i wonder if you would think the same if you lived in a run down area of england had no degree and had people vandalising your property every week?
i think you are right oz is not for you but for those people who are not lucky enough to grow up in a rural village with a big garden and to spend 3 years at uni getting drunk and to jet off to prague and chicago etc it might be what we are all looking for!!
To not have to work 14 hour days and have all your money taken off you in tax and to not be able to let your kids play out safely in your small 3 bed semi garden and to not even be able to walk to school with out getting abuse off chavs
thanks for your opinions but i am most definatly not in cloud cuckoo land - if i get there and dont like it thats my own issue but it is my life and i wish to experience it - we went to paris at christmas what a dirty horrible place it was more like the scums of new york when you drive into it! i would much rather go further a field - and if i dont live in the city great i dont want to!!!
I grew up in England and moved to Oz with my Australian girlfriend after I graduated . I lived in Melbourne for the next 3 years and had a great time, but towards the end of the 3 years realised that better weather wasn’t everything in life. I had reached a bit of a dead-end career-wise (due in no small part to Aussie bureaucracy) and decided to move home about a year ago.
Coming back to the UK felt like waking up from a deep sleep. The speed with which things happen was really refreshing and things that I’d taken for granted previously suddenly became really appreciated.
Some of the people on this website (and in general) strike me as incredibly naive with regards to Australia, making comments about the place either without ever being there or having just arrived and blinded by sunshine. They seem to think that moving to Oz will result in one big beach party, one never ending barbeque and talk about the place as if it was the garden of eden. Sorry, it isn’t.
Being realistic, you will do essentially the same things as you do here: commute to work, work, commute to home, eat, watch TV, go out, sleep, repeat, repeat, weekend. Having held several jobs in Oz, I worked with a vast number of different of local people, primarily in a similar age bracket (20-30) and of a similar background (relatively middle-class and mostly degree-educated). This pattern generally holds true.
Unless you live in London you are likely to spend longer on your commute in Australian cities. Many of my friends thought nothing of travelling an hour each way to work, in fact several even had longer journeys combining driving to their local train station, catching a train into the city and then tram to their office. Very concentrated CBDs and virtually unchecked suburban sprawl means that people often live huge distances from their place work. I now live on the edge of Leeds, 5 miles from the city centre. In Melbourne this would be classed as an inner suburb. Where I live now is walking distance from rolling hills, cows, sheep, literally a couple of miles to the Dales.
The unemployment rate is higher in Oz and depending on what industry you work in, you are likely to find more job opportunities in the UK and likely to get paid more for the same work, especially if you are a skilled professional. If you don’t live in the South-East of England, the cost of living is very similar. Coming from the Yorkshire, I actually found Sydney expensive and Melbourne comparable. There are overs and unders, sure, but averaged out across a ‘Basket of Goods’ prices were very close – its certainly not as cheap as the States and not nearly as cheap as smug locals would have you believe.
You seem to get more public holidays in Australia but less annual leave. 4 weeks is standard, where many employers in the UK now offer 5 or even 6 weeks (even if it is salary-sacrificed into flexible benefits packages). The holidays are all bunched up around Christmas – that’s also their summer holiday because of the reversed seasons. Apart from Afl, nothing seems to happen there over winter (actually most of the year round come to think of it).
With your time off their is infinitely more things to do in the UK, or at least from the UK. Generally 2 hours travelling time is what you want to arrive at your destination of choice. Within 2 hours I could be in Paris. 2 hours from Melbourne and i’d be driving through never-ending nothingness, on the way to Wolf Creek probably.
Having been back in the UK for about 12 months, I have had a much outdoors lifestyle than in Oz. It may be warmer there, but you seem to spend your life in an air-conditioned cocoon. Since being back I have played more golf, gone walking in the dales and the lake district (there is nothing that I saw in Oz that can compare to these in terms of beauty). From where I now live, I can go on day trips to York and Harrogate and go to lovely country pubs for Sunday dinner. I have only been back a year but have already been for weekends away to Prague and Paris, worked in Chicago for a fortnight and am going to Tuscany in June. These sort of opportunities simply do not exist from Australia. Once you are there, it is very long way to anything else.
Don’t get me started on Australian TV (non-stop American reality show imports littered with adverts). The music scene is awful. The food is strictly Greek/Italian or Viet/Thai. Nobody has heard of Tapas. Curries are almost impossible to find. And French food might as well not exist.
A lot of people cite their children as the prime reason for emigrating which I find quite strange. As if a bigger garden and a bit more sunshine is all kids need!
Did i think my friends and colleagues were any happier or more rounded individuals as a result of growing up in Australia? Certainly not. For most of the people I know in Australia, many have rarely been outside the state of Victoria. The vast majority have only been outside of their home country once or twice, generally on a year out working in a bar in London, ‘doing’ all of Europe in a 3 week contiki tour.
Whilst, I count many Australians amongst my best friends, I have to admit that on the whole, the geographic isolation and inward-focused media leaves them relatively uncultured, often quite narrow-minded and occassionally extremely bigotted when compared to people of similar socio-economic backgrounds in the UK. Those that don’t believe me should have been in Oz when the Shappelle Corby case was in the news. The way people I knew (and the country as a whole) reacted to it made me embarrassed to be in the country at the time.
There is massive problems of drug abuse (especially Crystal Meth and Heroin) and gambling is seen as socially acceptable, normal even. People who think that anti-social behaviour is purely a British problem are absolutely deluding themselves. My ‘neighbours’ in Melbourne used to use our stairwell as a urinal. Fights in pubs and on the street are commonplace, often much more violent than in the UK. My girlfriend’s cousin recently had a freind die in her arms from stab wounds inflicted after a fight out in Perth. Another friends of mine has permanent damage to his eyes after a gang jumped him in St Kilda and kicked and scratched and gouged at him, completely unprovoked. Young people get involved in illegal drag-races out in the suburbs every single weekend. If you keep an eye on the local news you may also have heard about the Cronulla race riots, Premier Brack’s daughter recently being taken to A & E after underage binge-drinking and yobs defacing the ANZAC memorial. People who think this stuff doesn’t happen in Australia are, frankly, living in cloud cuckoo land.
Because of the nature of the work I do, most of the people I worked with had been to University. Because of the financial constraints of tertiary education in Australia, the majority of people I knew had both lived at home and worked part time to fund their studies. University was 3 of the best years of my life, mostly as a result of living away from home and being completely immersed in the student way of life. The Australians I know have a massive void in their experience as a result.
I grew up in a small village in a rural area. As a result we had big a massive garden. Did this make my childhood more enjoyable? No. The things I enjoyed most were trips abroad or knowing that I would be able to do what I wanted in life, going away to University and having the world at my feet.
I used to go on holiday at least once a year either with my family or with school. The furthest kids go in Oz is on school camp to Maloooonlongatta or somewhere else completely irrelevant.
For people like myself, young, ambitious and cultured, Australia has very little to offer. From England I may not have the time and money to do everything that I want to do. Trapped in Australia, however, there simply weren’t enough things to keep me occupied. The world is an amazing place, I couldn’t be removed that far removed from it again. People contemplating a move to Oz should really look beyond the beaches and shiny office buildings before they decide to sacrifice all the things they take for granted.
Hiya Gags,
We live in the South East of England, so used to the high cost of living i.e. property prices
I am not at all naive and to be quite honest the work situation does scare me a little, but of course you never know until you try - and boy have we tried here! I have my own business and so does my OH, but to run your own company in this country is becoming increasingly difficult with employment law and taxes and Health and Safety etc.... (I won't bore you with it all).
You mentioned the people fighting, I think where there are night clubs and alcohol you get this anywhere it comes with the territory unfortunately. I would worry about my children when they are old enough to go to a pub/club as much in Australia as I do here.
Your comment about Europe is my only concern for our children as we have 'Been there done that', they have with us but not on there own with their friends. In saying that I don't think the world is such a big place anymore with flights and lots of competitive prices, I think years ago it was a different story Australia may as well have been in Mars, but fortunately enough thats not the case anymore.
My cousin whom was born here in the UK but now lives in Oz, came back to England when he was in his late 20's he enjoyed the travelling with his Aussie partner but was glad to get back home to Australia. So I think we all have a different story to tell but we must experience it or we will never know.
I wouldn't want people that have been to Australia and then returned here not to put their feelings on this forum as it is interesting read, but you should not call us all 'naive' because we want something that does not interest you anymore. I think the people that have hit back at you have only done so because they feel you insulted them and not because of the comments you made about experiences in Australia.
Out of interest did your Australian girlfriend come back to England with you? Or did she choose to stay in Australia?
Wow,this thread is the most interesting I have been on!!
In an ideal world I would hate to live in a town where the local high school has had 2 children commit suicide and another aged 15 fighting for his life after being attacked in the street.
A place where a man is left half dead outside your house on Boxing day(he lived) after being clobbered with a piece of wood.
This is the lovely(thats NOT a sarcastic lovely) seaside town of Lytham St Annes where I live,considered to be a highly desirable place to bring up children.
The thing is all countries have problems, if people want to try something new then why not! I am sure Gags(is that right?) your glasses were pretty pink when you embarked on your new life in Oz?
By the way has your Australian girlfriend come back with you,and what's her opinion?
I totally agree with Gags, we have been in Sydney for 7mths and can't see many plus points here.
In essence it's another big city with all the sh1t to go with it.
I am an Indian, born and bred in Pinner,West London. In the 30 years of living there, I have never been mugged, burgled, beatenup, been a victim of racist slur etc.
Come to Sydney and get called a coon.!!! I said p1ss off it's a BLACK MAN'S COUNTRY.
