Originally Posted by Simoned1

Hi everyone,

Well we arrived here on the 3rd of October & all has gone well.

I thought I would break my information down so for those of you who do not want to read the whole thread you can just jump to the bits you may be interested in:

Jobs:
We both got jobs with very little effort, I work in accounts and now have a job in accounts payable and my husband is a cabinet maker (hence the skilled visa). There is plenty of work here at the moment, but please allow for the fact that things sometimes work differently here and you have to be the one that is willing to adjust.

Tax Office:
That was easy, we went to the Tax office to apply for our tax file no, sat on a computer and answered the questions it gives you a print out at the end and your TFN arrives in the post about 10 days later.

Driving Licence:
This one was interesting, no probs with changing it over, the usual fill out the form, they ask you to read the letters behind them, pay your money and they take your picture and then send the licence in the post. However you have to provide them with two proof of signatures, so I took my Passport and my UK Driving Licence as they need to see them anyway. They would not accept my UK driving licence as proof of signature and wanted to see a bank card, I explained to the person behind the counter that my new Bank Card was in the post and that there was a signature on my driving licence, she said that I could use a bank card from the UK, but that my driving licence is not a recognised signature, so I said but you will give me a Australian Driving licence based on my UK one with no Theory or practical test? She said yes and I had to go all the way back home to get my UK bank card. It was very annoying and crazy but never mind.

Medicare:
Again this one was easy, fill out a form, they give your your new numbers and send you a Medicare card in the post.

Renting an Apartment:
We are very fussy when it comes to accommodation and we are both very clean and tidy. The best website is www.realestate.com.au choose the ones you want to look at and ring them up for a viewing. We turned up at a couple of apartments and the agent didn't turn up so we wasted some time with that as when you view these apartments they are usually empty and ready for you to move in so there is no one else around to let you in. If you want to go ahead with a property you have to apply for it even paying your bond over (deposit) you get this back if you are not accepted. The landlord then decides who he wants, so If you do not have much money in your bank account and no job when you first arrive and it is a well sort after property, I suggest offering to pay a few months upfront as if you are up against someone with a healthy bank balance you can guess who they are likely to pick. You don't actually meet the landlord when you apply so he is purely going by what he sees on your application form and you have to also hand over a bank statement. Our apartment that we choose is a brand new 2 bed 2 bath, we are paying $380 per week, please be aware that this is more expensive than the usual as we are living in the city center. There is a pool on-site, underground parking and it is supposed to be Foxtel ready (Sky equivalent) as the apartments are brand new they are having trouble getting the Foxtel sorted, the intercom is not working, the pool needs to have an inspection done so is currently out of use and the parking spaces are ridiculously small. So my advice is if you look at a property that is brand new check that these things are ready as if they are not you could try to get them to agree to a rent reduction until they are fixed. Apartments out here use what they call a Strata co, they are meant to be the ones that sort all the probs out as the landlord has to pay them an annual fee, this is meant to cover cleaning of the pool, hall ways, fixing probs etc, however the strata co that they are using are terrible hence the reason why these things have not been fixed yet.

Buying a property:
We have been looking round and basically it's expensive now that the market has gone up so much, to get a 4 bed 2 bath in a reasonable area you are looking at about 180,000GBP upwards. They announced on the radio yesterday that Western Australia is now the most expensive state when it used to be one of the cheapest. So allowing for the fact that out of your equity you need to buy a car and new stuff or at least temporary stuff and the cost of getting you out here and all the other costs, yes things are slightly cheaper here but you get payed less and are no better off at the end of the month than in the UK. So expect that you will still have to get a mortgage. We have a big chunk to put down but are still going to have to get a mortgage that is about 2.5 times our wages and that is doing it the cheapest way we can.

Buying a car:
We brought a brand new Ford Focus, I know I can hear you all saying how English, it was more down to price it cost us just under $22,000 about 9,000GBP it's a basic 5 door model. I also liked the Astra & Mazda's but they were a good $3,000 - $10,000 more. The car came with Metallic paint, electric front windows, ABS, CD Player etc.

Home Telephones:
Wasn't to hard Telstra is the equivalent to BT, however be warned if you are moving into a new property, you have to pay $300.00 just to get it connected even if they tell you the wires are in place it doesn't matter this it Telstra's charge if there has previously been no line at the property or if the previous person has had the line totally disconnected. So we complained to the landlord that we were paying to get a line connected at his property and the next person that moves in would not have to pay this and to be fair he agreed to refund us the $240 extra setup charge that we had to pay (you would normally only pay $60).

The People:
Most people are so nice and very helpful and welcoming. You do see the odd weird thing like some of the Australian's walk around with no Shoes or socks on yes they have black feet from the pavements, it's pretty gross. not many of them do this though and when I asked an aussie about this they said that it is something that was done years ago and is not well looked upon now days. The other thing was we went to the cinema, walked in and the adverts had already started so it was dark, sat down next to a couple as it was very busy so there was not much choice of where to sit. Looked over at the couple next to us and the women was breast-feeding a new born baby. I was stunned to see this as they would never have let her in a cinema in the UK, I had no problem with it as you never heard one peep out of the baby as when it wasn't feeding it was sleeping, but it was just so weird to see this and we were watching a very violent film.

Anyway I will stop dribbling on as there is so much I could talk about with our experiences here or even our experiences about leaving the UK.

Basically if anyone has any questions feel free to ask me, I remember what it was like before we even got our visa's, you have so many questions some very important and some stupid ones and no offence to anyone but it is much easier getting good answers from someone that has actually done this. It is one of the hardest things you will ever do, but it is a very beautiful place. So ask away

Simone

Originally Posted by bokkie

i am glad to hear you have settled so quickly, could you give me and idea on how long it takes to get a visa, (assuming all is in order, i know it is like asking how long a piece of string is) and also the rough estimate on cost.

Originally Posted by Clippies

Really good informative post

Not sure why you found the breastfeeding baby in a cinema odd though! Where are you from? I find it very hard to believe that they 'would not allow' a mother to feed her child somewhere

Anyway, glad it's going well.

Originally Posted by Simoned1

I am from Essex and when I told my friend who has a baby in Essex, she said that the local cinema would never have let her do that especially on a saturday night, she said they may have agreed if it was a young childs film during the day. Must just be the area we come from is a bit odd.

Originally Posted by katsmajic

I tried taking my daughter to the cinema in Warrington when she was a babe in arms, it was a PG type film as i was actually taking my older two to watch the film, they wouldnt let me in with baby, said they could cause disruption and spoil the experience for other cinema goers!
shes nearly 9 now though so things may have changed...