Young, crazy, out of control

There are a lot of young Australian expats - about 10% of Australians aged 18 to 35 live overseas. Why? The reasons are looked at in a new book by 25-year-old Ryan Heath, an extract of which was printed in The Age this morning.

Some of the expats he interviews come across as profoundly narcissistic. For instance, Jo Fox, now living in London complains that,

“In Australia the television industry is ageist. As a 22-year-old woman, it was impossible to get work heading a script department.”

Yes, Jo, it’s tough not being able to start out at the top.

A lot of the expats, though, complain about a lack of job opportunities in Australia. This is interesting, as our Government justifies its immigration programme on the basis that Australia has too few skilled workers; the expats are providing evidence that the opposite is true and that there is an oversupply.

How do you fix this situation? Ryan Heath’s solution is not to give preference to Australian youngsters seeking professional work, ahead of overseas applicants. Instead, it’s actually to increase overseas migration and to create vacancies by kicking the older generation of Australians out of work (The charming title of his book, addressed to baby boomers, is Please Just F*** Off, It’s Our Turn Now).

Heath is serious when he calls for more immigration. He wants Australia to be more globalised in its demographics and writes,

“The truth is that Australia doesn’t really have a world city - and it’s too deluded to realise what it needs to do to create one.

“Reading the morning papers in the aftermath of th 2005 London bombings, I was struck by the faces of London. Thirty-two of the 39 photos of victims that stared at us that next morning were under 35 and looked like the United Nations.

“That’s when I realised what a real “world city” is. It’s not easy; it’s not white; it’s not old. It’s crazy and colourful and out of control in a way I don’t recognise in Australia.”

This is not the most obvious conclusion to draw from the London bombings. But equally odd is Heath’s next argument. He claims that Sydney is only a middle-ranking city and that,

“it takes no great leap of the imagination to put Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro or Johannesburg on the same footing as Sydney. But it’s a real challenge for white chauvinists to think that a Portuguese-speaking city might be more interesting.”

The funny thing about this quote is that I have often wondered whether liberals really want Australia to end up like Brazil. And it seems that for Ryan Heath the answer is actually yes. He thinks it could only be chauvinism which might make an Australian prefer Sydney to Rio.

Ryan Heath, as you may have guessed, is not a politically neutral commentator. His leftist credentials include being a National Union of Students representative, and working as an Australian Labor Party adviser and refugee advocate.

He is not, though, considered to be radically leftist; some have actually critised his book for selling out the cause, and Heath himself wrote in reply to one correspondent that,

“I am more glad that you still called me ‘left’. I think quite a few people worry I have abandoned that perspective”.

So he is not even on the far left. The gap between liberals, even of the mainstream variety, and the rest of us seems to be growing ever larger.

Posted by Guest Blogger on Saturday, February 18, 2006 at 08:24 AM in Australian Politics
Comments (9) | Tell a friend

Comments:

Posted by Guessedworker on February 18, 2006, 09:49 AM | #

Being spiritually lightweight is the unique gift of liberalism. In large part the battle between Conservatism and liberalism has, from the post-war years onward, been fought between the emotionally stable and unstable. Instability never begets stability, so its numbers and, with them its capacity for harm, increase.

There will be no renewal of a stable society without the affirmation of traditional mores and a properly Conservative polity founded on stability. This, and not all the psychologically incoherent notions of personal “choice” and freedom from “oppression”, is the true birthright of our European children.

Posted by Phil on February 18, 2006, 09:51 AM | #

and flamboyantly gay

That is at the crux of it all.

Homosexuals are over-represented on the far-left. They gravitate towards cosmopolitan environs by instinct and have a deep seated resentment of the culture and the mores of the majority.

John Ray is the most obvious example

John Ray is an old man. He is a product of the post-war generation which took certain things for granted. Those things (a common culture and ethos, the ties of blood) are disappearing rapidly.

John won’t be around when the disaster will have finally run its course. He’d be gone by then. People who are my age or Steve’s age will see it happen. In that sense, we have a vested interest in preventing it.

Posted by Phil on February 18, 2006, 09:58 AM | #

Mark,

The amazing thing is that there is nothing preventing Ray or any other immigration enthusiast from moving to India or China or any othet place they fancy.

But they won’t. They will pontificate about these things from Australia, Canada, Europe or America. That is their speciality.

The other point is that if Brazil was actually colonised in the same way as America was, it would probably be the richest nation in the world with abundant land, phenomenal natural resources and a good climate. Instead, it is mostly a hell-hole in which a tiny minority live with any degree of comfort.

Posted by Phil on February 18, 2006, 10:32 AM | #

God help us.

Posted by Søren Renner on February 18, 2006, 12:07 PM | #

John won’t be around when the disaster will have finally run its course. He’d be gone by then. People who are my age or Steve’s age will see it happen.

It is good to see such profound optimism.

Posted by ben tillman on February 20, 2006, 01:41 PM | #

Some of the expats he interviews come across as profoundly narcissistic. For instance, Jo Fox….

In other words, Australia doesn’t contain enough of my nepotistic co-ethnics, though Mr. Heath may well be one.

Posted by Alex Zeka on February 25, 2006, 04:59 AM | #

He wants Australia to be out of control? Is the man simply insane?

This just takes the biscuit. Lefties often accuse me of favouring instability, because the free market (whilst producing unpresedented levels of wealth) happens to result, on occasion, in changing prices.

Now, it seems, they are more than partial to a bit of loss of control, provided it serves no discernable purperse.

Posted by Matt Munro on March 05, 2006, 12:12 AM | #

Who cares…. Ryan Heath is a hottie. That’s all the matters.

Posted by Ryan Heath on June 11, 2006, 08:45 PM | #

For the record - I am proudly, not ‘flamboyantly’ homosexual…. in fact I am so un-gay I just got back from winning five gold medals and the London Swimming Championships - so not really the ‘raving queen’ I have been pathetically alleged to be on this site.

You people should be ashamed of yourselves for the tripe you have dreamt up here. Not one of you has read the book.

I think unsafe sex is abhorrent - and if you weren’t so intent on deporting me and discriminating against gay people, you might wake up and realise I support your beloved core institution of marriage.

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