steven

Hi Terry

I'm a cwea(cew) and have sent off my application beginning sept which they say that they have received and that they are processing it. I know the process take sometime, how did you find the process and how long did you wait for a reply? Do you and your family enjoy life out there and what advice would you give to anyone thinking about a transfer? My main concern is schooling for my 16year old daughter as she should start collage next year.

any help would be welcome.

Steve

pmntchambers

Not sure how far down the process you are but I enlisted in the Australian Army on 15th November 2004 and am presently in Darwin. If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact me by email.

Paul

hutchy

Hi Steve,
Sorry for the delay in the reply but I have only just returned home after a 5 week stint at sea. Please feel free to email anytime you want and hopefully I can give you the info you need. The process for me from initial inquiry to an offer of employment took about 6 months. Prior to the process I told the RAN that I was on 2OE(10) and if I was accepted I would have to give the RN 12 months notice. They were fine with this and I only put my notice in once I had a definate offer of education.
Since you have already sent off your application in September you should get a letter fairly soon. I imagine you enclosed your service history, reports, military and civilian qualifications etc etc. The Electronic Technician (ET) branch manager will review and recommond that the RAN pursues your enlistment in the RAN. If your process is like mine, they send you a medical form to fill in, its pretty big but the doc at my last base filled it in for me. After the medical people confirm you meet the medical criteria for entry, they then offer to sponsor you through the immigration process as a business sponsorship. This is the time consuming bit, in my case it was about 5 months. So for me from sending off my inquiry, going through the process of immigration etc etc then getting a letter from the immigration people saying we were successful and granted our visa as permanent residents took all in about 11 months.
The RAN will pay for all visa charges for you family and yourself. They pay all travel costs from the UK to Australia (business class) and your home removal.
I have a 15 year old daughter and 13 year old son. We have found the schools to be good and my kids settled in pretty quickly. There was obviously a settling in period but honestly they have both made some great mates. My daughter starts year 11 in January and wants to do year 12 then on to university when she is 18. You do have a choice if you find the school is not for your daughter, she can go private with you topping up the difference in the fee between private and public schooling. The extra cost is not massive but we have found no need to that.
The RAN as 2 main naval bases, Fleet Base East (Sydney) and Fleet Base West (Rockingham, Perth). I chose to live in Rockingham because the cost of housing is much much cheaper than you would pay in Sydney. The lifestyle for us is what you would expect, we live a couple of minutes from the beach, own a 4 bedroom 2 bathroom house, have a swimming pool and outdoor spa and we think that our standard of living as gone through the roof since we left Sunderland.
We do miss family and friends but we think we have made the right choice for us in coming here. The opportunities for our kids are much better than in the UK so all in life is good and we made the right choice for our family.
I will forward to you a PM with my email address so that you can email me direct if you wish.

Yours Aye

Terry

clivefawcett

Hi Paul, just waiting for the dates to fly now. Are you the same Paul from the course in Westmoors in or around mid 90's long shot im sure, you will have met Chris and family now who have just arrived and I'm sure he has mentioned your name to me. Just found the thread after so long, how are you still enjoying it.

clivefawcett

Flying out on the 20th Nov to Darwin. See you for a drink or two. Thanks for the info especially to Chris and Nige.

seaangel

Congratulations! Hope it's not too much of a shock going from winter to blazing heat! It's a hard life

We hope to be over in Oz beginning of next year but OH will be based down in Victoria with the probability of going up to Darwin after 2 years. Would be interested to see what you think about Darwin, so keep us posted. Who are you flying with and do you stop on the way?

Thanks

clivefawcett

We are flying with Malaysian Airlines - Business class we fly into Kuala Lumpur for two nights then fly from KL to Brisbaine over night there then from Brisbaine to Darwin. The package is first class all the way - hire cars both ends and hotels paid for - you also get a 40ft container for sea freight and a large amount of boxes for airfreight - they really do have a fantastic team that look after you - and on top of it all its all free

seaangel

Thanks for the info. I'm glad we can fly some stuff over, thought we could only send stuff via sea!

Have you picked your quarter yet?

clivefawcett

Yep its really helpful having the Air Freight as well. We are not going for a quarter as we made a killing on our house when we sold it, so we are looking to buy outright leaving us morgage and rent free and a few more dollars for the more improtant things in life like

seaangel

Well hope all goes well and keep us posted what Darwin is like. Also what KL is like when you stop over! Do you know what hotel you're staying in in KL?

I promise I'll stop asking questions - no more from now on!

clivefawcett

No problems the hotel in KL is at the following link http://www.micasahotel.com/malaysia/rooms.html
you get two nights here
Good luck it seems to take ages then comes around all at once.

Garsimm

For all of you considering transferring from the Brit Army to Oz Army the SCMA have just changed their contact e-mail address; it is now [email protected].

I have almost completed 22 years in REME and fly out to Oz on 23rd Jan to work at the Defence Materiel Organisation in Melbourne. Am taking a drop in rank to WO2 but who cares!!

If anyone wants to pm me for advice re procedures etc please feel free. I will be off line for a few days as Pickfords are here at the moment packing up the house.

Good luck if you decide to take the plunge. It has taken about 2 years to get everything sorted since I made an initial enquiry to the SCMA. I'm sure it'll be woth it.

GJS

seaangel

I have just had an email from the Lateral Transfer Supervisor to say that [email protected] is no longer to be used. The email to be used has gone back to being [email protected].

seaangel

Thanks again for all the info. The place looks lovely.

The visa fee has been taken and we have our medicals next week so hope to hear something positive soon.

I hope all goes well for in Darwin.

clivefawcett

Thanks and good luck, once you have the Visa things move PDQ.