Originally Posted by sonlymewalter

Really? So lets say (hypothetically)someone validates their visa, stays in Aus two weeks then goes back to UK for 4 years. They then return 4 years later.

When they validated initially it was during the 2 year citizen rule. So in effect they validated, stayed 2 weeks, left and returned to Aus 4 years later.

Can they gain Citizenship straight away? Or is the time they stayed in UK taken into consideration and taken out of this equasion?

In other words does the citizenship clock only start ticking after they return after 4 years?

Originally Posted by bcworld

You're not talking about the PR date though, which was what markmc was referring to.

From my looking at the calculator you can be absent 12 months in that 4 years, not more than 90 days in the year before applying.

Originally Posted by MarkMC

The line above the bit where you enter the dates states: "If you were granted a migrant visa offshore your permanent residence date is your date of first arrival in Australia on this visa " <- to me = validation date.

Originally Posted by Bermudashorts

I would like to say that my lawful residence date was the date I first entered Australia too, but I don't see how I can do that with the definition as above. If they did any kind of checks they would soon see that I was not resident from the date of my validation trip; no address, medicare, TFN, still being paid and resident in UK etc etc.

Originally Posted by bcworld

On the calculator, when I click on the ? beside lawful residence date it says:

Lawful Residence date
If you were granted a Temporary Residence or Permanent Residence visa before you arrived in Australia, the date that you first arrived on that visa is the Lawful Residence date. If you were granted a Temporary Residence or Permanent Residence visa after you arrived in Australia, the date that that visa was granted is the Lawful Residence date.

No one is suggesting anything dubious here, for offshore applicants the LRD is the date of validation.

Lawful (temporary) residence includes being on holiday!

Originally Posted by Bermudashorts

Good though, we can apply a whole six weeks earlier.

Originally Posted by MarkMC

Not read all the posts, but finding it hard to justify staying here.

Moved up to Gold Coast (working in Brissie) money is apparently good but I was earning the "figure" in the UK (swap the $ for a pound sign).

Boss keep telling me SEQLDis cheaper than Sydney, I totally disagree. Rent is still $460 a week (same as we paid in Sydney) only we have 4 beds instead of 3. Guys at work agree, house still costs the same, just you get a bigger yard here.

As for the amazing lifestyle we apparently have here... yep granted we can go to the beach on weekends, and get to see some great sunsets on evening walks but the whole lifestyle is much worse. In the UK we could afford 3 overseas holidays a year if we wanted, and I'm not talking Europe, more like Canada, Hawaii, etc. We would often head to the smoke for a weekend, meals out, pubs, theatre etc, we can only dream of affording a weekend back in sydney/melbourne for the theatre.

We used to run 3 cars, petrol was never an issue, here we struggle to run one and I have to put up with a packed train for commuting...

Only decision now, is do we clear off tomorrow, or put up with this crap existence for another 18 months just to get a passport that will probably never get used...

Originally Posted by commonwealth

a measure of relative cost of living should be:

est annual cost of living divided by est annual income

compare between countries without converting for exchange rates

Originally Posted by Sooty and Sweep

I can relate to this, we can only hope the commodity bubble blows, Australia may then resume to some normalness, one can only hope for new entrants otherwise stick with Blighty for the foreseeable?

Originally Posted by gere

With the commodity and housing bubbles the economy will take a drastic turn for the worse. It is a bleak scenario for the country. Sorry to say that the economy is build on greed and fuzzy vision.