Australian diaspora

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The Australian diaspora refers to the approximately 750,000 Australian citizens who today live outside Australia. The term includes several hundred thousand who spend some time in the United Kingdom and Europe but return to Australia. The Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement made it easy for Australians to migrate into New Zealand and vice versa. Australia is a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, so their migration to other commonwealth members like Canada and Great Britain has little restrictions and fewer limitations than American citizens who choose to migrate into Australia.

There are a small number of well-educated Australians, including scientists, who find unique employment opportunities overseas, particularly in the United States of America. Key factors influencing this phenomenon are seen to include the rise of a global labour market, more accessible and economical international transport, and increasingly sophisticated communication technologies, along with a growing interest in travel and the broader global community.

The term Australian diaspora appears to have originated in the 2003 Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) research report "Australia's Diaspora: Its Size, Nature and Policy Implications", authored by Graeme Hugo, Dianne Rudd and Kevin Harris. This report both identified the phenomenon and argued for an Australian government policy of maintaining active contact with the diaspora.

The diaspora has been the focus of policy concerns over a so-called "brain drain" from Australia. However the 2003 CEDA report argued the phenomenon was essentially positive: rather than experiencing a "brain drain", Australia was in fact seeing both "brain circulation" as Australians added to their skills and expertise, and a "brain gain", as these skilled expatriates returned to Australia and new skilled immigrants arrived. Some Britons came to Australia like Elton John from Great Britain (but lives part-time in the US), and one rich Australian expatriate, Rupert Murdoch came to the US to become CEO of 20th Century Fox Television Networks.

Over two-thirds of expatriate Australians are professionals, para-professionals, managers or in administrative occupations. One quarter are in the United Kingdom. A further group include European migrants to Australia in the 1950s (and their children) who have now returned to their countries of origin to stay, but who still retain strong links with Australia. This group of expatriates, resident in countries such as Croatia, Greece, Italy and Lebanon, make up nearly one quarter of the Australian global expatriate community, and some Asian-Australians who maintain familial ties with Asian countries like India, China, Vietnam and South Korea.

Since the 1970's, more Australians than before lived in Africa, the Asian continent and Latin America, mostly are retirees or tourists had second homes, the most popular being Costa Rica, Thailand and Argentina. The country is globally renowned for its' character of a pioneering people willing to go far in any frontier to discover and settle new lands by the Australian diaspora. ^{[citation needed]}

Australian migration to the United States is many times more than Americans going to Australia, both countries have great deal of freedom and economic opportunity. In the 1850's California gold rush, Australian miners under British documents helped in the development of California, US and they lived in "grown overnight" settlements like San Francisco and Sacramento. Today, the state continues to attract well-to-do Australians and an estimated 100,000 live in California. Other Australian retirees consider the "sunbelt" states Arizona and Florida as an "area of choice" for a new residence.

In the late 19th century, a group of radical socialist Australians voluntarily came to Paraguay, a landlocked South American country, to create a failed master-planned community, known as Nueva (New) Australia. Other followers wanted to migrate into Egypt, Iraq, pre-1918 Palestine, South Africa and the Philippines to attempt or imitate the social experimental project.^{[citation needed]}

The song I Still Call Australia Home by Peter Allen, an expatriate Australian songwriter, could be said to represent expatriates' nostalgia for Australia.

[edit] Recommendations of the 2005 Senate committee report into Expatriate Australians

The Committee recommends that the Australian Government establish a web portal devoted to the provision of information and services for expatriate Australians. A suggested name for the portal is www.expats.gov.au. The Committee recommends that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade should be the lead agency in the development and administration of the expatriates web portal.
The Committee recommends the establishment of a policy unit within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, to facilitate the coordination of policies relating to Australian expatriates. Responsibilities of the policy unit should include:
- formulation of a coordinated policy regarding expatriates;
- consultation with groups from the expatriate community, industry, academia and other stakeholders in the formulation of policy; and
- monitoring research developments and opportunities in relation to expatriates.
The Committee recommends that the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade should continue to improve the statistical information collected in relation to Australian expatriates, particularly through the use of incoming and outgoing passenger cards.
The Committee recommends that the consular role for foreign missions be revised to contain a specific requirement that posts engage with the local expatriate community, in any and all ways possible appropriate to that location.
The Committee recommends that the websites of Australia’s foreign missions should include an online registration facility to enable local expatriates to register their professional profiles. The profiles database will facilitate stronger engagement between missions and expatriates, and will provide a resource for missions in their work of promoting Australia’s interests overseas. It would also be used to notify expatriates of news and upcoming events.
The Committee recommends that the Australian Citizenship Act 1948 be amended to ensure that children of people who previously lost their citizenship under section 17 of the Citizenship Act are eligible to apply for Australian citizenship by descent.
The Committee recommends that the Australian Citizenship Act 1948 be amended to ensure that children of people who renounced their citizenship under section 18 of the Citizenship Act are eligible to apply for Australian citizenship by descent.
The Committee recommends that the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs conduct a review of section 18 of the Australian Citizenship Act 1948.
The Committee recommends that the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs establish an advisory committee to review the Australian Citizenship Act 1948 on an ongoing basis to ensure that the legislation appropriately reflects notions of citizenship in the 21st century.