Australians used to flock to Britain. Now the expat dream is all but dead

20 comments

1. Haven’t Brits been flocking to Australia for years instead?

2. Me and my parents are English and they moved to Oz in the early 90s when I was young. Growing up we’d come back regularly to see family and I always felt the UK was a more happening place, more connected to the rest of the world. But now I think what I was seeing was the post Cool Britannia, post Blair optimism that had left behind the Thatcher/Major pessimism that my parents wanted to leave. Now we’re entering another phase where Australia is just a more optimistic and upwardly moving place so can absolutely see why people want to leave.

3. One in 400 of all Australians in the world are in London.

   Movement varies with economic factors in Europe and in Oz.

4. Wait, I thought the Telegraph wanted immigration reduced?

   I wonder why Australians seem to be acceptable?

5. Interesting article, especially with how migration is down both ways between both countries. It does make sense that outside of the very select industries mentioned where Australians might want to move to London for, the ease of moving to the US or Asian megacities is a more attractive proposition.

   I also didn’t realise they had to cough up the NHS surcharge up front along with other fees worth £3k, which does explain why young temporary workers aren’t as bothered anymore.

6. Why on earth would you come to Britain from another first-world country?

7. Thanks to toryism and now it’s mutated form: reformism.

8. Pleanty of Aussies. Tend to moan about everything in London especially. Bad weather, food,…

9. The UK, while far from a hellhole, feels like nothing has changed much since the early 00s. Economic stagnation and poor wages just means that the average Brit is worse off than they were a decade ago. Australia is not all peaches and cream but there is no major need to uproot yourself halfway around the world to a country that is allergic to change (and gloomier weather).

10. I don’t think I’ve ever met an Australian living in the UK

    The down votes are funny

11. Immigrant. The immigrant dream is dead.
    Let’s stop using this word, expat, to pretend we are better than “them”.

12. I came here around 6 years ago. Price has been the biggest factor for me (the cost of visas, flights, surcharge, plus the very low wages). Followed by just general animosity to immigrants. No longer being a part of the EU also means there’s not a whole lot of point coming here, as you still have to do the EU entry visa stuff. And if your goal is to see a fair chunk of Europe, it’s easier to just stick to the EU and skip the UK completely

    Being a 90’s kid, I can’t say I ever thought about the UK much growing up. Things have really been focussed on that Asia pacific region at least for my lifetime. Which is pretty obvious since that’s where we are, and where all our neighbours are, and the things that happen in our region affect us a lot more than anything off in Europe. When you’re that far away you may as well be theoretical

13. Go to London and have a look on Hinge, tells a very different story

14. Immigrant vs expat. The terminology clearly depends on certain factors that are beyond us peasants

15. The issues in the uk right now are a whole mix of things, primarily the cost of living crisis combined with Brexit fallout. Those worst off and ‘middle class’ (whatever that actually means) are really struggling. Then there’s the US right wingers such as Trump and Musk directly funding manipulative people such as Farage to stir hatred amongst lower class to fuel personal gain.

16. In the late 70s / early 80s we used to do a lot of birdwatching all over Scotland. Practically every bar you went into had an Aussie working there.

    They were great and everyone seemed to liked them.
    They told some good stories and served a decent pint of beer.

    My parents holidayed a lot in Scotland too at that time and they would come back home saying how good a particular Aussie barman had been.

    In high season we get quite a few staying in the city near where I now live in Thailand. These days I find some of them a bit over the top and too loud. But hey, that’s probably just me being a grumpy old man!!

17. I just want to point out how ironic it is that, as a country that roundly mocks Americans for describing themselves in terms of claimed Irish and Italian heritage, the Telegraph describes Albanese and a whole Australian political party thusly:

    *”Albanese, 62, is of Italian and Irish Catholic stock, the traditional bedrock of the Left-leaning Australian Labor Party.”*

18. I noticed it even a long time ago when many Australians were displaced from the job market in places like rural economy/tourism jobs by Eastern Europeans. They didn’t just vanish overnight but they just started to thin out.

    Also there was a tradition of Aussies working illegally/cash in hand and generally no one really cared, but we’ve made it harder for foreigners to do that. Australians/kiwis were never really considered a bad thing because they weren’t trying to bring thier entire. There’s a bit of racial/cultural bias at play, but to most Brits Australians just aren’t really ‘foreigners’.

19. Standard of living is higher in Australia across multiple metrics. What would would they be moving for?
    To see the tower of London a few times…?

20. Did they flock here? Don’t think I’ve ever met an Australian immigrant here. Maybe they’re all in London.

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