The Australians are coming to London – and they want to take Britons back with them to solve a shortage of key workers Down Under.
Teachers, police officers, nurses and doctors are among the targets of government officials from Western Australia who have over 30,000 job vacancies left open by a booming economy. And they are not shy about their intentions.
“We are here to steal your workers,” said Paul Papalia, the Western Australia police and defence industry minister, who will lead a delegation that arrives in the UK on February 25.
The misson’s timing comes toward the end of a winter in which strikes have ravaged Britain, closing schools and taking healthcare workers off wards in the biggest wave of industrial action in decades.
With double-digit inflation looking stubborn and high energy bills leaving the cost-of-living crisis in full swing, the prospect of a better-paid life in a sunnier climate could be an easy sell. The post-Brexit free trade agreement between the UK and Australia, due to take effect this year, could also help via simplified visa arrangements.
Nurses are able to earn almost three-fifths more in Western Australia than in the UK, according to the politicians from Perth, with average workers in the state taking home some of the highest average wages in the country. Car industry staff could double their income, they claimed, while secondary school teachers are on the equivalent of £52,567.
Australian energy bills are also much lower, with average household bills about half the level of the UK government’s capped rate, even with average houses more than double the size of their British counterparts. Median rental prices in Perth are the local currency equivalent of £316 a month.
Then there is the weather. The Aussie state has 3,200 hours of sunshine a year, with most of Perth a short drive away from the beach. Papalia and his colleagues are due to touch down in London in a month with an average rainfall of 3.9 millimetres and two of hours sunshine a day generating an average daytime temperature of 6.3 degrees Celsius.
As well as in the capital, jobs fairs will be held in Edinburgh, Bristol and Dublin.
“Many of our ancestors were sent from the UK to Australia as convicts. Now, it would be a crime not to make the move,” Papalia added.
