Yes, migrating to any country has problems. Like in the UK getting the NI number. I had issues opening an account in Australia due to 100 point score and all I had was the British passport.

Getting the Australian licence was the easiest.....all one has to do is show the British licence.

What sucks in Aussi are the bank & credit card charges. One must join private medical within 12 months if not they will charge more in future. That really sucks !!!

Or one other thing...some pubs do not sell brandy on its own. They must atleast put one cube of ice. Hey, I only drink brandy straight !! That sucks too. (Yes, I could remove the ice cube....but the taste differ !!!)

Over all I am LOVING IT ! I love Sydney !!!

Those days are long gone if they ever existed.Oz now works the longest hours in the world.Buses stopped at 6pm friday night until mon morning with only a skeleton service,not any more.Coles etc closed at noon saturday,not anymore.A working week for a blue collar tradesman is usually 56 hrs now,work away and it is usually a 7x 10 or 12 roster,mines act was a maximum of 13 x12 hrs,don't know if it applies now in this brave new world of AWA,s,probably have to work longer.Shocked me when I first came here how many hrs people worked,and they still wanted more.Costello is a founding member of the H.R Nicholls society,stated object is everbody should be a contractor,stay at home until the employer rings and then only be paid for hrs worked,so you will either be underemployed or working all hrs for a flat rate,no holiday pay etc.While demand for workers is high AWA,s may be reasonable,but nowhere near 80,s conditions.Last downturn (late 90,s) some companies brought in 46 hr weeks and o/time at time and a quarter,some had flat rate from which they took super,workers compo,insurance etc which left virtually nothing,large power tools which should be supplied could be bought or hired from the company,thank god they went bust.

On the face of it - a fair comment - and yet.... I live 7 miles down the road from the OP and certainly wouldn't describe my experiences in this initial setup stage as a catalogue of horror. For instance, I needed a NSW driver's licence, so I went to the RTA and 12 minutes later I walked out the door with one - it was a straight swap for my UK licence. I had to make two trips to sort out Medicare, but that was down to me being a 'returning resident' and they couldn't have been more helpful about it all - it sure as **** pales into insignificance if I compare it to my experiences with the Child Tax Credit bods in the UK. We applied for a mortgage under very tricky circumstances (our company remains UK based and we have no Australian income) and it was sorted in four working days. I haven't found any problems with the shops, in fact the missus (being of 'womanly' proportions) absolutely loves shopping here and has found the quality every bit as good as the UK, whilst also being considerably cheaper. Wife says - 'if you're going to shop in Target, then compare it to Primark - great for the basics like t-shirts and jeans but you wouldn't buy a nice jumper or evening outfit there'. She says she's found very reasonably priced stuff in Sussan which is easily of comporable quality to Next, but about a third of the price. And if you really want *posh* then come visit us here in Berry where there are plenty of boutiques!!!

If you need a sympathetic ear then feel free to PM me and moan to your hearts content. I'm with you all the way and it never got any better for us. Just because a few settle and like it here doesn't mean the rest of us that think its a maddening country are wrong or whingers for actually vocalising it. Good advice, If you like living in the UK and have a decent standard of living with a nice house in a nice area then don't for gods sake come here just to try it before you die. Every day is like being dead from the neck up.

If you all need a graphic idea what it's really like here for those that have a slightly higher set of standards then visit you local wood with a nice big stick and try and perform bowel surgery on your self. Almost every week here is like a trip to that woods with that stick!

Only teething troubles,once you know the system and people know you almost everything can be done with a phone call.Have to admit the bank can be a bit of a worry now,they offer so many options and then ask you which is the easiest,frightens the life out of them when I say going to a branch and talking to somebody.Same happens in the UK,went into a branch of Barclays to take out some cash on a visa card ,handed over an Oz licence,Oz passport,UK passport,all with photo on,wouldn't give me any money.I knew the manager as I went to school with her,she said it is just the way the system is,nothing she could do.

Someones had a bad day

We had more than a comfortable life in UK But are quite happy to endure similar problems to above OP because our daughter will have a better life here. For me I'm happy to be back amongest fellow Kiwi and Ozzies For all the problems the decision was right and life is now much better than in the UK.

Not necessarily - Australia just doens't "work" for some of us. Either that or I have had 992 consecutive bad days, which is a lot, by anyone's standards!!!

This sounds like a union advert. HR Nicholls society is not the government. Costello is not PM. Any government that tried to bring in these kind of ideas would lose the next election. Australia has to change otherwise China & India are going to eat us alive. Socialism is a drag on society & holds people back.

try dealing with NTL in the UK they have a complete dept just in charge of f$$kups
theirs

This explains so much. You appear to have left the top half behind in the aircraft...

Aw sh1T, don't say that! What sort of difficulties? (JH thinking of starting a business when we get there!)

Sorry what do you mean by that?

Oh I see - you are making a 'fat' joke are you? All I did was respond to the poster about clothing quality and you are now cracking jokes like this!

grow up!

Good point

Where has the 'poster' gone? long time no hear........

This thread had me laughing out loud!

You can search through some of my other posts about problems as I've listed them before. In summary:

1. Local govt taking up to 3 months to approve a sign application and an indefinite time after that for a "licence" (still waiting). They also gave us contradictory advice - depending on who we spoke to.

2. Australia Post leaving thousands of dollars of stock in the middle of a busy pedestrian street because they couldn't be bothered taking it back (they delivered it earlier than usual).

3. Telstra - I don't even know where to begin. They screwed up our EFTPOS installation by saying that we had a line already installed and asking us to ensure that our bank were present on the day of setup. We arranged it all and they then said (on the day) that we didn't have a line after all. Screwed up billing also.

4. Shopfitters who promised to turn up and give us a quote - but then never turned up.

5. Toll IPEC who managed to collect 28 boxes from our suppliers in NSW but then somehow managed to send 1 or 2 to Brisbane instead of Perth. (This was on the one and only time we used them)

6. POS suppliers who were absolutely no help when their software did not recognise the receipt printer (they supplied both) and we had to pay for an outside consultant to come in and fix it up (and buy an additional piece of hardware).

7. Landlord's agents who just don't turn up to agreed meetings.

8. Our solicitor's report which had errors and typos which I needed to correct. The other party's solicitor has still not processed their side of the contract - 7 months after we signed our side - so officially we still have no letting agreement.