Ashers

Err......because I read his posts.

Yes, and I have four dicks.

Not true. I could quote many other negative (and often misleading) things that he's said on here about Perth and Oz. But really can't be arsed to give anybody an excuse to drag this thread on.

It's obvious you're trying to earn bum chum points, but just open your eyes, and have a look yourself if you don't believe me.

Who said they didn't? Sounds like you might be having doubts yourself.

My point (which I really think you already know) is, many more British migrants stay than come back, and many more British head south, than Aussie's head north.

jad n rich

As impressed as I am with anyone with 4 dicks you have it wrong. Renths not negative, probably one of the most honest tho, just comes across as saying whats going on. Thats not always popular.

Plenty of migrants leave oz, I dont do stats but others have said 30%.
Most I have met who go back never post it on here tho, people are kind they dont want to upset others.

One million austraians live in the UK, or was that overseas, cant remember but it was 1 in 20 have shacked up elsewhere permanantly.

Like wombat said tell it how it is, my partner employs brickies, so what would be the point in telling it any other way, if you dont find out now, you would find out when you get here

When would you rather find out?

Ashers

I'm not saying people should be dishonest, I'm talking about the constant negativity that some posters tend to be themed towards.

Most of this isn't to help would be migrants, it's to let of steam for their own benefit.

I've lived in Oz, loved every minute, and can't wait to go back. While I was there though, I never fully understood their labelling of British as 'whinging Poms.' Until now.

cresta57

Honest or dishonest? Constant negativity, you only registered three days ago hardly constant is it? Fwiw I find Renths posts to be among some of the most balanced for the area he lives in. In the 5 yrs he's lived there we've seen house prices rocket and crime levels escalate, you'd be pissed off if you bought there and found that out afterwards.

So what it's not an immigration helpline it's British Expats " serving the Expat Community" The site exists for Expats that was the whole idea to give expats a medium to relate the problems they have in adjusting to life in another country. Just because you folks as wannabe migrants want information from us expats doesn't give you carte blanch to demand that the only answers are positive ones.


Oh you lived here, for how long?
Did you workhere as a brickie or in the building and construction industry?

BadgeIsBack

Have to agree with Grayling. For someone who has seen Renths posts for years, he has always been a good bloke and pragmatic. For a while he was quite happy to post away and have a laugh, he seemed to like Perth back then.

Just recently, this last few months he's chosen to be a bit more realistic, and in the last month even I've noticed a distinct downturn in his attitude to Perth and so any newbie might well think he is a tad negative.

SalSa

Hi Amanda,

Sorry i got mixed up!!! I knew you said Adelaide somewhere!

We've finally sold our house and aim to go next month so i'll keep in touch and let you know how we're finding it. We've had a few doubts too as our friends there have decided to split up, etc, but we've decided what have we got to loose? We hate where we live, we're ready to see some new places and if we don't try it now (our eldest son is 14) we never will. We went travelling a lot when we were first married and have had itchy feet to do it again for ages! As for missing family etc, my parents already live abroad and Chris's live at Skegness so we don't see much of them anyway!
And i know we'd regret it if we didn't

Sally
xxx

Ashers

Do you have to register to read the posts on here then? Is there not also a search facility for individuals posts once registered?

Perhaps you should be welcoming new members, not casting incorrect aspurtions. I can assure you, if I wanted to, I could quote reems of negativity from the posters I've mentioned.

In the last five years, crime levels haven't escalated in Perth. Only the house prices. The negativity in his posts are not confined these areas anyway, and their certainly not designed for the migrant's benefit.

As aggresively as you wish to defend your friend, I think you're missing the point. A rant here and rant there is perfectly understandable. However, individuals who contantly post doom and gloom do so wrecklessly, and at the harm of some prospective migrants.

Don't you remember how vulnerable it can feel during the immigration process? Certain members do nobody any favours, other than themselves.

2 years, Adelaide, Sydney & Perth.

No not in the building industry, but I have many friends that do. I know it's not an easy game, but you don't need to be Einstein to realise that these professions don't give you 60 points and appear on in demand lists because there's no living to be earned in Australia.

kaiajo

Just wanted to thank you for this post - you put into words everything that we are feeling at the minute. We thought that we were on our own in finding it hard.

We arrived in Melbourne in January this year and my husband was gutted when he couldn't find work for ages – everything in the building industry is word of mouth and it does take time but we didn’t think it would be so bad. When he did find something the wages are nowhere near what he was earning in the UK. We came out here after hearing about how they are desperate for trades and the dollar a brick pay. The reality is that a single brickie has to work for wages per hour - we've found this ranges from $20 to $30. My husband leaves the house at 6:15am and gets back at 5:30 - he has one 35 minute break and one 10 minute break and brings home the equivalent of $480 BEFORE TAX. In the UK he could leave the house at 7:30 - be back home at 3:30 and brought home around 600 pounds AFTER TAX (much more some weeks). The cost of living here is such that we have nothing left at the end of each week to save – we only just manage to pay the bills and some weeks we still have to dip into our savings which we brought with us. In the UK we managed to save a few hundred pounds each week. If you want to become the person who employs, it seems you need to be either a subbie who supplies all the equipment, cement etc or you can become a registered builder – six months college course – cost $2000.

We are really considering returning to the UK at the end of the year solely on a financial basis. It’s a really difficult life as a brickie here and to us its like going back to the Maggie Thatcher days – we don’t enjoy being poor it’s as simple as that. We enjoy our holidays, eating out once a fortnight, going to the pub once a week, travelling and seeing different places, being able to buy a new pair of shoes if you want to etc. Here we just can’t afford to do that. We worked out that we could actually see more of Australia by going home and coming here on holiday.

From what we have seen, Australia is a really lovely country – the people are so friendly and the weather just doesn’t compare to the UK, there also seems to be less crime. But what use is any of that if you can’t pay the bills or save for your retirement? It’s been an experience coming here and we’ve seen some lovely places on the way (all funded by our UK savings) but unfortunately its one which at the minute I do regret as we’ve lost so much and it will take us a good few years hard graft back in the UK to get back to where we where financially.

We have tried so hard not to be negative and tried so many different options but it is just like that here - it's a completely different setup from the UK.

jad n rich

Could the shortage be that australians simply are not going to look at bricklaying as the career of choice for themselves or their children, given most aussies know doing that job in this climate would be a crappy way of life, and like some other careers that were the top of the skills list are very badly paid. Hairdressing was up there, award wage about $540 gross.

jad n rich

One question needs to be answered WHO is telling people in the UK brickies earn 350 pound a day as was written earlier in the thread. Or is it like chinese whispers, stories gone round the pub so many times its lost the plot.

Brickie jobs advertised in bris currently are as you say are up to $30 an hour, will probably come back a fair bit as interest rate rises bite into construction starts.

Difficult to know what to say to people when they post on here, many get huffy if you tell it as it is, but others who have arrived say wish they had known.

Pollyana

And I'm sure I could quote just as much positivity, if you are talking about posts by such as Renth.
What you - and many other posters - need to realise is that posters such a Renth have lived here and experienced day to day life here for a few years, and as such we post REALISTIC posts. There is a difference between these and the outright negative posts of PB and MS.
This is nothing to do with defending friends. Its just to do with providing a balance. Longterm residents like Renth, Cresta, Jad n Rich - they are telling it AS IT IS. No rosy specs, no black depression. Just reality.

Theres room for all three on here - negativity, positivity and realism. Prospective migrants need to read the lot to give them a view of what life is like here. Even then, they will never truly know what life here is like until they get here, as every individuals experiences will be different.

On a personal note, I wish more people had been posting realistically when i first came here, I was fairly realistic, but I do admit now that a bigger dose of "what its really like" would have been good. Wouldn't have stopped me coming, but mught have left me more prepared and thus feeling less bitter now.

kaiajo

We certainly wish that we had known exactly how it is. Only then can you make an informed decision. It's really difficult though to find acurate information as in the building industry everything is word of mouth - you cant "apply" for jobs and we couldnt find any information about rates etc. on the Internet. We came out for our reccie visit a few months before our permanent move and everyone we spoke to here told us that there was loads of work for brickies and that my husband would earn a fortune. Apparently we've since found out that the dollar a brick went out a few years back so it looks like we've missed the boat. He'd actually been told the information from friends who had mates out here, and from a few Aussies who were working on sites in the UK. Now we ask the question why were they working in the UK?

We are still trying to be positive and even thought about buying an old wreck of a house to renovate and make money that way, but now we've been told that we can only borrow a really small amount based on my salary as hubbie works on the ABN system. He would either have to work at least a year or we'd have to pay high interest on a "low doc" loan (9.75%) and pay out insurance (in case we default) to the mortgage company ($6,000).

I think the main difficulty is that when you are used to a system in the UK, you automatically think that it will be the same over here. We didn't really understand until now, just how really different our cultures and systems are.

BadgeIsBack

Somethings changed Polly since the dark ages of 2003....

All of a sudden, the tradies are up in the arms, and the professionals seem to be doing a lot better.

I believe all the stories we're told, but it seems to me for every tradie in a field doing well there is another not doing so well.

We did get some realistic posts - remember Dotty? Trouble was there was so much spin on her stories you never knew if she was telling tales or talking for the whole country.

cresta57

When I first found the forum I remember reading posts by long time posters shall I name them?
O.K posters like Dotty, Ceri even PB. I remember them posting that the picture we were being sold was not an entirely accurate one. Sure there were some posters painting a much nicer image, human nature makes us want to believe the good things.
I submitted my TRA as a brickie the trade I served an apprenticeship in, a year down the track I arrive here in QLD armed with my list of qualifications City & Guilds, Skills test and loads of other courses from damp proof installation to driving M.E.W.P's. I head off to get a job only to be told "sorry mate you need a licence" I'd passed the TRA and though no problem I'll nip and get one. A couple of hours research on the internet down at the library, I find out the people I need to contact. A phone call to the DET at Maryboro' saw me booked in for an appointment the following day. I walked in presented my paperwork and the guy just stared at me as if I was an alien. After a few moments he says I'm insufficiently qualified for a licence as a bricklayer. Now bear in mind I'd passed the TRA I asked why? The guy states that there in my reference it clearly states that for the last X amount of years I'd been subbed out by my employer to the local authority and was in charge of a gang of blokes renovating bathrooms. It went on to describe the actual work done and in his opinion as I'd been tiling for the majority of that time and only bricking up the occasional window or doorway I had not got the required number of years recent experience.
That began a 9 month nightmare to obtain a licence as a tiler, a trade that in his opinion I was more qualified for. Not one thread had been posted regarding licencing, I just assumed I could walk onto a site with my tool bucket and get a job same as the U.K. I remember hearing it was a dollar a brick and thinking I was going to be rich. Do a search, my posts are out there and read just like some of the optimistic ones on this thread. When I arrived sure the main contractor was paid a dollar a brick out of that he bought the sand and cement paid his super, paid his public liability insurance, paid his workers comp and finally paid his blokes, at the time it was about $25 bucks an hour for that you work like a dog or your down the road. You need to think carefully about where you want to live as not all states require a licence. Good money can be made there's no denying that, you have to ask is it worth risking everything in the event of litigation? If your prepared to take the gamble then you can reap the rewards.

wombat

we came here knowing that brickies were coming out with $900 to $1000 a week, but what we didnt realise was how expensive it is to live here $1000 soon goes when every week you have got to pay $380 mortgage, $250 food bill, $50 rates, $40 phone (house and 2 mobiles) and internet, $50 petrol, $30 electricity, $50 mortgage/life insurance, $20 car insurance, $25 rego etc at the end of the week theres next to nothing left how on earth can we save up for the 3 week christmas shut down, rainy days and any extras. It might have been easier if i could have got a job sooner but my qualifications wernt recognised here, i cant drive and i cant afford to go to taffe, i joined a job center and applied for every job going but got no where ( i am working now though as a lollypop lady ! and relief classroom assitant for 2 schools )
we did get a mortgage ok though after we had been here for 3 weeks the commonwealth bank gave us a $265,000 mortgage with just one $900 payslip and a letter from hubbys employer to say he had a job !