Originally Posted by DevMountain

It's good to see that people in here respect the views of others!

It's worse that primary in here for all the bickering! And then people post questions like 'Why don't posters hang around here any more?'

Thanks for your honesty sponge bob - I hope things work out for you no matter what you choose do!

Originally Posted by Pollyana

I think its an honest post, and a gutsy post, as he knew he would get slated for it, even said so himself.
Come on people, you can't call everyone a troll just because they don't find Australia to be perfect. Bob has posted his own feelings and experience, and certainly as far as the bit I have quoted, I agree with him.
What seems like paradise when you first arrive, may turn out to be somewhat less once you are used to living here.
I feel much the same in Brissie - the people are nice, the job is nice, the weather is (sometimes) nice, but iTS NOT ENOUGH! I don't know what the missing piece is, though I've tried very hard to find it.


Instead of nitpicking, or starting a north-south discussion, just try and understand what lies behind posts like this - one day you may find yourselves posting something similar.

Originally Posted by coxfamuk

There has been a plethora of negative posts about Australia recently. I used to love coming on BE but now when I log on, I wonder with trepidation what the latest slagging off of Australia will be. When you are planning a new move, you don't mind constructive and objective views, but the continual slagging-off onslaught is getting a bit much. Those of us who are making the move are going to go regardless of what others say, but it would be nice not to have the negative stuff all the time.

I do wish people would realise that moving to a new country is going to take time to adjust to and it is unrealistic to compare it to one of the most highly developed countries in the world. Australia is still a relatively 'new' country and I think it has done wonders to come as far as it has in the short space of time it has been a 'civilized' (no comments please) country. There are bound to be shortcomings to the UK - we are so overdeveloped that there is no room to breathe. Everything is fine-tuned here. I like the fact that there is room for improvement in Australia - it gives us something to work for.

As for education, I can only comment on my niece who came to the UK from South africa, where they start school at the age of 6. The school she came into here did not help her in the slightest, despite her not being able to read and write when she was admitted into Year 2. She found integration so difficult that she would sit in the toilets on her own during break times and despite my SIL bringing this to the teachers attention, nothing was done about it. Rush forward to today, where my niece now attends a state school in Melbourne. She is a completely different child. The school recognised immediately that she was very far behind (now having lost a further two years through struggling in the UK) and suggested she repeat Year 3, which she is doing. Her confidence and ability have completely transformed her. She does lifesaving, swimming, netball and athletics and is excelling at all of them. The schools do so much with the child as a whole person and not just the academic side. I think people get so caught up with academics that we forget that there are many facets to children, not just if they can read, write and do sums.

Please, can we just have more positive posts on here, or at least more constructive criticism of Australia. I am all for balance, but slagging off and rubbishing every aspect of Australian life is not balanced and really just makes my blood boil.

Sarah

PS I do not have rose-tinted glasses - I know only too well that each country has its good points and bad points.

Originally Posted by sponge bob

Well, i know before i start that this will upset people but its the facts has i see them. We came here looking for a better life and found that the grass is not always greener on the other side.
We picked Perth and not Brisbane because we thought the housing would be cheaper and it would not be so humid in the summer .
Well when we first got here everything seemed to be great just what we had hoped for. The weather was great the poeple were nice and there were plenty of jobs advertised. We have been here some time now and our views have changed alot. Tere are lots of jobs , the poeple are nice and the weather can be very nice indeed.ITS NOT ENOUGH from day one we have been told you wlll get used to this and you will get used to that, well thats the way we do it out here etc etc.
What this has really meant is that we are forced to accept lower standards in almost everything from education to food. from work place safety to employment rights, the list seems almost endless.
I know by now there will alot of poeple typing away to rubbish what i am saying but there are a lot of poeple that know what i am saying is true, so please read on and at least be aware of what ( i think ) awaits the hopeful immigrant, if he hasn`t researched has much has he should.
First i have to mention housing , everybody out here seems totaly obsessed with the housing market , prices have been booming for a long time now land prices are high ( this in a country with unlimited land ) and building costs are the same. At first we rented a house very large with a lot of land and all brand new. We thought this was great and began to think it would be wise to build our own new house in Australia. But it soon began to dawn on us that we would have to compomise where we wanted to build because of land prices and while we pondered this we started to take a look at the quality of the house we were renting and the others of friends and those around and nearby.
They are very poorly finished off the work is not what you would accept back in the uk yet they still run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Then we come to the education of our children , IT JUST MAKES ME WANT TO CRY why o why did i ever complain about schools back in the UK.I don`t see the point of going into this any further other to say you should really look into it yourself if you think the education of your children is important.
Then there is work lots of jobs about but they are nearly all in the city area which means traveling , the road network is has busy has any major city in the world at peak times, the driving ability of most of your fellow comuters is .......... well you decide when you drive from the airport .
so why do so many people come here and why do so many people stay? ( this is going to upset a lot of people i suppose ). A lot of migrants come to perth from the Uk looking for a better life and for the most part seem to find it. They come from run down northern cities terraced housing and inner city schools , perth gives them a bit more space a newer home good weather and they accept its bad points because of this. They seem to think good food is cheap food, good houses are bigger houses etc etc.

To sum it up I would have to say that in general we have had to accept lower standards in almost everthing , if you lived in a small teerraced house in a big city in the uk then it is paradise , if you live in a detached house in the country (uk ) then it is almost the opposite, on the whole the grass is not greener on the other side . People may say well its not for everyone and this is true , but before you come over think about what you have in the uk , the truth is you may be gambleing it all onthe promise of cheaper houses and sunshine, ( Well you get what you pay for in this life and it gets very clod hear in winter and very wet . )
just think before you leap, and good look which ever way you go. :confused:

Originally Posted by coxfamuk

There has been a plethora of negative posts about Australia recently. I used to love coming on BE but now when I log on, I wonder with trepidation what the latest slagging off of Australia will be. When you are planning a new move, you don't mind constructive and objective views, but the continual slagging-off onslaught is getting a bit much. Those of us who are making the move are going to go regardless of what others say, but it would be nice not to have the negative stuff all the time.

I do wish people would realise that moving to a new country is going to take time to adjust to and it is unrealistic to compare it to one of the most highly developed countries in the world. Australia is still a relatively 'new' country and I think it has done wonders to come as far as it has in the short space of time it has been a 'civilized' (no comments please) country. There are bound to be shortcomings to the UK - we are so overdeveloped that there is no room to breathe. Everything is fine-tuned here. I like the fact that there is room for improvement in Australia - it gives us something to work for.

As for education, I can only comment on my niece who came to the UK from South africa, where they start school at the age of 6. The school she came into here did not help her in the slightest, despite her not being able to read and write when she was admitted into Year 2. She found integration so difficult that she would sit in the toilets on her own during break times and despite my SIL bringing this to the teachers attention, nothing was done about it. Rush forward to today, where my niece now attends a state school in Melbourne. She is a completely different child. The school recognised immediately that she was very far behind (now having lost a further two years through struggling in the UK) and suggested she repeat Year 3, which she is doing. Her confidence and ability have completely transformed her. She does lifesaving, swimming, netball and athletics and is excelling at all of them. The schools do so much with the child as a whole person and not just the academic side. I think people get so caught up with academics that we forget that there are many facets to children, not just if they can read, write and do sums.

Please, can we just have more positive posts on here, or at least more constructive criticism of Australia. I am all for balance, but slagging off and rubbishing every aspect of Australian life is not balanced and really just makes my blood boil.

Sarah

PS I do not have rose-tinted glasses - I know only too well that each country has its good points and bad points.

Originally Posted by Pollyana

Just to throw a bit of "reverse rose-tints" in here - I've found, when talking to Aussies like the MIL, who has been here all her life, they often find it odd that other countries have hooligans, drugs problems, high fuel prices etc! They frequently feel these problems are peculiar to Australia - another case of the grass seeming greener, I guess :confused:

Originally Posted by coxfamuk

some of the negative threads that we have been getting lately which have been, frankly, quite insulting to Australians and to the people who make a life over there.

Originally Posted by Seabird

This may appear twice, strange PC thing here....

That is all about perception again, so I agree. But I wonder how many kids in their mid to late 20s are still at home with parents in Oz because they can't afford to move away. I've had a quick count of my sons closest mates (he's 24). Out of those in the Ipswich, two live away from home, five are still at home. In Northampton two are independent, one because he had some inheritance.

Is it like this in Oz??

Originally Posted by Seabird

Things in the UK have gone downhill rapidly over the last few years, just last night I had someone in the back garden, then there was a knock at the door. I have a large dog, and that scared them off, by the time I reached the door there was no-one there. I was working late and I guess that they thought the place may be empty with a light left on for security.

My LOCAL paper this week has had a boy of nine mugged for 20p, a case about a guy accused of mudering an elderly woman killed in her home in a local village, and a woman sexually assaulted on her way home at 2.30 in the afternoon. Even those of us who don't perceive being better off financially read their local papers. Last week there was a stabbing outside the football ground, and an article showing knife crime on the up. Like it or not the UK has one of the the highest rates of assault in the world.

Originally Posted by Vash the Stampede

That's one thing which struck me when I came to the UK 20 months ago: the violence.

Britain is an extraordinarily violent place. I have been utterly gobsmacked by the level of crime over here; at times it seems all but completely lawless.

I can't speak for too many other areas, but here in the Midlands the housing situtation is dismal; all around me I see row upon row of identical, featureless terrace houses on cramped little streets, with cars parked wherever they will fit - and even a few places where they won't.

Almost everything is old, dirty, shabby and overpriced. People are crushed up against each other in tiny semi-detached houses with little or no ventilation whatsoever; the plumbing is literally Victorian, with lacklustre pipe pressure due to the omnipresent gravity-fed water system.

Government services are hopelessly inefficient, the pension system is effectively worthless, the NHS provides excellent service but is rapidly running out of money, the local councils seem to have no concept of civic planning, there's no such thing as a pre-paid envelope, and Britain has only just moved to EFTPOS - a system which we have enjoyed in Australia since 1986.

In so many ways it feels as if I have stepped back in time to the Dickensian era; I can't wait to get back home, where almost everything is clean, modern, shiny, efficient and new.