A lot of racial 'preference as you point out among ethnics themselves. I do recall the days in Australia when ignorance ruled and Aussies were as basic as imaginable. i recall graffiti like' If You Meet A Good Pom, Shoot Them Before They Go Bad," (and so on) People of colour were rare and easy targets for the most offensive racism I have heard. As were Italians, Greeks, Yugoslavs, and so on.

Days long passed. A lot of criminal cartels are ethnic, seemingly get into the country without any difficulty and run others in their activities. They are steadily gaining dominance and one feels, can't believe their luck just how gullible Aussies are in selling out their country.

Yes, they remind me of Amish because they wear old fashioned monochromatic garb. The Amish seem pretty self-sufficient as they are farmers, these guys live in North London so I doubt they do much barn-raising or getting up at 4am "time for milking!" I live in Cornwall and they often come down on holiday en masse here. Zero interaction with the locals, in fact they seem to avoid eye contact.

Hello all, 18 years in Australia now and still loving it, I can't imagine living anywhere else (and especially not the UK) but a 2 year stint in the ME to smash the retirement savings over the line may be in order. This is my first time on here in at least a year - I'm a bit surprised it's still going, I thought it would have died a death by now but here it is. I'm still working in engineering design and the money is now up above where it was 10 years ago before the downturn and there is so much work available, it's not funny - and I'm still a scumbag contractor chasing dollars over that bollocks called job security and work/life balance. Perth is still a great place to live and my little corner of Kalamunda is better than ever. Most of my spare time is now taken up by flying aeroplanes - and when I'm not doing that, I'm reading and watching YT videos about flying aeroplanes. To say that it's now a bit of a passion of mine is an understatement. Our son is now 21 and in the army and is currently on operational deployment with the navy, based in Darwin. He's looking at moving over to the RAAF to train as mission aircrew. He's a great lad and we're very proud of him. So life's good basically

Hope all the old posters are well and living their best lives

We are so lucky to born into this age where we are able to fly aeroplanes / microlights / paragliders. All the preceding generations wanted to (probably even the hominids!), but we actually can. And watching them is also great, I have just spent the weekend in Bournemouth at the airshow.
Similar with scuba, and even the humble mask and snorkel. What a blessing these things are.

Hiya Glad you're still loving it! Sounds like your son has done well!
I'm home and happy, only things I miss are thunderstorms and a couple of friends
I envy you the flying - getting my PPL was the best thing I ever did. Can't afford it now, so I just sit on the balcony and watch the planes coming in and out of Shoreham (my old airfield) and relive the old days

Glad to hear that you've settled well back in the UK - good for you. Flying is just awesome - to be in control of an aircraft and to see the World from a viewpoint that they'd never get on the ground is just fantastic. Flying above and between towering clouds and you feel so small and insignificant in the face of nature. Flying light aircraft in the UK can be challenging given the size of the place, congested airspace and weather (saying that, summer flying can be hard here given the prevailing winds and thermal activity), but they also have some lovely airfields in truly beautiful parts of the country - I will fly there one day. I'm particularly jealous of this guy - https://www.youtube.com/@ShortField. He does some nice flying and his plane is great.

It truly is the best experience ever! I still remember that amazing feeling of freedom when I did my first solo - once I'd got over the "Oh &*&& I'm 1500 feet over the sea on my own" thing!!
If you do ever get the chance to fly here, pick somewhere like Shoreham - being on the coast has definite advantages, even with Gatwick so close we still had almost the whole of West Sussex in unrestricted airspace, plus along to Portsmouth and out to the Isle of Wight. Even having controlled airspace nearby wasn't really a hindrance - Shoreham always had ATC and we learnt radio techniques from the start, which gave even the less confident flyers like me the courage to call u Gatwick and get radar assistance for transit or whatever.
As for the weather - the days I loved the best were in winter, cold and crisp, could see for miles, with snow on the ground, beautiful! This was another area where Shoreham came into its own, as if the weather did close in we were all taught early on to head south till over the sea, then just crawl along the coast, then follow the River Adur up to the airfield - maybe a mile inland? Got many a pilot out of trouble!

They are known as Economic Migrants. And tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, are arriving in Australia now.

Country towns here are hotbeds of racism. I don't like this, but it happens, and one has to live with it. there are many good and pleasant things about living in so-called 'regional' Australia, but attitudes and prejudices in many places seemingly date back to the 1950s and 1960s when everybody was white and Anglo Saxon and the sight of an Asian face would stop the street traffic.

As a Canadian-born Australian (citizen for almost 40+ years) of part English descent who has lived here since the '70s, I still get singled out in our country town in Victoria due to my North American accent. Which doesn't particularly bother me, but it does give me an inkling of how some of the Asian-born migrants we are getting nowadays must feel when they are racially insulted to their faces, as many have experienced. Sad, but there you are.

Not a nice scenario overall, but the Aussies are feeling threatened, and it's how they respond. With a federal election in the offing, we will see if this translates to their voting as a message to our politicians, altho' knowing well how the oft-noted Australian apathy to almost everything that requires a modicum of effort or critical thinking, I am not holding my breath.

Sounds marvellous. You should definitely look into a flight experience in a 3 axis microlight like an Ikarus C42, they are very common these days - Goodwood/Shoreham - much cheaper flying than a class A airplane.

Tempting but I don't really want to get the urge to fly again, which I know would result from any light aircraft flight! Certainly can't afford it at all these days, and with arthritis and dodgy eyesight I wouldn't be too safe either!

I've been here 19 years now...QLD feels like home & I'm glad I came when I did as I think it was far easier back then than it is now. It's not been without it's ups n downs here, but even if I wanted to go back to the uk to live, I couldn't now as my kids are now adults & firmly settled here, plus I have a grandchild now <3 so I just couldn't leave them.

Biggest downer here now is the cost of housing and food...it's astronomical, it's completely overtaken the uk. There was a time when Australia was the promised land of all things cheap with sunshine n beaches thrown in for good measure...now its a struggle to make ends meet at times, even on what I thought was a decent wage.

Speaking of wages, they haven't gone anywhere near keeping up with inflation, you need to be earning well over $100K pa to live alone to attempt to survive IMHO. How anyone without a rich parent to help fund them is able to afford to buy a house here is beyond me, I've unfortunately not been in a position to be able to help my kids buy a house & they've really struggled

So to anyone thinking of coming here without a significant bank balance..,think really hard before you take that leap...

Hey artep, good to hear how you're doing! A granny now too, wow, congratulations! So you never did move to Melbourne - I think you were considering it at one time?

I hear you on the cost of food and housing, one reason I left, life simply wasn't affordable any longer. My job was superbly well paid in the early years, but the last 6 or so saw the wages buy gradually less & less, with negligible pay rises. I was lucky to be paying very low rent for my area too - probably about the same as I'm paying here in Brighton! Food here is so much cheaper too, and if you pick your supermarket well, the standard of the food is better too - may not be the same everywhere but I find fruit, veg & meat al better quality & longer lasting here.

I certainly echo your warning to people; many think Aus is still the cheap place it was 20 years ago, they don't realise you need a huge amount of money behind you to move now.

If you're into aviation, your first solo is one of the best experiences of your life - a day of days. As your solo approaches you build it up in your head but the reality was that it was a piece of cake. When I did mine, I knew I was close but the actual solo was a bit unexpected. We'd a done a few circuits and I'd landed for another touch and go and my instructor said don't power up and taxi in to the hangars. He jumped out and said go for it - you know what to do. I was in the groove and it went like clockwork - like I was flying on rails. I remember being 1000ft up on downwind, looking over at the runway and realising that there was nobody in the right-hand seat! Then it kind of hit home but my landing was perfect (my second landing was shit but that's another story!). It was done and the feeling of achievement was awesome - I'd flown and landed an aircraft. Then it was back to circuits, circuits and more circuits - wash, rinse, repeat - my logbook has about 4 pages where nearly all the entries are 'Yxxx - Circuits'! Flying over the sea is great, so much smoother than over land - well it is around here anyway. The planes I fly are not equipped for over-water flight so we stick to gliding distance from the shore but that's cool. I'm currently doing my cross-country navigation endorsement so loads of inland flying - and it's tough. Although we use an ipad with nav software, for training we have to do it manually. It's hard at first but it keeps your mind on the task at hand. Flying VFR in these parts is very easy and because the skies are usually very clear, I can pick out certain landmarks from over 80kms away. Great stuff. The South coast of England would be a great place to fly but I'd really love to do some flying in Scotland, that looks amazing - only when the weather is good though! I really want to fly into here one day: https://www.glenforsa.com/airfield

I suppose many an immigrant could in the past be labeled an 'economic migrant' surely? Unless escaping political persecution or a spouse visa, most reasons to emigrate was economic reasons. I suspect Australia is not unique in tolerance being less than larger urban areas. I wonder if Canada would differ in that?
I grew up in a large country town where what you write was very much the case , but the difference being the migrants were Brits and European (mostly Italian, Yugoslav, Dutch and Polish) in those days. It would have been unimaginable that developing world migrants would be part of the landscape further down the road.

I don't detect a lot of racism in the same place these days (now termed a city in WA) Those from India that I have spoken to don't seem to find it, main concern is quietness and kids needing to leave to go to university. But of course, I am sure it exists still, just not as overt. The main problem, something I can't stress enough is how drugs have taken over , influencing the economy and impacting so much on society , but worse not being tackled the way it deserves. It is blighting out country towns and WA is hardly alone.

Other big problem is the cost of housing , which in my opinion is influenced by the former as well as interstate and international migration.
I suspect changing Australian thinking of greed , brought about in part by living in an over priced and low quality environment. vastly declining ethics, where most anything goes, a vastly increased sense of entitlement, has all contributed to how the country we find is today. Less racist possibly, or at least less overt, but in another way more nasty in becoming more suspicious of one another and definitely less loyalty ..

Australia should learn from European/UK example. There may be a demographic deficit but trying to fix it with mass immigration brings various problems. In addition to lack of infrastructure/housing etc there is the following scenario which is playing out in the UK;

Step 1. Import statistically significant numbers of non-white economic migrants. These folks are relatively poor relative to the existing majority white population (That is why they decided to immigrate).
Step 2. Perform an analysis of wealth distribution vs ethnicity and discover that non-white people have less average wealth than white people.
Step 3. Conclude that the nation is institutionally racist.
Step 4. Identity politics