ian-mstm

May I ask what qualifications you have to make that determination?

Ian

Pollyana

Absoutely none, which is why he has left the building....AGAIN!!!

bcworld

Referring to your 'office chicks' again I suppose.

As Polly says, huge numbers of people earn less than 53k.

My OH is 36 years old, and has a dept manager position in a large retail store - earns less than 50k. They are currently going for an assistant store manager position and if they get it...will be earning close to your 16 year old base salary!

I'm told there are store managers in retail who earn less than 40k. How many people work in retail, plenty, and not all of them 16 - 17!

Maybe your Australia is different though.

Dreamy

We had an Environmental Officer (a pretty vital role on a road construction site) who earned $50k pa. I was only a casual document controller covering for maternity leave but I was on the same rates as the rest of the administrators on site - and we were on $19.33 ph - comes to way under $50k pa! I'm half heartedly looking for admin jobs at the moment - even office managers are lucky to get anything over $25 ph. Just as well Himself has a stonking salary.

Badge sometimes lives in a world of his own when it comes to salaries

Seneca21

A lot of people here are making the case that Australia is more expensive but this is really rather disingenuous. Those who argue that Australia suddenly got more expensive than Britain should probably know that this is because the Labour Government in Britain drastically devalued the pound, thereby making Britain much cheaper to anyone earning and spending dollars. This is not a good thing for Britain by the way.

A few weeks ago I methodically went through my shopping bill at Woolworths and went online at Sainsbury's and bought eaxctly the same things. The Australian bill was $8 cheaper, and do bear in mind that this is at a time when the pound has effectively been cut by a third. At a normal exchange rate the goods I bought in Australia would have been considerably cheaper than in the UK.

Add to this the cheaper council tax and cheaper fuel and I think Australia comes out as cheaper in most things.

The original poster wanted to know about what was good about Australia, so I would suggest what I have written above is a good start, plus Britain has a lot of pretty serious problems coming up that Australia will almost certainly avoid.

jad n rich

A lot of people are saying australia is more expensive because of the constant prices rises, nowt to do with exchange rates. I just did a thread on water rates - up 66%, just one example of the ridiculous type of increase you get here.

To the OP - you are 17, yes its VERY expensive to live in australia, education in my experience ( 3 kids ) is not good, however you are 17, soon you can get a working holiday visa and see what its like for yourself. On that visa you probably wont give a hoot what the education is like, and will be living in some backpacers or flat share and wont really give a toss, what it costs to raise a family here.

Go for it

Seneca21

I never understood why water is cheaper is Australia anyway. It really should cost more in my view. Also, you are not helping the OP by making unfounded assertions which sound like they are more about reassuring your own life choices than the OP's. Australia is demonstrably not more expensive. Food is about the same if a little cheaper, council tax is usually cheaper, fuel is cheaper, housing is cheaper, etc. As for education, well the UK government are about to turn over the cap on uni fees and some places will now be charging up to £20,000 per year fees, this is not including accommodation costs, course materials or food.

bcworld

Clearly many people disagree with that, and other people have done a similar analysis to yours and demonstrated an opposite result.

Housing cheaper? Not around here it aint. Went to another auction yesterday...2 bed / 1 bath apartment / no garden...sold for $601k, par for the course.

Seneca21

Property is cheaper is Australia, but horribly overpriced, of course. I would argue it needs to fall by about 50% to get to a level where sensible borrowing would buy something decent.

However, things are worse in the UK. Your example is not helpful, because St Kilda is a very popular area and only 6 km from central Melbourne. The direct equivalent of this would be somewhere very close to the CBD in London, like Kensington.

I know someone selling a one bedroom former stable, with one reception room which doubles as the kitchen, and it is all on one floor. It has no parking and a garden four metres long. It is 30 miles from the nearest city (England) and it's on the market for $300,000 AUD. I wonder what one could buy in Australia if one were looking 50 km outside a major city?

bcworld

There's nothing unhelpful about is as long as you compare like for like...which you then spectacularly fail to do in the second sentence! Kensington!!

Seneca21

Both are a similar distance from the centre of the nearest capital city. Sorry you can't handle that. And it is unhelpful without a comparison because an apartment in St Kilda is hardly representative of the average buying experience.

My point is not that Australia is much cheaper, because it clearly is not, but I object to those claiming it is "VERY" expensive when compared to the UK because it is not. They are fairly similar in my experience, but my experience is that Aus is a little cheaper for the reasons I have made clear.

bcworld

So distance is the only thing that determines prices.

Some of the most depressed areas in Europe are sitting about the same distance from the centre of London but in the opposite direction from Kensington...does property cost the same?

Seneca21

St Kilda is a similar sort of place to many expensive parts of London, north and west. This is why I said it was unhelpful to the majority of people on here. It's likesomeone asking about property prices in England and me giving them a link to the most expensive property I can find in Fulham.

A more realistic thing to do would be to show a property in the family suburbs, but then this wouldn't make your point, because large 3 bed detached bungalows in Australia, however overpriced, are still much cheaper than similar properties in England.

bcworld

The point I am making is compare like for like ( I don't think your St Kilda comparisons are - I know this area, and it's not Kensington or Fulham)! You fail to do that by just saying Australia is cheaper than England. Which bits? Read the forum, there are potential immigrants from England who think they are going to get more for their money and others who think they are going to get less - I'm not suggesting it's clear cut. I've seen recent threads where examples of ordinary '3 bed detached bungalows' in ordinary suburbs of Melbourne at $900k+, with other properties elsewhere closer to half that. I've given one example, it's where I live...is that so hard to understand? Then you go on to suggest cherry picking an example that suits your point of view!

ABCDiamond

But that's only one example, of one possible, but unnamed, council area, and my newspaper headline shows: Redland water bills to rise 2.95 per cent July 2010

So that 66% of yours is not representative of everywhere.

I would hate to be paying water bills in South West England, with their average of £721 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz0s1GOTRE1 Much cheaper in the Thames area though at only £320