'A spoilt brat country': the Australians overseas who decided not to come home

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B efore the Covid-19 pandemic, the foreign affairs department estimated there were about one million Australians living overseas at any given time. This year, between March and October about 398,000 Australians forked out thousands of dollars and navigated strict border controls to return home, many for good. At least another 36,000 wanted to return, but were unable to do so. Which means that most decided to stay where they were – and for some the events of 2020 crystallised exactly why.

“It’s difficult to feel a sense of belonging when fellow Australians act like they don’t want us to come home,” says Ashton Hollwarth, a vet who moved from Perth to the UK five years ago. “People say things like ‘Well, you chose to stay there’ and ‘you were told to come home’ when I have friends that spent thousands trying and had so many flights cancelled. The way Aussies in Australia turned on Aussies abroad is hurtful and a little frightening.”

While many expats praise Australia’s handling of the pandemic, they also see hints of a closed off mindset that sent them away in the first place.

“It is an amazing country but my god, we could do better,” says Hugh Rutherford, a photographer living in Uganda Photograph: Hugh Rutherford

“Every time I come home, I cringe at the politics,” says Hugh Rutherford, a photographer and filmmaker living in Kampala, Uganda. Ugandans often tell him he is lucky to come from Australia and that they would love to live there. “It’s true, it is an amazing country but my god, we could do better. For young Ugandans heading to Australia it would be tough. Wrong skin colour, for one. Obviously I don’t tell them that, but it does make me sad. We promote ourselves as being welcoming, but we’re really not.”

Stuart McDonald, a travel writer who has lived in south-east Asia for more than 20 years, feels similarly. “It feels more and more like the States – angry, corrupt, terrible treatment of minorities. Why on earth would I want to expose my children to that unnecessarily?”

‘Australia is a spoilt brat country’

Many expats say they are uncomfortable with what they perceive as a political shift to the right, particularly on issues such as climate change and refugees.

“Viewed from overseas, Australia is a spoilt brat country,” says Sam Davies, who runs a communications agency in Paris. “Climate? Deal with it, FFS. In Europe countries work together to tackle climate change. Australia still farts on about coal and carbon credits.”

Rutherford says that while working in South Sudan, he was asked why Australia wasn’t taking more South Sudanese refugees. “I didn’t know what to say.”

Dr Paul Sendziuk, head of history at the University of Adelaide, says Australians perhaps expect more of their country given its advantages, and judge it more harshly when it fails to live up to expectations.

“This would appear to be the case when we think about Australia’s treatment of refugees, which many cite as a source of shame and worthy of leaving our shores or remaining away. By most objective measures, Australia does more for refugees than almost any country in the world. The problem is: compared to our relative abundance, which we could share, and our history, when we did so much more for refugees, we appear to be so mean and miserable now.”

‘Way too conservative in how it views risk’

For expatriates working in tech and creative industries, the concern with returning home is material, as well as existential. “I don’t know what I would do for work there. I was on some good gigs in Australia but I couldn’t see a pathway for moving up,” says Anna Robb, a producer and stage manager who has worked around the world for productions such as Cirque du Soleil.

‘Nobody supports you until you actually make it,’ says Lashan Ranasinghe, who wishes Australia was more open to creative risks. Photograph: Lashan Ranasinghe

Tara Minton moved to London in 2011 to be a jazz musician after struggling to find an audience in Australia. “In Australia when I told people what I did for a living their reply was always, ‘Yeah, but what’s your day job?’ It seemed inconceivable that a person could make their living from playing music.”

“The country is way too conservative in how it views risk,” says Lashan Ranasinghe, a project manager who was active in Keep Sydney Open before moving to Montreal and then London. “Nobody supports you until you actually make it. In Montreal, if you have an idea you feel supported to try it out. People have a better relationship with risk, and see the potential of failure as part of the process.”

Jacqueline Lauren, the co-founder and CEO of Lenslife, a creative communication platform, says Australia is “light years behind the US and UK where the startup scene is concerned”. After three years trying to make it work in Australia Lauren moved to London – and discovered plenty of Australian founders already there. “The home market just isn’t conducive to early-stage tech – unless your vertical is property, agriculture or mining, in which case you’ll probably do just fine!”

‘It feels like people are more satisfied with the status quo,’ says Michelle Feuerlicht, who lives in London and worries her skills would not be of use in Australia Photograph: Michelle Feuerlicht

Digital producer Michelle Feuerlicht agrees innovation isn’t supported enough. Feuerlicht was a pioneer of online journalism at the ABC and at 23 won a Walkley Award for her work with Four Corners. “I fought so hard to push digital boundaries, and even after the recognition it continued to be a battle,” she says. Frustrated, she moved to the UK and now works on an Innovate UK-funded project that explores how live performances can use immersive technologies.

“What I am working on now really exposes the gap between the UK and Australia. This sort of future thinking within the arts doesn’t seem to be happening in Australia. It feels like people are more satisfied with the status quo. I’m not sure there’s any need for my skills, because they haven’t got the sort of industry I work in now.”

‘I have been given much more respect as a working woman abroad’

Australia’s blokey culture feels particularly alienating and outdated for many expats.

Lawyer Claire Campbell, who now lives in Paris, says part of her reason for leaving Australia was that the work culture at law firms makes it harder for women to achieve senior roles. “It’s funny to see that a ‘target’ of 35-40% female partnership by 2023-5 is seen as a positive thing to advertise when women have been comprising at least 50% of law school graduates, and generally outperforming men academically, for a significant period. Clearly these things are not all about merit and have a lot to do with structural discrimination.”

“I have been given much more respect as a working woman abroad than I experienced in Australia,” says Robb, who now lives in Hong Kong with her American husband. For her, the lack of opportunity in Australia was not entirely specific to her industry. “As a mother of two, in Hong Kong I have access to affordable childcare. That allows me to continue to progress in my career and run a side business,” she says. “I simply could not do that in Australia. As someone who works in the arts, financially and personally, it just doesn’t make sense to return to Australia until the kids are much older.”

Campbell says “broad structural change is needed” to improve how women are treated in Australia. “If the same resources were dedicated to changing the culture around equality of womens’ participation in society and the workplace as are dedicated to ‘stopping the boats’ and Australia’s anti-terrorism efforts, it would be a much healthier place for everyone.”

For men, the effects are subtler but still felt. “There’s this social pressure to not really open up about your emotions, which can lead to a lot of mental health problems,” says Ranasinghe. “I’m not saying there isn’t a similar issue in the UK – British people are the most emotionally insular ever – but with London being so international it seems less of a problem.”

‘If Australia were in Europe I’d live in Australia’

Yet even those who feel their relationship with Australia has become dysfunctional still appreciate aspects of it. Campbell says the resilience she developed as an Australian has helped her cope with the challenges of 2020, while many miss Australians’ friendliness and flat social hierarchy.

Sam Davies, missing Australians’ jovial attitudes, wore a Santa belly jumper around a Parisian neighbourhood – it did not go well. Photograph: Sam Davies

When Davies tried to recreate some of that easy Oz-style interaction at Christmas by wearing a conversation-starting festive jumper around one of Paris’s posher districts it didn’t go well. “It was a Santa Claus with an in-built beer belly. No one smiled or even acknowledged my desperate cry for attention, apart from the security guard who stopped me at the supermarket because he thought I’d been shoplifting.”

Most acknowledge the places they live now face similar, or totally different, issues. Yet there is always one overriding, immutable factor: Australia is just so far away.

“If Australia were in Europe I’d live in Australia,” says Minton. “For all the flaws of home, I still love it. I would fight for her, work through the sexism, racism and cultural issues if she were closer to the rest of the world. Australia is not perfect, but Europe is not the oasis I imagined it to be either.”

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