Australian Visa Assistance and Immigration Information

Aussie routes among world's turbulence hotspots

2008-08-18T03:55:00.009+08:00

SOURCE: Travel Advice by news.com.au

SOME of the most popular flight paths used by Australians have been named by experts as being among the world's most turbulent air routes.

Atmospheric researchers say the routes from Melbourne to Christchurch and Sydney to Los Angeles were notorious for the amount of turbulence frequently experienced by airlines.

University of Melbourne turbulence expert Todd Lane said any plane that flies over a mountainous region - which wreaks havoc with air flow - was more likely to have a "bumpy ride".

Dr Lane said the final stretch of the flight from Melbourne to Christchurch usually experienced turbulence due to the mountains surrounding the New Zealand city.

Flying over the Himalayas - as many flights from Australia to Europe do - was also a "common source" of turbulent activity, according to Dr Lane.

And trans-Atlantic flights during winter were notoriously bumpy.

"There's almost twice as much turbulence experienced in the winter months than in summer ... over Greenland," he said.

Pacific flights not so peaceful

Frequent storm activity over the Pacific Ocean has also caused problems for pilots.

"The Pacific route between Australia and the US is another (hotspot for turbulence)... that occurs almost all year round," Dr Lane said.

If anyone wanted to fly around the US during summer, they should do it in the morning, Dr Lane said.

"The US is terrible in the (northern) summertime because of storms.

"I'd always try to fly in the mornings ... storms predominately occur in the afternoons (in the US)."

But he said flying through turbulence was smoother on heavier planes.

No flight immune from turbulence

One of the world's foremost experts on turbulence, Larry Cornman from the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research, said no flight was immune to the phenomenon.

"If we knew where and when turbulence would occur ... we'd be out of work," Dr Cornman said.

"Nevertheless, we can make some general statements based on climatologies of aircraft encounters.

"Most commercial aircraft have on-board weather radars, so they typically avoid the 'main' parts of the thunderstorm; however, turbulence can occur in regions where the radar is not seeing much, but where there is visible cloud.

"Turbulence can also occur in the clear air on the sides and above rising thunderstorms ... (and this) seems to be a source of some very severe encounters - especially at night, when the pilot does not have any visual clues."

Danger of turbulence-related injures

More than 150 injuries caused by turbulence on Australian flights have been recorded in the last decade, according to the latest figures from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB).

"About a dozen in-flight turbulence injuries are reported in Australia each year to the ATSB, and many more go unreported," an ATSB report said.

"Some of these injuries are serious, and have resulted in broken bones and head injuries.

The ATSB described one incident that resulted in broken bones to passengers:

"In 2000, a Boeing 747 encountered clear air turbulence en route from Sydney to Osaka, Japan.

"When the (turbulence) struck, the seat-belt sign was not illuminated and people were moving about the cabin.

"During the turbulence two passengers sustained broken ankles… both of those passengers had been out of their seats during the turbulence."

300,000 skilled workers needed

2008-07-20T05:24:00.008+08:00

SOURCE: News.com.au

AUSTRALIA'S economy cannot continue to grow without a lot more skilled migrant workers, Immigration Minister Chris Evans says.

Senator Evans warned today of an ageing population and a range of industries that could not find enough skilled workers to enable their businesses to grow.

"So there is a huge demand. We will meet it by upskilling our own people, but we have got to make sure we have got strong skilled migration as well if we are going to grow," the senator told Sky news.

"We will be investing an awful lot in the education revolution and skilling our own people.

"But the reality is we have an ageing population. Unless we have migration we are not going to be able to grow our workforce."

Under a revised immigration program announced this week, Australia will substantially lift its intake of migrants, particularly those with necessary skills.

That includes 190,300 in the permanent migration stream, 56,500 in the family stream and about 50,000 in the temporary skilled migration program - totalling more than 300,000.

This is the biggest yearly increase since the immigration program was launched in the 1940s.

Senator Evans said for the first time in the past year the workforce grew more from imported labour than from Australians taking new jobs.

"So we have got to have skilled migration to grow the economy. At the moment there is a real constraint on our capacity to grow because we just don't have enough workers," he said.

Senator Evans said there were significant skilled vacancies in the growth states, and there was a challenge to better connect those coming into Australia with areas where there were jobs.

"We don't want them all flocking into Sydney," he said.

"We actually want them going to Queensland, Western Australian and South Australia where there is huge demand for skills that they can't find elsewhere."

Opposition immigration spokesman Chris Ellison said the Government was continuing what the Coalition Government started.

He said the Coalition lifted the skilled migration content from 30 to 70 per cent of the total program.

"So we certainly don't disagree with the Government's announcement that it will be increasing the skilled migration program by 31,000," he said.

"But it is important that the Government resource the Department of Immigration to accommodate this."

Senator Ellison said the Opposition would be assessing the impact of the Government's public service efficiency cuts.

He said he had received complaints from business on the time it takes to employ a worker under the 457 visa temporary skilled immigrant program.

Senator Ellison said the Government had also forecast a rise in unemployment.

"The whole purpose of skilled migrations is to ensure you are bringing in skilled people to fill jobs where no local worker is available. It will require careful management," he said.

Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson acknowledged labour shortages existed in certain areas for skilled and unskilled workers.

"Why is it that Mr Rudd is planning and budgeting to put 134,000 Australians out of work over the next year and at the same time he wants to bring even more people into Australia?" he said.

Australia ETA Visa Requirement

2008-06-16T20:00:00.003+08:00

The Electronic Travel Authority or ETA visa for Australia has got to be the easiest type of visitor visa to apply for and acquire online. This visa allows you to travel around Australia for twelve months on multiple visits. Each visit has a maximum of three months. Since it is only visitor visa, you cannot work in Australia but be able to study for a maximum of three months.

The application for an Australian ETA is processed immediately online and recorded on the Australian Government systems. You won't be needing a stamp or label on your passport because your ETA visa is electronically stored and checked before you board your flight to Australia.

ELIGIBILITY
Application for an ETA visa is only eligible for the following passport holders:

Andorra
Austria
Belgium
Brunei
Canada
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hong Kong (SAR)
Iceland
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Malaysia
Malta
Monaco
The Netherlands
Norway
Portugal
Republic of San Marino
Singapore
South Korea
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
United Kingdom
United States of America

Australia Visa Requirement (ETA)
* You must be out side Australia to apply for this visa
* You must meet health and character requirements
* You must have an incentive to return home
* You must have sufficient funds to cover your trip to Australia and back

A Global Approach To Migration

2008-06-06T19:31:00.000+08:00

MIGRATION has emerged as one of the defining issues of the 21st century. With hundreds of millions of people now living outside their countries of birth, the hot topic of people mobility has grown in visibility and significance.

The development of modern transportation and telecommunications has led to a steady growth of people motivated to move – and with the ability to do so. Not surprisingly, this growing surge of people across national boundaries has often raised fears and controversy in both sending and receiving countries.

This sensitive issue is fertile ground for those willing to pander to political populism and xenophobia.

Public perceptions of migration – whether based on evidence or emotions – play a critical role in determining policy choices available to governments in managing what is an unstoppable trend.

The world is changing at a rate that some of us might find discomforting, even bewildering.

International migration is playing a decisive role in speeding up that process of change. It is reshaping the economic, social and cultural profile of the familiar world we grew up in.

Helping to bring some much-needed balance to the often heated debate – and exploding a number of myths along the way – has been a growing body of research looking into the costs and benefits of migration. Most of these studies come to a surprising conclusion – or at least one that is out of step with much popular sentiment – the boom in migration has for the most part been good for sending and receiving countries.

Immigration Minister Chris Evans yesterday said an increase in migration to Australia had been driven substantially by demand for skilled workers and the needs of the Australian economy.

Public perception is often that migration grows out of and causes further poverty in both sending and receiving countries – not to mention possible social friction and workplace disruption.

But what emerges from empirical research is not merely that migration is inevitable given the understandable desire for people to move to improve their life chances. This iron law has governed the movement of people for as long as we have graced the planet.

A growing body of evidence also points to migration being an essential and potentially beneficial component of the economic and social life of every country and region.

For developed countries wanting to maintain healthy growth rates, immigration offers an alternative source of people and labor at a time of declining population and shortages of skilled workers.

For developing countries it can help relieve unemployment and population pressures, as well as ready supply of money from remittances sent to those who remain at home.

So the question no longer becomes one of whether to have migration but how to manage it effectively in order to ramp up its positive effects and reduce any negative impacts.

Given this evidence, it is essential that a comprehensive and co-operative approach be adopted to international migration management.

The economic and social interests of Australia and the international community are better served by managing immigration rather than erecting substantial blockades to the movement of people across the globe.

Source - The Advertiser

Getting Around Australia

2008-05-24T13:13:00.002+08:00

Traveling to Australia, whether for the holidays or a business trip, the best way to get around Australia is to rent a car, aside from buses and trains. Major cities and venues are at long distances, unless you can afford to fly all around the country, renting a car would be a good choice. You can drive anywhere and visit all places you want to.

Australia is an ideal place for adventurers, wonderful beaches, beautiful national parks, historical places and buildings, and great food! As a tourist, using credit cards in Australia is the common yet wiser way to spend money. You can use it in restaurants, department stores, supermarkets and gas stations at major cities.

Adventure travelers are attracted most on Australia's outback. This is one of Australia's amazing and beautiful places to visit. But the outback is also a dangerous place. I suggest you travel along with a group, and don't forget to bring your camera, sunglasses, first-aid kit, compass and a mobile phone. Travel the outback using a 4WD or you won't get anywhere else.

Lots of people would come on a working holiday visa, they want to try out living in Australia for a couple of months or a year, get a job to see if they fit in the Australian economy and if they liked it they apply for permanent residency!

It's easy to travel around Australia once you get the hang of it. There are many Australian online services that offers cheap accommodation, car hire, tours, and even discounts on airfares. So that it will be easy to arrange everything while your outside the country and waiting for the processing of your Australian visa.

Before traveling to Australia, make sure you gather enough information of the places you want to visit, pack all necessary things, bring extra cash and a map.

Capping of Contributory Parent Category Visas

2008-05-16T21:15:00.000+08:00

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship today announced the capping of a series of Contributory Parent visa categories in light of continued high demand for these visas.

Caps are determined by the minister and used to ensure that the planning levels for various components of the migration program are not exceeded.

The numbers for particular subclasses were determined by the relative demand for each visa subclass as a proportion of the total planning level.

Once a specified visa class cap is reached, no more visas can be granted for the remainder of the migration program year, which in this case is the end of June 2008.

It is important to note the capping power does not affect visa grants for applicants who have previously been granted a temporary Contributory Parent visa and who are now applicants for the corresponding permanent Contributory Parent visa.

The total planning level for Contributory Parent visas for 2007-08 is 3500.

The visa subclasses and the new caps are as follows:

* Contributory Aged Parent (Temporary) (Class UU(T)) (Subclass 884): 29

* Contributory Aged Parent (Class DG (P)) (Subclass 864): 300

* Contributory Parent (Temporary) (Class UT (T)) (Subclass 173): 650

* Offshore Subclass 143 – Contributory Parent (Class CA (P)): 2521

Resource: http://www.immi.gov.au/media/media-releases/2008/d08036.htm

Australia To Speed Processing of Migrant Visas

2008-05-15T19:14:00.010+08:00

Australia's federal government says it will set up new centres, and provide more resources, to the immigration department to speed up processing of 457, or skilled migrant, visas.

Our reporter Naomi Woodley reports the Federal Government is accepting most of the recommendations from a review of the 457 visa system.

The immigration department will put extra resources into clearing the current backlog of applications by the end of June.

The government says specialised centres will also be set up in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth to process visas from July, and teams will concentrate on regions, industries or projects to address particular shortages.

Employers classified as "low-risk" will be able to have their applications fast-tracked under an accreditation system.

The Federal Opposition is supporting the recommendations, but says many had previously been identified and announced by the Howard government.

- ABC Radio Australia

Australia Parent Visa Requirement

2008-05-06T15:53:00.000+08:00

The Australia Parent Visa is granted to people wanting to immigrate and live with their children in Australia, whether a working or non-working parent.

You must be able to pass the “Balance of Family” Test in order to apply for a parent visa for Australia. Here's a simple Balance of Family Table taken from immi.gov.au

ELIGIBILITY

You may be sponsored by your child, your child's spouse or a guardian of your child / spouse. Your child must be an Australian citizen or permanent residence.

WORKING AGED PARENT (Subclass 103) VISA

This visa allows you to work and live with your children in Australia. Suitable for parents not old enough to be granted an Australian aged pension.

REQUIREMENTS

* Children must be an Australian citizen or Permanent Residence (natural, adopted or step child).

* You must meet the “Balance of Family” Test.

* This visa requires you to be of working age to apply. Female applicants must be under the age of 63 to be able to apply for this visa and male applicants under the age of 65.

See Australian Working Aged Parent Visa Requirement for online assessment

AGED PARENT (Subclass 804) VISA

Suitable for people old enough to be granted an Australian Aged Pension. This visa allows you to live permanently with your child / children in Australia.

REQUIREMENTS

* Children must be an Australian citizen or Permanent Residence (natural, adopted or step child).

* You must meet the “Balance of Family” Test.

* The eligible age for female is 63 and above, and 65 and above for male applicants.

See Australian Aged Parent Visa Requirement for online assessment

Online assessments are done to determine your eligibility to apply for any type of Australian visas.

Western Australia Immigration for IT Skill Shortage

2008-05-01T17:49:00.002+08:00

A new committee has been set up by the Western Australian state government to address the IT skills shortage. The information and communications technology (ICT) sector has been recognized as vital to the state's economy and Australian immigration is to be encouraged to meet the problem.

The ICT Skills Shortage Leadership Group was announced by the state industry and enterprise minister Francis Logan this week. "The ICT industry underpins everything we do and the future is strong here in WA. But its sustained growth depends on having enough skilled employees and this new committee will hopefully identify opportunities to help skill the industry," Mr Logan said.

The group will be made up of representatives from universities, TAFE, secondary schools, careers advisors, industry and professional associations, the Department of Education and Training, the Small Business Development Corporation, Scitech and the Curriculum Council.

"It will look at promoting ICT, teaching ICT and the retention and attraction of ICT staff. We will work directly with the ICT industry to identify the skill set they need now and in the future," said Valerie Maxville, chair of the ICT Industry Collaboration Centre.

A Country In Demand for More Immigrants

2008-05-01T17:46:00.000+08:00

Immigration to Australia has been going up since the last decade and a large portion of this is the skilled migration. Even though population is getting bigger, more and more people still migrate due to the employment opportunities. Australian employers are encouraging more skilled professionals to immigrate for work, aside from this, the strength of the Australian dollar has also increased.

WORK AS A SKILLED MIGRANT
Fresh graduates from any universities around the globe are welcome to apply for any job in Australia, even to people looking for a career change. To identify individuals who can bring valuable economic benefits to the Australian economy, online visa assessments are done.

TEMPORARY WORK
People looking for a career change takes a working holiday visa for Australia. This is great for people wanting to try their luck in Australia before they permanently migrate. A working holiday visa for Australia allows you to work within 12 months but you cannot work for the same employer for more than 6 months.

STUDY IN AUSTRALIA
Some people come to Australia to study and later on acquire their permanent residency after they graduate and decide to work in Australia. Since it is much easier to apply for permanent residency if you're a graduate from any Australian university.

OWN A BUSINESS
Australia is also know for its business opportunities. As a successful business owner, you may establish your business in Australia or invest a different kind of business as long as you have a significant amount of capital. Temporary business visas are given to people wanting to start a business in Australia, while the permanent business visa or Established Business Owner visa is for temporary business visa holders who has established (owned/part owner) a successful business in Australia.

It is widely known that Australia's endless opportunities gives immigrants hope for a better living. So the next time you're planning migrate overseas for work, go where employees are in demand. Australia might be the right place for you.

Good Employment Rates Encourage Australian Immigration

2008-05-01T17:45:00.001+08:00

Employment rates in Australia rose for the 14th month in a row in December. This shows good economic growth in the country and may encourage people to think that Australian immigration is a good way to find employment as well as new surroundings. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the unemployment rate fell to 4.3 per cent from 4.5 per cent in November.

Craig James, chief equities economist at CommSec, said: "The Australian job market is in spanking good health. Not only is the country experiencing the longest period of job gains in 27 years, but unemployment is again edging closer to a landmark three-point-something result." The number of people employed in Australia rose by 20,100 to 10.6 million last month which will no doubt make Australian immigration an even more attractive prospect.

Meanwhile, the strength of the Australian dollar has also increased. It climbed to 87.87 cents in Sydney last week and may reach 88.50 cents this week, according to John Rothfield, a senior currency strategist at Bank of America.

The Future is Another Country

2008-05-01T17:42:00.000+08:00

It's grey and chilly. Throngs of thirty and forty somethings lumber through the drizzle to an agricultural hall outside Coventry. I pay the £11 entrance fee and once through the door everything changes. Sunny optimism illumines the interior. Maple-leaf flags hang like bunting while red, white and blue balloons jostle for attention with inflatable kangaroos and surfboards. This is Emigrate, the largest migration exhibition in Britain, at which financial advisers, estate agents and lawyers from more than 60 organisations offer advice to 7,000 visitors on how to gain entry to new lands of opportunity.

I join the queue of visitors who are eager to discover how to clinch the golden ticket: an Australian visa. We take our seats and the game-show begins. On the stage, a smiling Australian migration lawyer talks up the prize of a one-way ticket to the land of surf, sun and beer. "Once you get a visa you can sit on the beach for the rest of your life. You don't need to work if you don't want to."

At Emigrate, points win prizes. Later in the day, at stalls dotted around the fair, there are talks on how to gain the differing number of points required for entry by Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Each country has its own list of desired skills and professions and the fair's walls are pasted with posters cataloguing each nation's sought-after occupations. Are you a bee-keeper? A civil servant? Welcome to New Zealand. Hairdresser? Last year Australia was desperate for you.

Now, after admitting large numbers of Chinese and Indian scissor-hands, hairdressers are no longer required. Qualification for permanent residence can be a lottery but there are some certainties. All countries allocate more points for youth, English-language fluency and education. And if you are an entrepreneur with thousands to invest in your new country, Australia, New Zealand and America all want you.

Myths about points swirl around the show. To demonstrate the abundant migration misinformation, the presenter, Ben Willis, a migration agent and lawyer, asks, Paul McKenna-style, for a guinea pig who believes he or she has the 120 points to qualify for permanent Australian residency.

The victim says confidently that he is an engineer, aware Australia is desperate for them. "Do you have a BSc in engineering?" the presenter asks. "No. I switched careers later and took an MSc in engineering," he replies. It is not enough. The BSc would have given him the necessary points but the MSc counts for less.

The volunteer's face falls. The presenter looks vindicated: "My main message is: don't assume you will manage to get 120 points," he says.

Registering the wavering mood in the audience, he attempts to gee them up: "It's worth going through the hurdles or else you'll be stuck on the M1 thinking, 'what am I doing here?' Australia is the best place to be. Once you've made a decision to come, just do it."

To keep wannabe migrants' eyes fixed on the prize, we are introduced by video link-ups to Brits who have leapt through the migration hoops to settle in new countries. At one talk, entitled "Chat with Brits in Canada", we're presented to Maxine, a migratory role model who moved from London to Ontario two years ago: "She got a whopping 79 points! She only needed 67 to qualify!". Canada's craving for her postgraduate social work qualifications ratcheted up her score.

It's a gold rush for the emigration industry. The Office for National Statistics' figures show more British citizens left the UK in 2006 - 207,000 - than in any year since records began in 1991: 49,000 for new lives in Australia, 71,000 upped sticks for EU countries, mainly Spain and France, and 16,000 to the US.

More and more people hanker to move abroad. A 2006 BBC survey found that 13 per cent of 1,000 people asked were planning to emigrate in the near future, twice the number who wanted to leave when the same question was asked three years before.

Yet the British press and politicians have been so mesmerised by the rising number of non-British nationals arriving - which the ONS recently showed had swelled to 510,000 immigrants in 2006, double the number a decade ago - that the British exodus has been ignored.

Of course, emigrating Brits are nothing new. At the height of its imperial power in the 19th century, Britain experienced mass migration not only to colonies and dominions such as India, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa but also to countries with colonial connections, such as the US.

Professor Tim Hatton, a labour market economist from Essex University, estimates the annual emigration rate in the years before the first world war at around 5.3 UK citizens out of every 1,000, though this included a disproportionately high share of Irish emigrants when Ireland was part of the UK.

Even today, according to Jim Hammerton, emeritus professor at Melbourne's La Trobe University, who has written extensively on the history of migration, Brits are cashing in on the "colonial dividend", empire having established "common language and family ties to countries".

A couple at the Emigrate fair support Professor Hammerton's observation. The woman, in her late 30s, pacifying her toddler with an apple, tells me her parents came to Britain from India in the 1960s, and her husband had lived in Australia as a child for 10 years before they met: "I know it's possible to uproot a family and be happy."

Brits are departing their home country in greater numbers than the French or Americans.
The Institute for Public Policy Research estimated that 5.5m British nationals, or just over 9 per cent of the UK population, were living overseas permanently in 2006. It dwarfs the number of French living overseas, which is only about 1.2m, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Yet even the French eclipse the Americans: the OECD finds 1.2m US-born citizens, out of a population of 300m, live overseas, making the US diaspora proportionally much smaller than the French or British.

While the legacy of empire has provided Brits with some choice destinations, this alone can't explain the difference. Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, IPPR's director of research strategy, suggests the British are more outward-facing than other nationalities: "Brits care about international issues - it's in British newspapers. Whereas American and French societies are more insular." This, he says, helps explain why Britain has, in relative terms, one of the largest diasporas in the world.

If Brits, as Sriskandarajah says, do have a wider view of the world, then cheap travel and improved communications make abroad not as foreign as it used to be and emigrating less daunting.

In fact, for many middle-class families across the world, living abroad is a rite of passage, whether it is gap-year students digging wells in African villages, high-flyers studying for MBAs or investment bankers accepting foreign postings.

Dr Sam Scott, a lecturer in social geography at Liverpool University who has researched European migration, suggests the experience of foreign living and culture is a social aspiration and may be a way some families give themselves a mark of cultural sophistication. He says: "People's social and cultural experiences abroad are useful as a form of class 'capital'. It's about how you change as a person and the networks you enter that set you out as different."

The pursuit of this badge of distinction increases the likelihood of accidental migration, which takes place when the intention to return home is re-routed by, say, romance. Prof Hammerton suggests growing numbers of accidental migrants are making redundant the distinction of permanent migrants and short-term expats living overseas on a work posting.

How, for example, to define Ian Corfield? He is a 35-year-old chief executive of Bank West's retail division, who moved with his wife and two young children from central London to Perth after HBOS, which owns Bank West, offered him the post. "We always wanted to live and work abroad. We weren't sick of Britain; we just wanted to experience a different environment and culture," he says.

For the moment they're keeping their London house but think they might sell up and make Australia their permanent home, thereby blurring the demarcation between expat and migrant.

I ask Paul Beasley, editor of Emigrate, a magazine offering migration news and advice, why so many Britons want to leave. He says unemployment is not an issue but taxes and house prices motivate people to up sticks. "The property market is a big factor; they want their children to be able to get a foot on the property ladder. There is a dream, buoyed by the strong pound, that people can buy their houses outright abroad and have a nest egg."

Indeed, everyone I speak to at the fair raises the issue. At one stand, I ask what I could buy if I sold my one-bed London flat. "You could get a 3,000 square feet, four-bedroom house on an acre of land and three-car garage - a mini-mansion if you moved to Saskatoon," the Canadian consultant enthuses proudly.

Foreign homes allow us to experiment with migration. A survey by Barclays bank showed that 35 per cent of people buying a holiday home planned to relocate or retire there. David Bloor, a 49-year-old maths teacher from east Yorkshire, says that buying a property in Turkey has given him a taste for life abroad and now he hopes to settle farther away. Some commentators dub the fashion for buying overseas homes "pre-emigrating".

Professionals on overseas postings and Brits in possession of foreign properties are making British migration more middle class than it used to be, according to Prof Hammerton. He says traditional "migrations of austerity", when people felt driven out of Britain by hardship, notably in the postwar years and high unemployment in the 1980s, have given way to "migrations of prosperity" as people quit a Britain that is relatively affluent with high employment.

Prof Hammerton also says that migrants are both more wealthy and skilled than was the case in the 1950s. In part this reflects the fact that the middle class is bigger than it used to be and that tougher immigration policies in settler countries weed out lesser-skilled potential migrants, consigning the "Ten Pound Poms", British migrants who received financial assistance from the Australian government, to the history books.

However, if some Brits are migrating by accident after relaxing in their Provence holiday home or putting down family or work roots abroad, most people I meet at the Emigrate fair just want to leave Britain. There is something rather melancholy in visiting a fair with hundreds of people who want to leave the country.

Some of the would-be emigrants say they are fed up with Britain's "uncontrolled immigration".

The Elstons, a couple in their 30s from Nottingham, have been thinking of moving to Australia for the past 18 months. At first it was Canada, but then they changed their minds. "Canada and Australia are very different," I suggest. They shrug their shoulders. "It's more that we want to leave this country than go to another country. I pay too much tax. There are too many foreigners coming to this country due to EU restrictions being lifted," Mr Elston explains. I ask him if he doesn't see the irony that he will be an immigrant in Australia - the kind of person he is complaining about. He shakes his head: "I prefer other countries' immigration policies. They're controlled."

According to Paul Beasley, Gordon Brown's decision not to call an election until 2009 might exacerbate the exodus, not because of the prime minister himself, but because "when a political party has been in power for a number of years, people start to become disillusioned; they begin to feel that politics is a dead game".

But talk around the fair isn't just of policy and property. People at Emigrate speak of their motives for migration in therapeutic and emotional language. They want "space to breathe" to "get away from stress".

Beasley sums it up: "People just feel that life in Britain is becoming more stressful, more difficult. They believe that moving overseas will balance their lives and they will have much less stress."
I talk to Paul, a 43-year-old graphic designer who is planning to move to Australia with his wife and four children: "We want a better quality of life. I don't like Britain. My spare time is pressured. You live for your holiday. I want to be in an environment where the lifestyle is slowed down and you can take advantage of time to be with your family."

Paul's remarks appear to confirm Prof Hammerton's verdict that the "migration of prosperity" has replaced the "migration of austerity". Aspiration for a better quality of life these days need not be a hankering for increased riches but a reaction against the perceived stress of modern life.

Stress has become a "virulent epidemic" in British society, according to David Wainwright and Michael Calnan, authors of a study entitled Work Stress, published in 2002. The idea of being "stressed out" grips the nation. It radically alters how people look at work and the world around them. Work in pressurised Britain seems undesirable, and countries that appear to offer a more relaxed lifestyle are attractive.

Some people I met at the fair lusted for adventure but most were fed up and desperate for sunnier climes and eager to escape the stresses of life in Britain. So much unhappiness made me desperate to get away and I plonked myself in a mini-cab. It wasn't just me that felt infected by the visitors' discontent. "Everyone's been so miserable," my cab driver remarked. "I'll tell you what, we're better off without that whingeing lot. Give me the immigrants any day."