WithIce

Just wanted to hear from those who had moved from the UK to NZ, then to Oz, whether it be because you didn't like places or with work or just to see more of the world.

Has it gone well for you?

For those with children, how have they coped?

Is another possible move in your future, either back to UK/NZ, to another country or to elsewhere in Oz?

And here's the biggie ...... anything you'd do differently?

WithIce x

Nerine

Once we'd decided that we wanted to live in Oz we spent a lot of time and effort looking for the places we wanted to live and work in and visited all the major cities except Perth (which was off the radar for us because its so remote from the rest of Oz, NZ is closer to some of the major cities than Perth is! )

It didn't take us long to decide that Brisbane was the place to work and GC the place to live. A good commuter train service between the two meant everything was possible. Next step was finding a good school and getting the kids into it.

Now they're here the kids have settled well as we knew they would, the hardest thing for them was knowing they were going to have to say goodbye to friends. They stay in contact via MSN and Bebo and most of their mates are coming here on holiday after Christmas anyway.

The only thing I regret is not doing it a couple of years back and for wasting so much time and effort on NZ.

Don't know if Oz will be forever but it ticks all the boxes right now and we'd like to stay put until the kids finish school...may decide to move to the South of France and open a B&B one day, but never back to the UK.

derab

I am from Yorkshire, Mrs Derab is from Christchurch

we lived in ChCh for 5 years after getting married, the place was just too small for my tastes, we moved to Melbourne through a promotion at the company i worked at at the time 11 years ago.
i have come to love the place.
there are suburbs in melbourne that are right for different parts of your life in my opinion.
we started out in St Kilda, on the bay 30 y.o. no kids enjoying the laid back lifestyle. since we got serious in having kids we moved to a more "child friendly environment" (no syringes in the front garden) in Taylors lakes.
the main reason for moving north was that i work at the airport and the commute was getting worse every year, taylors just fitted the young family situation.
If i had my time again, it would still be Melbourne. but i would have come over from Christchurch earlier.

WithIce

Nerine, did you decide to leave NZ because you weren't happy there or was it more the pull of Australia?

Also, on the practical side was it a lot easier relocating to Oz from NZ than to NZ from the UK?

Derab, I noticed you say 'you came to love Oz', was there a transition stage for you when you weren't so keen?

Thanks for the replies, if we didn't have children we would just go but I don't want to muck them about too much.

WithIce x

derab

Withice

to be honest, when I was in ChCh I wasn't really interested in even visiting Oz, It was just a job offer that came my way.
Moving to Oz didnt even rate as a possible future step, i was so enamored with the South Island.

the OH is from Christchurch, so we had everything there, Jobs, her family etc.. the jobs weren't highly paid but none are over there.
we came over just as an adventure, giving it about a year or so to see what we thought of it. I found Melbourne to be large enough to not worry about office talk on Monday morning but small enough to make you feel that you had space, (kind of the best bits of London and Christchurch) It is a good comfortable size.

If you were to tell me what your reference points are, where you are from in the UK and where you are in NZ i could probably give a rough comparison a go.



Rab

Geelong Gent

How old are your children? they are very resilient at a younger age but the older it becomes harder but not impossible.

We moved from London to West Sussex, then on too Melbourne after consideration of a move to Asia (China mainland, Hong Kong, Singapore), Europe (Geneva) or America (Boston).

If your currently in Auckland get out as fast as you can

Nerine

NZ was ok for what it was. But as the kids got older we could see that living there was holding them back academically. We had a good income but very limited career prospects for all of us - its very easy to let your ambition slide in NZ - to accept 'good enough' rather than 'let's see how far we can go with our lives'

As I said we visited Oz quite a bit, it seemed like a perfectly normal and natural progression to go there when we'd reached a certain stage. It's no biggie really and not much different to relocating within the UK for better schools and jobs.

It was much easier to migrate to Oz from NZ than it was to do the UK - NZ move.

Kids are remarkably adaptable but harder to move as they become older. When they start high school you really do need to let them get their heads down and make it as stable as possible so as not to disrupt their education - hence our reason for moving this year and not 2008.

I'd say that NZ is ok if you've got a young family, or you're feeling burned out and need to step off the world for a while but shouldn't be viewed as a long term prospect by any means.

ScottishRose1971

UK to NZ is definetly harder than NZ to OZ. Takes a while to get used to NZ, or did for me. The move to OZ was easier. I think going directly to OZ would be easier than moving to NZ. NZ is a bit backwards...I also believe it depends where you came from and what you want. If city life is your thing I will tell you now - forget NZ!! It's a sleepy little village. Good luck!

bjddavies

I moved from NZ to Oz earlier this year.

More money in Oz but I don't like the heat. I am in Central Queensland (Gladstone) though.

Easy to move here once you have the NZ passport. A lot of people at work who have migrated to Oz are on short term visas and there is no doubt that the employer takes advantage by giving lower wages. By contrast I was able to negotiate a good package including relocation.

Things I find are cheaper in Oz are...

- Electricity
- Petrol
- Lower Taxes

Things I find more expensive in Oz are...

- Food esp vegetables
- Cars and insurance / rego etc
- The internet (difficult to get broadband in a small town)

I fully intend to return to NZ when I have saved up loads of money after the mining boom ends. I just hope the housing market has crashed along with the Kiwi dollar when I do move back.

No children so I can't comment on that.

Definitely more affluence here in QLD than NZ, everyone seems to have a nice car and a boat. In NZ people seem to be struggling to survive. The houses, towns seem a lot nicer, cleaner less run down. There are far more shops here in Gladstone than there are in a similar sized town of 29,000 in NZ (Gisborne perhaps?).

I disagree than NZ isn't a long term choice. On the contrary I think it will be a good place to live as the rest of the world slowly turns to Custard.

WithIce

They are all under 7 and adapted fine with our move to NZ, I just wondered if you could move them about too much?

London in the UK and Auckland in NZ and much as I like to visit the countryside for a holiday I could never live there, so I like to be within half an hour of a major city.

Had you been in the UK originally or are you a kiwi? I know plenty of kiwis go to Oz to save up some money and then return but I didn't know if many expats did it.

Did anyone wait to get their NZ citizenship first or did you just go through the whole visa process again?

WithIce x

derab

I am a triple passport holder, Brit, kiwi and ozzie
if you get citizenship in NZ it is a walk in the park coming over here.

with the kids under 7 they will adapt pretty quickly, its once they have started high school it gets harder to uproot them.

Ok.. with London and Auckland as the starting points, here goes.

Melbourne is almost as cosmopolitan as London with the Italian, Greek and Asian influences. But it doesn't have the inbuilt arrogance that either AKL or LON has. Melbournians know there is the rest of the country out there and take the rivalry with Sydney quite serious, striving to be better. the weather is more like London in that its drier than Auckland and more European in its feel.
The NZ parallels are probably Auckland is trying to be Sydney, Wellington is comparable to Melbourne and Christchurch is like Adelaide.

And seeing as its Auckland that you are in, i will agree with Geelong gent..
GET OUT QUICKLY

bjddavies

I grew up in the UK and moved to NZ in 1999. Got the NZ passport around 4 years later. Got an NZ degree and worked there a few years.

I like NZ but you need the money to get on there. Watching the pennies and shopping at 'The Warehouse' isn't fun after a while. I do intend to return as I went to NZ for a reason and the weather here is just too hot among other things. The money being paid by the mining sector is just too good to refuse. I basically doubled my salary at a stroke while keeping my living costs the same.

Having the NZ citizenship makes things so much easier. You just turn up at the airport and say that you are going to work in Australia. There is no other bureaucracy other than getting your Tax File Number. I just had to send the employer the link to the page on the DIMIA website that said that NZ citizens could work in Oz without restrictions along with a scan of the passport.

Nerine

We went without waiting for NZ citizenship, that could've taken another year and they're not famed for turning round applications promptly. We have Ozzie 457 visas and an employer who waited very patiently for us to arrive, pays more than his NZ equivalent does, forked out for relocation expenses and will sponsor us for PR too....can't complain

I did wonder if we'd ever return to NZ, perhaps to retire one day in the distant future, but then when I thought of the overpriced shoddy houses, the damp, the petty crime, expensive fuel, poor public transport and crappy weather I soon realised that we'll never go back.

Horses for courses though isn't it, everyone wants something different out of life.

JAJ

If you want to get permanent residence and citizenship in Australia, you need to make an application for PR under the normal rules.

Employer sponsorship should be straightforward for skilled New Zealanders under 45 - unless you see your stay in Australia as short term, or you have some tax reason to want to stay temp resident, it's worth considering it. If you want to become an Australian citizen in due course it's a "must-do."

Not everywhere in Australia is as hot as central QLD - you could move down to the southern coast or even Tasmania.

westiepom

If you move to Australia as a New Zealand citizen and don't apply for Australian citizenship what happens about your state pension when you retire ? Are you entitled to claim it from either country ?