have a kiwi colleague that asked why I migrated to Australia. I asked back the same question that he came from NZ as well. He was stumped from a moment. I later on mentioned that human beings like to move and migrate from place to place. Be it to a new country of back to where they come from. If humans did not migrate tens of thousands years ago, then we would all still stuck in Africa today.

What I think ...

Your Kiwi colleague ... is angmo?
For Angmos, it is quite natural for them to move between countries with similar food cultures. (Eg Spaniards/Mexicans share similar food culture, Turkish/Greeks another)
My Kiwi colleague also asked me the same thing.

He is stumped by the question because ...
At the end of the day, it is about similarity in food culture.
He will not think Australia is "another food culture". Otherwise, 50% of Kiwis would not have settled in Sydney.

Asians have different food culture so why do we move to country that eat meat pies, sandwiches, wraps and salads?
Because we can grow and import asian food :biggrin:
 
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Ash007

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Heh, good point. But then again, I just finish having lunch with penang har mee here. Wife had hainanese chicken rice at a Malaysian restaurant. Its pretty good that you can have authentic asian cuisine from Sushi, pho, BiBimbap here.

What I think ...

Your Kiwi colleague ... is angmo?
For Angmos, it is quite natural for them to move between countries with similar food cultures. (Eg Spaniards/Mexicans share similar food culture, Turkish/Greeks another)
My Kiwi colleague also asked me the same thing.

He is stumped by the question because ...
At the end of the day, it is about similarity in food culture.
He will not think Australia is "another food culture". Otherwise, 50% of Kiwis would not have settled in Sydney.

Asians have different food culture so why do we move to country that eat meat pies, sandwiches, wraps and salads?
Because we can grow and import asian food :biggrin:
 

shawna

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I posted this video about migrants leaving in Australia in my facebook. Australia is not an attractive country. It can be the top most expensive place to live in this world but with dodgy standard. But for us, it does protect us from the foreigners trying to take our earnings. I never like Australia and I don't think I would ever like here apart from earning money.
 

neddy

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I posted this video about migrants leaving in Australia in my facebook. Australia is not an attractive country. It can be the top most expensive place to live in this world but with dodgy standard. But for us, it does protect us from the foreigners trying to take our earnings. I never like Australia and I don't think I would ever like here apart from earning money.

Just earn your money and go. You only live once and should not be unhappy.

Australians are too well-off so they have rich country problems like pursuing Ban the Export of Live Cattle, Forest Rescue, Animal Rights and Stop Whaling.
What this country seriously need is a deep deep recession that will turn this country into a banana republic and force these people to be very very poor and re-focus on basic survival and not luxurious pursue of "Feel-good" Causes. But it is not going to happen. So, what can we do?

Aussies cannot "Eat Bitter" and will not live in cages like Chinese. :biggrin:




Under the current Labor govt, things have worsen if you do not earn enough.



I know of this Canadian Indian who came to Australia and was disappointed.
He can't fit in. Too arrogant and like to play the racist card.

He ended up back in India? or the Gulf?, with Canadian and Australian passports. :biggrin:

It is impossible to FIFO from his Aussie job and India. And he cannot work in Singapore because they are retrenching staff from the energy sector.
 
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shawna

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yes, u absolutely correct about the Labor govt. The present govt makes the whole country very unattractive and pricey. The PM lady is like a puppet. Wayne Swan cares only about his budget deficit.

Btw, are you currently living in Australia

Just earn your money and go. You only live once and should not be unhappy.


Under the current Labor govt, things have worsen if you do not earn enough.



I know of this Canadian Indian who came to Australia and was disappointed.
He can't fit in. Too arrogant and like to play the racist card.

He ended up back in India? or the Gulf?, with Canadian and Australian passports. :biggrin:

It is impossible to FIFO from his Aussie job and India. And he cannot work in Singapore because they are retrenching staff from the energy sector.
 
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