Aust. South Africans’ chosen country

Press, 23 February 1987, Page 7

Aust. South Africans’ chosen country

London NZAP-AAPAustralia could soon overtake Britain as the chosen home of South Africans seeking to escape their country’s uncertain future.'

According to Government statistics issued in Pretoria, in the eight months to October 1 this year 3414 people left permanently for Britain, but the corresponding total for Australia rose to 2631. This contrasted with full-year 1985 figures of 5975 to Britain, 1803 to Australia and 589 to the United States.

Between 35,000 and 40,000 former South Africans and Rhodesians (Zimbabweans) have settled in Australia in the last decade. If the present trend continues, Australia will soon be swelling its

population with expatriate South Africans faster than any other country in the world. The contradiction in the trend is that about two million South Africans probably have a right to come and go, and settle, in Britain without checks, while Australia is enforcing strict work-prospect criteria on prospective settlers.

A second contrast is that while the British Government is seen as generally supportive of Pretoria’s efforts to find its own solution to its racial problems, the Australian Government is in the forefront of the pro-sanc-tions lobby.

Australia’s Ambassador to Pretoria, Mr Robert Birch, recently said: “Our switchboards have at

times been jammed and many initial telephonic inquiries are now referred to tape-recorded messages so the embassy can cope with the volume of queries.”

Mr Dennis Kaye, managing director of Laser Transport, one of South Africa’s main shipping removalists, said his Australian business had trebled in 12 months.

South Africa’s leading financial magazine, the “Financial Mail,” recently devoted a cover story to emigration, and commented: “South Africa is losing valuable and irreplaceable human resources and Australia is probably the richer for our loss.”