aussietobe

Yeah London is a great place in many ways, but it is also very expensive and there is not much space or the weather really to live an active lifestyle (in my opinion) We thought about moving to London for a while as I grew up there, but the comprehensive schools are not good and we couldnt afford a public school. My sons are very sporty and love the climate in Oz.

king kong

Good onya and good luck to you on you and yours on your future in australia .
London may be expensive but with the average housing in perth costing more than a half decent house on the south coast of england i can see why some Australians are seeing the uk a s a viable option as a place to migrate to .

Cam1977

Australian Immigration Department statistics for 2005-6:

Permanent arrivals: 131,593
Australian born: 610
UK born: 23,290

Permanent departures: 67,853
Australian born: 34,284
UK born: 5,383

The UK statistics don’t have the same level of detail, but show that the total number of Australian born arrivals in 2005 was 68,000. But that includes people on holidays and temporary work visas.

So I’m not sure where the numbers quoted in the original post come from.

Tableland

This is bang on target. The Telegraph reported afew days ago that 1000 leave Britain a day and 1500 enter. The problem is that the 1000 leaving are mainly skilled, whereas the 1500 coming in are largely unskilled. It does not take a large population to run a great country, so you want to be in the nation that has the skilled workers.

Put in high street terms, how many Australian families do you run into at Tesco? How many Australians live down your street? Most Australians that come to Britain are either doing the travelling thing or trying to enhance an occupation that Britain does better then Australia, like international banking.

And then it's retirements all round down under.

thunderbird65

Who cares! I been there to Oz, seen it, done it, lived it, didnt rate it any better than uk came back, far far better off here on the south coast.



Now with my much better wages I will visit much more interesting countries than Oz in the world

king kong

It would be interesting to find out how many australians would prefer to stay in britain but cant because of visa problems ,i know of 2 personally who would prefer to be there but cant .

Nomore

Those few Aussies that do leave Oz are the lucky ones. Since i have been here in OZ i have spoken to so many Aussies who would love to travel and move somewhere else, but can't afford to. It's just not as easy to do these things while your in OZ, the distance, the cost, the low wages.
One Aussie guy i knew in the UK said he left Sydney to work in the UK simply to improve his life-style..........no, not to sunbath and surf, but to earn lots of money and travel the world.

Tableland

Sure, everyone has a different idea of what will improve their life, although the pleasures of travelling and partying certainly lose much of their appeal the older you get, and that's when you start looking for the long-term stuff like a decent house, nice atmosphere for the kids, etc. Where you look for that is up to every individual, although I for one wouldn't want to retire in Milton Keynes, etc.

Nomore

I have never been to Milton Keynes, but i heard it was great. Man-made. I was always mesmerised by the place. What is your opinion on it?

aussietobe

Some say it is a lot like Perth, in the sense that it is man made, lots of planned, brand new estates. No beaches or sunshine though!

aussietobe

Interesting... when my husband and I were thinking of moving to Oz, we spoke to quite a few Aussies who were in the UK and grilled them so to speak about what they thought of their home (we had spent 5 years in Oz already so we had some idea of what to expect but we were unsure whether to go to perth or somewhere else...) I think I spoke to one Aussie who planned on staying in the Uk for a long time and had no plans to return to Oz, he was Sydney and thought that it was pretentious, all the others seemed very proud of their country and tried to convince us to move whereever it was they had grown up. Some said they would like to stay in the Uk for xx amount of years because they had this country to visit or certain things to achieve career wise, and were having a great time too but we were pleased that most of them were very positive about Australia and the opportunities there. They seemed happy to settle back in Australia and raise families there etc They all tended to stick together and date one another I noticed too. I think we are all very lucky that we have the option of trying out both countries as they are both brilliant in their own ways!!!

Tableland

My opinion is that it is as dreadful an example of 1960s planning and architecture as you will find anywhere in the country. A strange little British attempt to build an American-style dwelling, only for some reason with 75 million roundabouts all round it, MK is not my cup of tea at all. Chuck in the year-round rainfall and 6 month long winter and I can't see the point of the place at all. New world towns suffer from this a lot, so why Britain would want to emulate the weakest element of new world living is beyond me.

It has the Open University. There's one plus I suppose.

jad n rich

There was another article discussed not that long ago that showed many aussies do stay in the UK, mainly the highly educated professional famiies.

I'd imagine the reason you dont see the average aussie family looking at emigrating to the UK, is cause they cant afford it, how many poms would move to aus if the currency situation was in reverse, ie your pound bought you 40c.

LouiseD

I was just thinking the same thing

king kong

All true and i suppose the lack of commitment to the uk in general made it feel more like an adventure and i think this is something brits who are coming to aussie should do .I have been here neally 20 years and feel i can look at both countries fom a fair perspective and for me home has always been the uk, and that is where i shall return to and i have no doubt there are aussies in britain who dream of coming back to their homeland .
We brits get on the bandwagon of selling our homes in the uk and go through all the goodbyes etc and really we take it all to seriously and a lot of this is due to the fact most of us have young children when we arrive ,and we have to get back into the groove again it is then some of us find out life is much the same as it was in the uk ,it is then the soul searching starts .
By and large though Australia is a good place but it can be unfortunate that most of us cannot get the time and money to truly see all of it .