Diary – 21 March 2013

I learned on Wednesday that a row is exploding over freedom of the press … in Australia. Surely some mistake. Australia is refreshingly open and its newspapers are free to say, often rudely, whatever they like. In fact, they are among the world’s the most tightly regulated, standing 26th and 29th respectively in the Reporters Without Borders censorship index — way behind Jamaica, Costa Rica and Namibia. Where, I wonder, will Britain stand after the events of this week?

Much has changed in Oz since I spent my first day there as a Ten Pound Pom, looking comical in a grey suit on Bondi beach in midsummer, almost half a century ago. I left a stagnant Britain, beset by industrial strife and a Tory government whose only plan was to manage our decline. I returned in 1978, in time for the winter of discontent, with union-dominated Labour apparently determined to finish the job. Now the Tories are back, sort of, Britain is sliding once more into decline and Labour is shaping up to form the most union-dominated government in history. Is it time to emigrate again?

In those days, it was White Australia. Today it is a truly Asian nation whose migrants from China and Vietnam have helped double the population to 23 million. Whole suburbs are miniature Hong Kongs and Saigons, with streets named in oriental script and reeking of orange blossom and Cantonese cuisine. Since my last visit, the Sunburned Country has emerged from a ten-year drought which raised alarm over global warming. Today the dams are overflowing and rivers in full spate. Australians who prayed for rain are praying for it to stop. Having been soaked by the daily deluge in Sydney, we escaped to Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, just making it there before stormy weather closed in.