Little Demand For Firm’s Services

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31345, 15 April 1967, Page 1

Little Demand For Firm’s Services

(Special Correepondanl N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, April 14. There is little business in New Zealand for a London travel firm that specialises in the repatriation of “disgruntled” British immigrants.

“Compared with Australia, the number of inquiries we get from New Zealand is very, very low,” said Mr S. Goodman, a director of the firm yesterday. His firm is about to launch a “migration in reverse” scheme aimed at repatriating in 1967-68 some 2000 families from Australia. “We get about 12 to 15 inquiries a month from New Zealand but the number from Australia varies between 200 and 250. It’s simply fantastic. They even ring us from Australia.” The majority of migrants wishing to return to Britain from New Zealand fell in to two categories—those who were homesick, and those who found New Zealand too similar to the England they had wanted to get away from. “Why they come back here I don’t know,” said Mr Goodman.

His firm had been engaged in repatriation work since 1960, and only about six families of the 12 or so who contacted the firm from New Zealand each month actually returned to Britain. Most families wishing to return from Australia made complaints about bad housing accommodation and high medical expenses. “The Australian migration authorities seem to paint too rosy a picture of life in Australia, and this seems to lead to some depression when migrants find life not as good as they had expected. “Whereas many of the people wanting to come back from New Zealand have lived there for two or three years, many of the migrants to Australia contact us after only seven or eight weeks in the country,” said Mr Goodman.