1 In 1980, majority rule ended the white-dominated government of Rhodesia. The terms Rhodesia/Rhodesians will be used with reference to the period before this, while Zimbabwe/Zimbabwean will be used for the period afterwards.

2 Daniel McGrory, ‘Fearful farmers seek a place in Australian sun’, The Times, 2 July 2000, http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/2jula.html#link13.

3 There are different frameworks in which the construct ‘white’ can be understood, but here this self-identifying term is used to refer to people of European ancestry who have lived in Africa.

4 Forrest, James, Johnston, Ron and Poulsen, Michael, ‘Middle class diaspora: Recent immigration to Australia from South Africa and Zimbabwe’, South African Geographical Journal 95 (1) (2014), 54–5Google Scholar; Kalman, Julie, ‘Mansions in Maroubra: Making a Jewish South African home in Australia’, History Australia 11 (1) (2013), 175–96Google Scholar; Louw, P. Eric and Mersham, Gary, ‘Packing for Perth: The growth of a Southern African diaspora’, Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 10 (2) (2001), 303–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; D. Lucas, M. Jamali and B. Edgar, ‘Zimbabwe's exodus to Australia’, paper presented at the African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific Conference 2011, Flinders University, 1–22, http://www.afsaap.org.au/Conferences/2011/LucasJamaliEdgar.pdf. See also Eleanor Venables, ‘The women from Rhodesia: An auto-ethnographic study of immigrant experience and [re]aggregration in Western Australia’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 2004); Venables, Eleanor, ‘Recollection of identity: The reassembly of the migrant’, Journal of Australian Studies 27 (77) (2003), 109–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Forrest, Johnston and Poulsen, ‘Middle class diaspora’, 58–60.

6 Of all Zimbabweans who have arrived in Australia since 1991, 2.6 per cent live in the Darling Downs, 2.6 per cent on the Sunshine Coast and 2.2 per cent in the Rockhampton region. From a total of 898 residents, 146 South Africans were settled in the Darling Downs as a result of the State Specific Regional Migration Scheme. See Forrest, Johnston and Poulsen, ‘Middle class diaspora’, 58.

7 This can include retirement migration and also those seeking better opportunities. See Benson, Michaela and O’Reilly, Karen, Lifestyle migration: Expectations, aspirations and experiences (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009)Google Scholar.

8 ‘AS’, interview with author, 10 March 2014, Toowoomba.

9 This relates to cultural orientation and primary language spoken, as most Afrikaners are bi-lingual. For a study on Afrikaans speakers in Toowoomba, see Anikó, Hatoss, Starks, Donna and van Rensburg, Henriette Janse, ‘Afrikaans language maintenance in Australia’, Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 34, no. 1 (2011), 4–12Google Scholar.

10 ‘AP’, interview with author, 25 January 2014, Toowoomba.

11 Haggis argues that white Australia limits those to whom it chooses to offer hospitality. See Haggis, Jane, ‘White Australia and otherness: The limits to hospitality’, in Hayes, Anna and Mason, Robert (eds), Cultures in refuge: Seeking sanctuary in modern Australia (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 15–30Google Scholar. For a related study of the invisibility of South African migrants in New Zealand, see Trlin, Andrew, ‘“It's all so different here . . .”: initial employment and social engagement experiences of South Africans in New Zealand’, Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 21 (1) (2012), 57–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 The 2011 Census reported that Zimbabwe-born residents of Australia were more likely to have higher non-school qualifications compared to the Australian population as a whole (74.5 per cent compared with 55.9 per cent), and that they had a higher rate of employment (82 per cent compared with 65 per cent for the Australian population as a whole) and were significantly over-represented in the professional occupation category. Community information summary: Zimbabwe born (Australian Government Department of Immigration and Citizenship) 4, http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/statistics/comm-summ/_pdf/zimbabwe.pdf.

13 Louise O’Keefe, ‘Couple sees changes in 25 years’, The Chronicle, 7 July 2009, http://www.thechronicle.com.au/news/couple-watches-city-change-25-years/265999.

14 French, Maurice, Toowoomba: A sense of history, 1840–2008 (Toowoomba: University of Southern Queensland, 2009), pp. 427–9Google Scholar.

15 ‘AS’, interview with author, 10 March 2014, Toowoomba. While Afrikaans-speaking South Africans clearly have a different language and culture, bilingual education means they are well positioned to access the English-language Australian world.

16 The next highest ranking countries of birth are England 2.1 per cent, New Zealand 1.4 per cent and South Africa with 0.6 per cent. Australia-wide, 69.8 per cent were born in Australia. Australian Bureau of Statistics: 2011 Census, http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2011/quickstat/317?opendocument&navpos=220.

17 The University of Southern Queensland is located in Toowoomba, the University of Queensland's Gatton campus is 30 minutes’ drive away, and medical and nursing students from both Queensland and Griffith University can complete half their studies in Toowoomba.

18 French, Toowoomba.

19 Commonalities between white settler societies are discussed by Lake, Marilyn and Reynolds, Henry, Drawing the global colour line: White men's countries and the international challenge of racial equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a discussion of race in Australia see Hage, Ghassan, White nation: Fantasies of white supremacy in a multicultural society (New York: Routledge, 2000)Google Scholar. Louw and Merscham point out that the settlement transition is easy due to historical commonalities shared between Australia and South Africa, in ‘Packing for Perth’, 321.

20 Australia publicly abandoned race-based policies only twenty years before South Africa, yet on occasion Australians criticise white Africans because of South Africa's history. See Patti McCarthy, ‘How Australians view South Africans’, SAbona: The Mag for South Africans Living in Oz, 10 December 2009, http://www.sabona.com.au/articles_detail.ews?articles_detail.ewdid=418.

21 Teppo, Annika, The making of a good white: a historical ethnography of the rehabilitation of poor whites in a suburb of Cape Town (Helsinki, Finland: Helsinki University Press, 2004), p. 118Google Scholar.

22 Ballard, Richard and Jones, Gareth A., ‘Natural neighbors: Indigenous landscapes and eco-estates in Durban, South Africa’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 101 (1) (2011), 136Google Scholar.

23 Leonard, Pauline, ‘Landscaping privilege: being British in South Africa’, in Twine, France and Gardner, Bradley (eds), Geographies of Privilege (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), p. 105Google Scholar.

24 See Ballard and Jones, ‘Natural neighbors’, 131–48.

25 In 1904, 6 per cent were urban, but by 1936, 44 per cent were urban. This increased to 76 per cent in 1960. Welsh, David, ‘Urbanisation and the solidarity of Afrikaner nationalism’, Journal of Modern African Studies 7 (2) (1969), 265–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Hyslop, Jonathan, ‘Why did apartheid's supporters capitulate? “Whiteness”, class and consumption in urban South Africa, 1985–1995’, Society in Transition 31 (1) (2000), 36–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 The way this trope appears in Afrikaans culture is discussed by Wenzel, Jennifer in ‘The pastoral promise and the political imperative: The plaasroman tradition in an era of land reform’, MFS Modern Fiction Studies 46 (1) (2000), 90–113CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On rural Cape farms, it has been argued that there was ‘a close link between white identity, land ownership and a fierce insistence on the farmer's independence and final authority over all who lived and worked on the land’. Ewert, Joachim and du Toit, Andries, ‘The micro-politics of paternalism: The discourses of management and resistance on South African fruit and wine farms’, Journal of Southern African Studies 19 (2) (1993), 318Google Scholar.

27 This was deeply embedded within Afrikaans culture during the apartheid era. See Grundlingh, Albert and Sapire, Hilary, ‘From feverish festival to repetitive ritual? The changing fortunes of great trek mythology in an industrializing South Africa, 1938–1988’, South African Historical Journal 21 (1) (1989), 19–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Malan, Rian, My traitor's heart: A South African exile returns to face his country, his tribe and his conscience (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990), p. 94Google Scholar.

29 Godwin, Peter and Hancock, Ian, Rhodesians never die: The impact of war and political change of white Rhodesia c. 1970–1980 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Most were born in Britain, South Africa and other African countries. In 1969, only 40 per cent of the white population was born in Rhodesia, and more than half of the population could establish a non-Rhodesian citizenship. See Godwin and Hancock, Rhodesians never die, pp. 16–17.

31 These ranged from Salisbury (97,000 white; 280,000 non-white) and Bulawayo (49,000; 187,000), down to Umtali (8,000; 36,000) and Shabani (1,500; 14,000). See Godwin and Hancock, Rhodesians never die, pp. 20–1.

32 For discussions on white African identity in Zimbabwe, see Wylie, Dan, ‘The schizophrenias of truth-telling in contemporary Zimbabwe’, English Studies in Africa 50 (2) (2007), 151–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Windrich, Elaine, ‘Zimbabwe lives: Autobiography as history’, Third World Quarterly 28 (7) (2007), 1401–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pilossof, Rory, ‘The unbearable whiteness of being: Land, race and belonging in the memoirs of white Zimbabweans’, South African Historical Journal 61 (3) (2009), 621–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hughes, David, Whiteness in Zimbabwe: Race landscape and the problem of belonging (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; da Silva, Tony Simoes, ‘Longing, belonging, and self-making in white Zimbabwean life writing: Peter Godwin's When a crocodile eats the sun’, LiNQ 38 (2011)Google Scholar; Gehrmann, Richard, ‘A white African experience of identity, survival and holocaust memory’, Australian Journal of Jewish Studies 27 (2013), 47–8Google Scholar.

33 Before independence, significant proportions of the white population either had moderate views or liberal political values. Andrew Hartnack, ‘Whiteness and shades of grey: Erasure, amnesia and the ethnography of Zimbabwe's whites’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies forthcoming (2014), 6.

34 Hartnack, ‘Whiteness and shades of grey’, 10–11.

35 ‘MT’, interview with author, 15 April 2014, Toowoomba.

36 Hartnack ‘Whiteness and shades of grey’, 4.

37 Godwin and Hancock, Rhodesians never die, pp. 17–18.

38 Moorecraft, Paul and McLaughlin, Peter, The Rhodesian war: A military history (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2008), p. 146Google Scholar.

39 ‘AP’, interview with author, 25 January 2014, Toowoomba.

40 O’Keefe, ‘Couple sees changes in 25 years’.

41 The ten-year moratorium obliges international medical migrants to work in rural and regional areas before gaining full access to the benefits of working in the Australian health system. Melinda Ham, ‘Patients turned to local GP after floods’, International Medical Graduate, 28 April 2011, http://www.medicalobserver.com.au/news/patients-turn-to-local-gp-after-floods.

42 The movement of South African doctors has been covered by Arnold, P. C., A unique migration: South African doctors fleeing to Australia (CreateSpace, 2010), p. 13Google Scholar.

43 Hugo, Graeme, ‘Australia's state-specific and regional migration scheme: An assessment of its impacts in South Australia’, Journal of International Migration and Integration/Revue de l’integration et de la migration internationale 9 (2) (2008), 125–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 ‘White Zimbabwean families make their way to country Queensland’, 7.30 Report (transcript), ABC TV, 15 August 2000, http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/stories/s163928.htm.

45 ‘White Zimbabwean families’.

46 Damian Griffiths, immigration agent, in ‘White Zimbabwean families’.

47 Barb Grey, ‘Locating to rural Australia: Recruitment to farm jobs and rural jobs in Australia’, SAbona: The Mag for South Africans Living in Oz, 14 August 2012, http://www.sabona.com.au/articles_detail.ews?articles_detail.ewdid=168.

48 See, for example, http://www.meetup.com/Brisbane-support-network-to-Zimbabwe-South-African-migrants.

49 A New Zealand study also revealed that some migrants felt a regional city was more aligned to South African culture than a large capital city. See Meares, Carinaet al., Bakkie, Braai and Boerewors: South African employers and employees in Auckland and Hamilton (North Shore City: Massey University/University of Waikato Integration of Immigrants Programme, 2011), p. 60Google Scholar.

50 ‘AP’, interview with author, 25 January 2014, Toowoomba.

51 K. Vorster, personal communication, 26 February 2014.

52 Graham Fuller, ‘Australia safe haven for strife-torn Zimbabweans’, Queensland Country Life, 13 December 2000, http://www.queenslandcountrylife.com.au/news/agriculture/agribusiness/general-news/australia-safe-haven-for-strifetorn-zimbabweans/4757.aspx.

53 O’Keefe, ‘Couple sees changes in 25 years’.

54 Rumevite News, Spring edition, 2012, http://www.agriproducts.com.au/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=PpY_ew7ljq4%3D&tabid=143.

55 ‘Australia means shorter convos’, The Gympie Times, http://www.qt.com.au/news/australia-means-shorter-conversations/1252257.

56 Nostalgia can be either restorative or reflective. Coullie, Judith L., ‘The ethics of nostalgia in post-apartheid South Africa’, Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice 18 (2) (2014), 199CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Leslie, 24 June 2012, ‘Ash and Les on bicycles’, http://ashlescycling.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/sunday-24th-june-2012-toowoomba.html.

58 Leslie, 29 July 2012, ‘Ash and Les on bicycles’, http://ashlescycling.blogspot.com.au/2012_07_01_archive.html.

59 Godwin and Hancock, Rhodesians never die, p. 9.

60 John Farmer was born in Bulawayo, and the flame lilies growing in his Toowoomba garden evoke memories of them flowering in the bush in Africa. John Farmer, ‘Response to national flower of Zimbabwe Flame Lily’, National Flower, 17 February 2012, http://nationalflowers.info/2010/04/03/zimbabwe-national-flower-flame-lily.

61 Weston, Michelle, ‘We have arrived’, in Dashwood, Anne (ed.), Words from Toowoomba: An anthology by Toowoomba Wordsmiths (Toowoomba: Boogie Books, 2012), p. 42Google Scholar.

62 ‘White Zimbabwean families’.

63 See Brady Albrand, ‘We grew up colour blind’: White South Africans’ belonging in regional Queensland’(BA(Hons) thesis, University of Southern Queensland, 2013), p. 30.

64 Anthony Brand, ‘Couple tells of assassination claim’, The Gatton Star, 4 March 2012, http://www.gattonstar.com.au/news/couple-tell-assassination-claim-mugabe-zimbabwe/1293200.

65 Susannah Guthrie, ‘On the up: Vampire Diaries’ Rick Cosnett’, The New Daily, 12 April 2013, http://thenewdaily.com.au/entertainment/2013/12/04/vampire-diaries-rick-cosnett/#./?&_suid=139220095339309422763059519293.

66 Leonard, ‘Landscaping privilege’, 112.

67 Macdonald, Sheila, Martie and others in Rhodesia (London: Cassell and Co., 1927), p. 2Google Scholar.