May
29
2009
Poor Queensland has been suffering even more flooding recently. Water damage is widespread in southern Queensland and northern NSW. Queensland must have the biggest flood cleanup bill of any state for a longtime. Finally the rains came to northern Queensland in January which saw towns such as Normanton isolated for weeks. Now that’s not disaster - its just the climate up there - its just that it hasn’t happened for a few years so the newsmedia were all over it.
And now Brisbane’s drought is officially over as the whole SE of the state got absolutely drenched with storms which have also created a fair bit of coastal erosion. Quite a number of coastal mansions are under threat. Northern NSW is also pretty wet for this time of the year - and given that the storm was no respecter of state boundaries its pretty much can be said if you want fine weather - head north!
May
02
2009
It seems with the economic crises comes a surge of people moving overseas or at least thinking about it. Countries such as Australia have always had a lot of immigration in good times. Western Australia and Queensland have suffered serious skills shortages with the boom in the mining industry - this has seen an influx of skilled and qualified overseas workers.
Now however the pattern of migration is changing. Australian accountants and other finance professionals have often moved to London to gain work experience. But now that the big money has dried up in the world’s financial capitals it seems that many young professionals have decided that home is best and are starting to reverse the trend of young Australians moving overseas for work experience.
Ireland looks set to reverse its trend of the last 15 years of again becoming an exporter of people instead of one of the biggest targets for immirgration in Europe. The reality is that for many people moving overseas is about chasing job opportunities- if those are harder to find than the same people will just as readily move themselves home. Moving overseas is no longer a one-way trip the same way it was a few generations ago And at least the airfares are cheap.
