White South Africans Rush to Emigrate to Australia

In the first six months of this year, an increasing number of white South Africans either considered or decided to migrate to Australia. As a result, immigration lawyers, airlines, travel agents, removal companies and pet-relocation companies have benefited from the process, sources say. The Australian high commission in Pretoria said that while no figures were available yet on how many South Africans had settled in Australia so far this year, about 4000 relocated there last year, with total visitor numbers reaching about 150,000.

David Randall, marketing manager of Pentravel in Cape Town, said inquiries and bookings of aircraft flights to Australia were up about 30% on last year. Demand was so high that the travel group secured a special immigration fare from Qantas airline (Australian national airline). “It is not only the sales of one-way fares that have increased, but tickets for people making exploratory visits to Australia,” said Randall.

“Our flights between South Africa and Australia have been operating at very high load factors this year,” says Michaela Messner, African manager for Qantas. The airline operates five flights to both Sydney and Perth each week, with plans to add an additional flight to Sydney in December due to demand for more seats.

Robbie Ragless, regional manager for immigration agency Global Visa South Africa, said there had been a huge rise in the number of inquiries in the first six months of the year from white South Africans wanting to relocate. “Most inquiries are from the Afrikaans speaking community and young families looking for a safe environment to bring up their children,” said Ragless.

Crime and political uncertainty are said to be high on the list of push factors. The main pull factor was enticing employment opportunities. The company said 20% of the inquiries it had were from serious applicants and 80% from dreamers with “no real intention of leaving South Africa”. Charles Luyckx, joint Chief Executive Officer of removal company Elliott International, said many South Africans were taking up positions in the Australian mining sector.

Source African Press Agency

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