Hi,

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im just wanting to hear about australian expats abroad and what their motivation to leave was?

For me the obsession with housing market and home ownership is just insane.

I know other countries are like this and particular capital cities but it just seems so engrained in the culture here. What do other people think?

The live and work to get a mortgage mentality.

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  • tborsje1@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    For me:

    1. I worked in a stable job back in Australia and saw many people who got too comfortable and decided to just sort of… sit back and watch the money come in, visiting the same bars every Friday night, go to the same restaurants every week, only associate with the same small group of friends. I like many aspects of Australian society but I think it’s also very cliquey and lacks the dynamism of some other societies/locations. Essentially, I got bored with the lifestyle.

    2. I hate the property obsession and at my age (30s) it’s filling a lot of the conversation space amongst my peers in Australia. From my perspective, I’m both sad that my rich home country has mishandled housing policy so severely, resulting in levels of debt burden which will suck almost all the disposable income for my generation for 20 years plus, and also a bit confused that so many of my peers have decided to devote themselves as much as possible to buying into this mishandled system.

    No shade on people who make that choice, but I would say that their way of thinking, their priorities, are very different to mine. When you find yourself surrounded by people who have wildly different priorities than you, you start to look at other places to live.

    1. Generally wanting to live in another culture because it’s fun, challenging, exciting, and IMO in general builds a set of skills and a background of experience which has value in itself. I don’t think I’ve met anyone who regrets having a go at it, even if it ultimately doesn’t work out.

    2. Needed a break from Australia after COVID. My partner is not an Australian PR and as such thanks to Australian pandemic policy we couldn’t see each other for around two years. Despite longstanding advice from organisations like the WHO that international border closures are not effective permanent solutions to the pandemic, even when most of the world had opened up, even when similar people in Europe, Asia and America had been long reunited…

    All the while, good friends, family, and my colleagues within the entire institution in which I built my career (government) were cheerleading this policy response and when I pressed them on it, adopted this attitude of “WELL maybe if you didn’t decide to get together with a foreigner, this wouldn’t be an issue! We’re living an enviable life of safety here in Australia, and part of being #inthistogether means that foreigners are not welcome here until COVID is over”. It was very cruel and ultimately the health policy they all were so attached to was abandoned very quickly, apparently when everyone got bored and starting missing their Bali holidays.

    Seriously it was bizarre… seeing lifelong Greens Party voting friends saying stuff about foreigners which, if stated in 2019, would appear to be taken from a One Nation Party manifesto. Now in 2023 this issue is obviously in the past, but when I made the decision to leave it was a big factor. I feel like I received a middle finger from my society because I had relations with an outsider.