Western Australia has launched an audacious bid to ‘steal’ 31,000 British doctors, police officers and teachers to work in the land Down Under.
In a nod to the ‘Ten Pound Poms’ scheme introduced after the Second World War, a delegation of government and industry officials will visit the UK later this month to lure workers away to fill more than 31,000 vacancies.
They are also on the hunt for miners, plumbers, mechanics and builders.
They promise hard-working Britons can ‘have it all’ and boast the UK’s energy bills – up to £2,600 this year – will cost almost half in Australia, with the savings spent on 183 pints of beer, 110 roast dinners or 500 jars of Marmite.
Police and defence industry minister Paul Papalia also highlighted Western Australia’s ‘wine regions’, ‘coral reefs’ and ‘culinary scene’.
Western Australia has launched an audacious bid to ‘steal’ 31,000 British doctors, police officers and teachers to work in the land Down Under
Police and defence industry minister Paul Papalia (pictured with Rafael Nadal, left, in 2020) highlighted Western Australia’s ‘wine regions’, ‘coral reefs’ and ‘culinary scene’
He said: ‘Our wages are higher and our cost of living is lower. Our health system is world class. You will be taken care of.
‘Many of our ancestors were sent from the UK to Australia as convicts. Now, it would be a crime not to make the move.’
But with the UK public sector facing staff shortages, the plan has been met with concern.
Steve Brine MP, chairman of the Commons health and social care select committee, said: ‘Any country is obviously entitled to import health care workers – as we do in the UK from elsewhere – but there’s nothing to say our people have to go.’
Another committee member, Tory MP Paul Bristow, said the Australians’ choice of the word ‘steal’ was ‘unfortunate’, adding: ‘We need to demonstrate the benefits of working in the UK to help them stay.
‘It shows that we need to redouble our efforts to recruit new nurses, new doctors and demonstrate the benefits a career in the UK offers.’
Steve Hartshorn, national chairman of the Police Federation, said: ‘We need every officer we have in this time of crisis.’
He added: ‘The impact of these experienced and trained officers leaving will also affect the ability of those newer in service to learn and develop, and to provide the best service possible to the public.’
The Federation warned that as many as nine police officers a day are already submitting requests to transfer to a police force on the other side of the world.
Meanwhile, the chair of the education select committee, Robin Walker MP, said the plan demonstrates we’re in ‘competition’ with the global market.
He said: ‘Clearly we should be worried about the loss of any good teachers trained in the English system – the best way to address that is by making it attractive to stay.’
It comes as the British public sector faces severe staff shortages and crippling strikes.
The NHS is battling shortfalls of 12,000 hospital doctors and more than 50,000 nurses and midwives.
The British Medical Association revealed before Christmas that a third of junior doctors are planning to leave the UK – with the majority choosing Australia or New Zealand.
Professor Phil Banfield, chair of British Medical Association council, said the NHS is ‘perilously exposed to these kinds of tactics from other countries at a time when doctors and healthcare staff are in desperately short supply globally.’
Nuffield Trust Senior Fellow Dr Billy Palmer said there is a ‘risk it will spiral further’ with 900 doctors moving to Australia to practise in May 2022 alone.
The NHS is battling shortfalls of 12,000 hospital doctors and more than 50,000 nurses and midwives amid crippling strikes. Pictured: A nurse holds a placard as members of Royal College of Nursing picket outside St Thomas’ Hospital in Westminster on February 6
Steve Brine MP (pictured), chairman of the Commons health and social care select committee, said: ‘Any country is obviously entitled to import health care workers – as we do in the UK from elsewhere – but there’s nothing to say our people have to go’
Australia has a long history of immigrants from Europe, as well as the post-war scheme dubbed the Ten Pound Poms where Brits moved to the other side of the world, including these women who were members of staff of an electrical firm in Glasgow who have sent them out there to start a new life in the firms counterpart factory near Adelaide in 1947
Rachel Harrison, GMB National Secretary, said: ‘It’s no wonder NHS workers are tempted to up sticks to another health service which pays better.
‘The UK Government has allowed NHS workers’ wages to fall behind, which is a massive factor in health service’s record 133,000 vacancies and missed performance standards.
‘If Ministers want to retain the best asset of the health service – the workforce – they need to talk pay now.’
The Department for Health said the majority of UK trained doctors and nurses, work in the NHS.
Arriving on February 25, the delegation will hold events and attend job fairs in London, Edinburgh, Bristol and Dublin in an attempt to sell the Australian lifestyle to UK and Irish workers.
The new campaign focuses on the lifestyle appeal, promising: ‘The culinary scene is world class, the small bars plentiful, we have pubs and live music and theatre of all sorts.’
It even boasted that the UK-Australia trade agreement that comes into force this year will make workers moving even easier.