Earning a living Down Under

1 April, 2008

Skilled South Africans are being transferred or head-hunted, writes Linda Vergnani.
Turn on the radio in Australia and you will hear the distinctive Afrikaans accent of Marius Kloppers who, as CEO of BHP Billiton, is spearheading the A147-billion takeover bid of BHP Billiton.

Kloppers is one of the SA corporate superstars who have lit up the Australian and international business firmament. Among the brightest is Gail Kelly, the new CEO of Westpac. Her earnings could top A12-million per year, making her the most highly paid businesswoman in Australia.
Kelly, who emigrated to the country with her family in 1997, is listed among the 50 most powerful women in global business by Fortune magazine.

Other leading business migrants include Giam Swiegers, CEO of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu in Australia, and Jonathan Pinshaw, chairman of The Just Group.
Australia’s Department of Immigration and Citizenship lists South Africa as one of the top 10 countries when it comes to gaining citizenship in terms of Australia’s business-skills migration programme. According to the department, 3996 South Africans settled permanently in Australia in the past two years.

In addition, there were more than 7800 South Africans in Australia on temporary 457 business visas by June 2007.

Although the average weekly earning in Australia were A1162 in 2007, starting over can be tough for business migrants. The cost of living in major cities such as Sydney can be exceptionally high and the mortgage on a modest house can easily exceed A1000 a week.

Craig Badings, director and head of corporate public relations at Savage & Partners, moved to Australia in 2003 with his teacher wife and two young children. He says unless South Africans are transferred to Australia or headhunted, they have to be prepared to “take a few backward steps” in their career and salary.

Badings, who founded Rainmaker Public Relations and was previously MD of Cape Town Citigate, initially took a role as account director in a public relations firm in Melbourne.
“You come here with all this experience but none of the Australian market, and you have to reinvent yourself,” he said. Badings likens it to a “mental enema”, which forces migrants to refocus their skills.

Now based in Sydney, which he loves, Badings says: “You’ve got to embrace Australian ways because South Africans are generally perceived as quite aggressive and arrogant.”
Badings says South Africans who pick up the “nuances around the boardroom table” and adapt to Australians’ polite, consensus approach to business will get ahead quicker .

Evan Petrelis, who was the 2007 New South Wales president of the Australia Africa Business Council, remarks that the integration of highly educated South African immigrants into the Australian workplace is on the whole excellent.

“While the ‘direct’ or sometimes even confrontational approach of some South Africans on occasion lands them in hot water, South Africans are generally respected and well regarded in the Australian business community as astute, entrepreneurial and hard- working,” he said.
Expatriate South Africans have “typically thrived in professional sectors, particularly accounting, law and finance”, and there are also a number of high-profile former South Africans leading blue-chip retail organisations.

Petrelis, who moved from London to Australia three years ago, notes that while most expatriate South Africans initially find jobs with organisations, many “move on to take advantage of Australia’s favourable business start-up incentives and go on to establish successful small businesses in a number of fields”.

- The Times

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Wed, 18 Feb 2009 at 5:44 AM, by Linda Vergnani
This article of mine has been placed on this website illegally. It is my copyright and is not available for reprint without my written permission and a full fee being negotiated. It is certainly not available free of charge.

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