The Prime Minister's website carries the text of a doorstop interview given by Kevin Rudd on 30 March 2008 at his meeting with Australian expats in Washington.
Note the Ambassador's comment about the date on which Mr Rudd raised the possibility of meeting some expats on his visit to the US.
FOR some it is the chance to work overseas. For others it is the lure of free accommodation, free private schooling for their children, return airfares home each year and the chance to pay the mortgage quickly. And for others, it is a tax-free salary equal to about $200,000 in Australia.
For more than 400 Australians teaching in the United Arab Emirates and their families, the opportunity to work in the desert nation was just too good to passup.
Higher Colleges of Technology Dean of Education Matthew Clarke and his wife Liz Maxwell stumbled in to the UAE capital Abu Dhabi nearly seven years ago almost by accident and have since made the country their home.
"I came over on secondment with Melbourne University," Dr Clarke told The Australian. "The work opportunity has been the most important thing, the travel and then the money."
Ms Maxwell said they had at first thought they would stay for six months.
"We thought Middle East, God knows what it's going to be like, we don't know anyone here," Ms Maxwell said. "We thought we were going to come and live in the desert, there wouldn't be fresh milk. Six months turned into six years."
Dr Clarke was soon offered a job at the Higher Colleges of Technology - an Australian equivalent of TAFE, which also offers bachelor degrees. It is only open to Emiratis.
Ms Maxwell, also a lecturer, was also offered a HCT position, a spacious fourth-floor apartment overlooking parks and the gulf, and settled in with her husband, dog and cat.
"In teaching, the opportunities are just fabulous overseas," Ms Maxwell said. "In Australia it's just not attractive for people who are looking for more in their career."
Leaving teaching last year, Ms Maxwell now manages their investment apartment and holiday house in a small village in Turkey. The Melbourne couple has also upgraded and bought a home in North Carlton, which Ms Maxwell also plans to manage as a corporate rental property.
The UAE has a population of close to three million people, about 90 per cent of whom are expats. Many Australians, Europeans, Americans and Canadians work in white collar teaching, management or engineering positions, profiting from the fertile economy, while most expats - from India, Pakistan and the other gulf countries - prop up the economy working on construction sites, driving taxis and in service industries.
For Australian expats living in the UAE, life in the upper rung of society is quite comfortable.
Many Australian university lecturers in Abu Dhabi have servants or maids, good social networks and many are members of the British Club.
The country club provides tennis courts, a private beach, swimming pools, tennis and ballet lessons for the children.
Leaving Paradise: My Expat Adventure and Other Stories
Sue Green
May 20, 2006
Leaving Paradise: My Expat Adventure and Other Stories By Sonia Harford MUP, 232pp, $24.95
ALMOST one million Australians - 5 per cent of the population - live overseas. Until the 1990s those departing were mainly migrants returning home. That trend is now reversed; those leaving permanently are more likely to be Australian-born. Mostly, attention focuses on the implications for Australia: Why the brain drain? How can we persuade well-educated professionals to return?
But for many who decide to live elsewhere, perhaps for career opportunities, to join a loved one or seek new experiences, it is a decision made with mixed feelings, raising complex issues of identity and belonging, of where to call home.
Government hopes Kiwis answer call of the catchline11.05.06 By Simon Collins These slogans (see above) are part of a $400,000 advertising campaign being launched by the Government in Australia today aimed at luring expat Kiwis home.
The ads will run on radio, the back of buses, at train stops and on "mobilites", big illuminated posters that will be driven around on scooters at likely Kiwi gathering places such as the Hurricanes/Warratahs game in Sydney on Saturday.
There will also be an email-based "viral campaign" aimed at getting people to pass on a video clip about New Zealand or a link to the website, newzealandnow.info. The New Zealand Herald
Expat photographers explore the lives of Viet Nam’s women
(09-05-2006)
Visitors to the Sofitel Plaza Ha Noi will have the opportunity to understand more about the daily life of Vietnamese women, as seen through the eyes of expatriates living and working in Ha Noi, in an art and photography exhibit that opened last Friday.
Entitled Women, the exhibition is a showcase of work by members of the Ha Noi International Women’s Club (HIWC) and their families.
Legislative amendments and a recent tax court ruling have made South Africa more attractive to visiting expatriates with scarce skills, says Justin Liebenberg, the senior tax planner for Grant Thornton.
Italo-Australians may have helped topple Silvio Berlusconi's government, Natasha Bita reports from Rome
April 15, 2006
CELEBRATING his election to the Italian Senate this week, Melbourne journalist Nino Randazzo fielded a phone call from party headquarters in Rome, worried whether he could be counted to support the centre-left Unione, the winner by a very small margin in a disputed tally.
"Can we count on you?" the Italian politician grilled him. "Are you sure you will remain faithful to your commitment to support the Unione?"
Randazzo was appalled. "I took it as an offence," he tells Inquirer. "I told him that Italians living overseas are a different breed from certain Italian politicians. There is not a chance in the world we overseas electors would cross the floor. We have given our word of honour."
Brains draining in this direction Katharine Murphy January 17, 2006
FORGET the myth of the "brain drain". Thousands of young people might be leaving Australia for high-paid jobs overseas, but we are actually enjoying a "net brain gain".
The Productivity Commission estimates that 120,000 educated Australians are working in OECD countries, but this is offset by more than 1.5 million overseas-born educated people living in Australia.
ROLF Harris was determined to make Her Majesty smile. But when she walked in to sit for her 130th portrait, almost none of which have her smiling, she was rather stiff. So Rolf began the patter.
No, he didn't ask, "Can you tell what it is yet?" as he slapped strokes of blue paint onto the white canvas. Instead, he wondered whether she minded the smell of turpentine.
