Moving (back) to Australia- should we?

[Pepvixen]

DH and I are dual citizens, have lived here since post grad studies. Have good jobs and lovely home in London. DS is 7. We're low contact with parents for various reasons. We're from a provincial city in Aus, so no comparable jobs. Lots of friends though. We've never considered returning but are now thinking of it, primarily for DS long term if the economy is damaged by Brexit. Any thoughts? What would you do?

Right now, with the borders shut for leaving (with only North Korea with similar restrictions) I feel I might as well be on the moon.
Australia when you can just hop in a plane and go wherever you want whenever you want feels very different than the Australia we have since March.

At the same time, I feel your quest. What makes you feel good in a place is not the beauty of the place itself but the friends and connection you have. If you are missing your friends or just " home" I get it.

Provincial is however the key here. I find Sydney provincial! What made you escape it in the first place? The buzz, the culture, the vibrance of a big city , I don't know. You wouldn't give up London only, but the ability to connect easily and cheaply with so many countries and cities. I really miss not being able to show my kids the European cities and different cultures. We do come back (well not now) twice a year but feel the obligation to visit both sets of family.

I really understand how the term isolated came form the word "island" and that no matter how beautiful Australia is, for me, it is too restrictive. I want my kids to be open to the world, not locked away from it.

Can't wait for our next posting.

Yes to all of that. It is the culture and the buzz, the interesting work that has attracted us to London. And we have great friends here too. I think it is because the things we love about here, we can't really enjoy right now.

But, I am worried that we're being selfish and we could give DS better prospects over there.

Dp and dc are dual citizens. I couldn't imagine living there.
Sorry no advice but good luck with your decision.

@Pepvixen what are the better prospects you have in mind?

But won’t Australia be getting hotter and hotter...?

We are having the shittiest summer ever. Currently with ling sleeve shirt and a jumper. Rained non stop for last 10 days and forecast of the same for the next 10!
Barcelona or Italy are way hotter!!

Yes i do worry about the climate change bit.

I suppose just looking at how we've cut off our major export as a country (services). I'm worried that we're going to get poorer as a country.

Depends on the sector as well... if it’s anything arts-related, don’t bother coming back. There is no hope here. The cost of living is extortionate. Not just food and housing, but utilities, etc. The dependence on China and India and basically land-raping activities is appalling. You will find Australian citizens apathy about losing rights such as free speech and the power of the press during Covid very sheep-like. However, medically, we are still more empowered to speak up and demand changes and explanations than with the NHS. We are so much safer. Obviously our Covid rates aren’t quite zero, but almost.

Don't rush a decision based on Brexit, a pandemic and the crappy year coming to an end.

And how provincial and where provincial? On a coast? inland? What would the days be made of ? Would it be a richer or poorer life? It depends what is important to you I suppose.
The prospect of abandoning a chaotic situation for a quiet life might sound like a dream, but when I see some of DC's friends who have only even been to Fiji (and lived for a week in a resort) as the only overseas trip they ever made, who struggle to identify where in Europe Denmark is compared to Holland (let alone know the capital ) , and with very little general knowledge of the world, I realise Australia is not only remote in distance but in culture as well.

We go often to New Caledonia and one mums at the school asked me where that was . It is the second closest country, you have to fly over it to reach Vanuatu or the Fiji.
They don't even know their neighbours.

I'm in Oz. Weather is perfect at the moment and I certainly don't feel like I'm on the moon. Pretty happy to be here, can see the shit show going on overseas.

I am in Oz and from the point of view of your son it is a wonderful place for kids right now. I am in WA and we have no community spread so the kids lives are normal, everywhere is open and they can meet with as many people as they like.

Most people are happy with the strict border controls as our economy is booming, yes we can't travel but what exactly is there to see if we go anyway, everything overseas is cancelled and restrictions on seeing the people you are trying to visit.

Go and don't look back.Hopefully with vaccines,masks,distancing we can move on from the pandemic s*show soon enough...
On the other hand I don't see this Country gaining anything good from Brexit for years to come if ever,so jump ship if you can!

I am in a similar position and would move back if I could (don't think I can convince British DH). But it doesn't sound like you really want to go, it's fear of the future making you think it. Why not stick it out till the end of primary for your DC and if the UK is looking much worse, make the move then.

It's definitely fear of the future making us consider it. The pandemic meaning we can't enjoy many of the things we love about our lives here and fear about the future with Brexit. I think it makes sense to wait out primary school, but probably need to research/think about what a return at senior school would look like. I.e I know lots of the state schools are not good, so would have to think about catchments and/or get on a waiting list for private school.

We moved back from a few years in Sydney in 2019 and arriving back in London was the first time I'd felt like myself in years. Sydney was nice (I grew up in another major Aus east coast city) but it's just...so incredibly insular. Life in London isn't what it should be right now, but if you have secure jobs I'd see what they lay of the land is in a year or two and go from there.
Plus, saying you want to go is one thing but actually getting there is another at the moment (and likely to be very difficult for a long time yet). We have one way flights booked for later this year to try and see family (we will come back) and for me and 2 young children it's costing us £4000. Then there is the $4000 2 week hotel quarantine. There is a lot to consider.

Very difficult one. We are Australian and moved here a year ago but have also lived in the UK 10+ years ago. We have lived abroad in a number of other locations as well. For the first time since Covid, the other day we seriously considered moving home. We even looked up flights and rang airlines to see when we could get a flight home. It was prompted by the fact that schools weren’t going to open and looks like we will be in lockdown for another 2-3 months. Meanwhile in Perth where we are from, life goes on as normal. However, what we realised is while Australia might be enjoying a normal lifestyle now, they aren’t able to travel at all. Even interstate travel is hard and I don’t think this will change for most of 2021. I also don’t think they have yet figured out how to live with COVID and so I see the UK heading back to normality while Australia will still be isolated and scared. On top of that, the advantages of living in a city like London are so immense for our two children (ages 8 and 10). Having Europe on the door step is something we really want to take advantage of. Nothing in Australia changes and kids grow up there without a global view. I was desperate to leave Australia from the time I graduated high school and hence have spent my 20s, 30s and now early 40s travelling and living abroad (with stints back living in Australia). All of that said, there is no doubt that at the moment Australia would a great place to be with a normal life we can only dream of. The other thing of course you would have to consider is the two weeks strict hotel quarantine at your own expense.

Hope this helps!

It’s so hard. I’ve been here 15 years, and DH is British. If we both had residency/citizenship I think I’d go for it, particularly with education being so disrupted here. The barrier for us is the cost/time to get a spouse visa.

But I was talking to my mum earlier today and she’s worried about the lack of an exit strategy for Australia - things are normal-ish now (if you take away not being able to trace and the local restrictions/lockdowns) but it’s hard to know what the plan is to reconnect with the world.

@Australia77 describes it really well.
What I try to explain my family in Europe when they envy our COVID situation is that we have just paused the COVID video in the DVD player while they are towards the end of the movie.
We just froze. Every time we move a bit, we have a new lockdown straight away, Victoria had one of the harshest lockdown for more than 100 days. Not going further than 5 km from your house, curfew, 1 hour exercise ...
The hate right now between the states blaming each other instead of blaming the virus is quite a surprise.
The nastiness the government has towards people stuck in life situation is another bitter surprise.
Where is the famous mateship?

[quote Kaiken]@Australia77 describes it really well.
What I try to explain my family in Europe when they envy our COVID situation is that we have just paused the COVID video in the DVD player while they are towards the end of the movie.
We just froze. Every time we move a bit, we have a new lockdown straight away, Victoria had one of the harshest lockdown for more than 100 days. Not going further than 5 km from your house, curfew, 1 hour exercise ...
The hate right now between the states blaming each other instead of blaming the virus is quite a surprise.
The nastiness the government has towards people stuck in life situation is another bitter surprise.
Where is the famous mateship?[/quote]
Completely agree Kaiken. Excellent way of describing it! I have been trying to explain to people why I think Australia is still to have its reckoning with Covid but your way of describing it is much better. I don’t know what the exit strategy is. They don’t seem to have a vaccine roll out program yet, or the only mention I have seen of one, is looking to start in July or October! So 2021 will see states like Victoria and NSW panic over 5-10 new cases, WA and Queensland will just keeping shutting the borders and so on. Meanwhile they point in horror at countries like the UK and Europe but I see us returning to normality sooner than them. Strange but true. I think we will be able to travel back to Europe by say May here, while they won’t be able to travel outside Australia until early-mid 2022. So that is something to think about as you contemplate moving back.

I'd pick Australia. Lived there for a year and it's preferable to the UK, I'd say.

A gilded cage is still a cage

Australia can be insular, but it doesn’t mean you have to be. DH and I are British and have lived here for 13 years, we have two sons who were born here. We’re trying to give them the best of both worlds - great outdoor lifestyle here, really good school, and we take all the opportunities to do cultural stuff like museums, shows etc and this is normally pretty easy because of the smaller population.
But we also travel (normally!) back to the U.K. 1-2 times a year, and do trips to Europe and London when we’re there, so the boys see that there’s a big world out there.
We do sometimes think about moving back, for the proximity to Europe and the huge amount of cultural opportunities, but we’re not totally culturally devoid in Sydney .
As for Covid specifically, we have handled it so well here. Kids have been back at school since May, normal life has resumed and although we haven’t been able to travel, we have explored NSW and it’s made us appreciate our usual freedoms and plan for all the places we’ll go to once we’re free, later this year.
But don’t base your decision on Covid, that’ll be over in no time after all.

And it’s true - why would we want to travel at the moment? Everything is shut everywhere anyway!
I think the vaccine roll out is planned for March here and presumably that will be done by mid year, and then we’ll be free to travel after that.
Again, although I would love to see my parents, I have no desire whatsoever to visit the U.K. at the moment with everything closed and so many people sick, hospitals at capacity etc.

Just read this article in today's paper @Pepvixen www.traveller.com.au/australian-expats-some-australians-dont-want-to-come-home-and-i-dont-blame-them-h1t6mr

Culture wise, I disagree with PP. Even if you go at every exhibition at the NSW art gallery, you only get drops of the culture which you can access in Europe. There is an exhibition in Venice? Book a Ryanair and go for the weekend. And you can't beat the overwhelming feeling of greatness oozing from the walls that you get in the Prado, the Hermitage or the Louvre.
Even walking to the Picasso Museum in Barcelona is a cultural journey.
I love the safety in Australia, some days, I even enjoy the simplicity of the life, but what makes it acceptable is the ability to leave it once or twice a year, which is a luxury so many can't afford.
My cleaner has been saving for 5 years to go and see her mother in Uk with her two children, and is now devastated because she will likely now have to pay twice the amount she has planned and so more years of saving every possible $. Her husband is a paramedics and what he earns in a year is what I pay for my rent.

So the question is not, why would you want to travel, but could you afford to travel to Europe or the States? For the majority of Australians the answer is no, so our island become de facto, the Hotel California, a lovely place, many can't leave.

The things you are missing in London will be back, OP. Imo they don't even exist in Aus in the same way. It's a very insular island. Your son will likely have more opportunities over here too as he grows up.