It is no longer true, if it ever were, that the Australian migrant to Britain is a West London barworker whose only cultural contribution is a strange habit of posing statements as questions. In fact, in recent years, thousands of educated Australians have come to the UK.

Migration has been the start of a career, not a gap year. And the cultural contribution of the expatriates - Clive James, Germaine Greer, Barry Humphries, Nick Cave, Peter Porter - means that it is silly and patronising to say the Australians had to come here to sample the culture they lacked at home. And that is without even mentioning Rolf Harris. Or the Minogue sisters, for that matter.

So it is with some alarm that we should greet the news that the Australians are heading home: 2,700 a month, up from 1,750 a month in 2005. This is largely a vote of no confidence in the old country. As the recession bites, the lure of home, with unemployment at a 33-year low and the dollar at an 11-year high against sterling, is very tempting.

Sitting on the sort of budget surplus that this country can only envy, the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is even forecasting that he can avoid recession. With the roof fixed in the good times, it is not surprising that many bright young Australians have remembered that, back at home, the sun is always shining.

There was always a case that anyone leaving Circular Quay in Sydney for Southampton dock was going the wrong way. But they came anyway, and 400,000 Australians live in Britain. But now, with more than 20,000 Britons leaving for their country every year, we need all the Australians we can get. Would they please not go back where they came from?