Penny88

My partner and I moved to Melbourne in August last year and by Feb a request and a subsequent reminder had been sent to my parents address requesting my income details (I never notified them I was moving abroad). In the end I just filled in the assessment form (had been in work in Melbourne since the October) as I didn't want to get slapped with the £295 per month charge for not submitting. I'd say they are definitely a lot more switched on now about people leaving the country with student debt still owing! Interestingly, my repayments in £'s are actually lower under the Australian calculation they do, than they were when I was in the UK on a very similar salary.

Hiya, I took my PTE in the Wimbledon centre too, back in March. I found the lack of separate cubicles disconcerting too, it was very distracting hearing everyone else completing their speaking at the same time. However, I somehow managed to get superior on my first go. I'm a native speaker too, which obviously helps, but the speaking section was by far the trickiest bit for me. The first time I did a mock my speaking score was really low, but I watched some of the videos on youtube which had some good tips and also invested in Pearson's online materials (I think it was silver level) which were reasonably cheap and very helpful as well. I think part of the problem can sometimes be that you aren't hitting the phrases or key points that they want, particularly for the questions where you have to describe a graph or summarise a lecture etc. It isn't just about how fluent your speaking is but also what you are speaking about. If it was just the speaking section that your OH struggled with, I reckon a little bit of practise and they should be able to nail it next time around

We are flying to Melbourne in August and have gone with Singapore airlines. In economy you get 30kg per person with no restriction on the number of pieces, plus if you are going on a permanent residency visa and it's your first entry (you haven't already done a validation trip with the visa) then you get an extra 10kg per person. So total allowance of 40kg each.

Yeah when I was over in Perth I was just a kid with my parents (they were too old to get enough points for PR, so were on a small business visa for 6 years). We returned to the UK when the visa was up, but we all loved our time out there. So now I'm headed back with my partner as a permanent resident, but off to Melbourne rather than Perth this time. We're still young and only renting in the UK, so decided if we were going to make a move like this, now was the time. It's something we have both always talked about doing, and with a voluntary redundancy scheme at my work, it was the nudge we needed to get on with it. Luckily, so far everything has gone well and we got our visa grant with no issues. I finished work on Thursday and now it's all systems go before we fly in 6 weeks!

Hi, I actually completed years 11 and 12 in Perth (albeit 10 years ago now), so went through the pain of applying for UK unis with WA education qualifications. I seem to remember that the ATAR (then called TER) was not used when universities were considering my qualifications, they instead just considered my grades and subjects. However, I had done all TEE subjects, which were generally considered to be equivalent to A-Levels at the time (albeit my results from WA were not very highly regarded in the UK). I think if the qualifications they complete as part of their WACE are good enough to get into uni in WA, then they will be accepted in the UK as well. But you could always check with UCAS perhaps? Regarding the international student issue, I seem to remember my parents having some issues around this point. We had been out in Perth for 6 years before returning to the UK 8 months before I started uni. We were only ever on a temporary 457 visa in Australia, so I would have always been considered an international student in Australia. My parents were able to use this to argue that if I was an international student in Australia I must be a "home" student in the UK. However, this was back in 2006 when we "only" had £3000 p.a. tuition fees, I'm not sure if the criteria changed with the introduction of the £9000 tuition and a different student loan structure. Obviously if you are permanent residents or citizens in Australia then it is a moot point anyway

Yeah we were delighted when it came through first thing on Monday! Much quicker than we anticipated. We're fine-tuning the planning at the moment, but should be on a plane to Melbourne around mid-August. Now comes the harder part of trying to get a job sorted as soon as possible after we're on the ground ;-)

My testimonial was accepted with no issues, as a rough guide it was probably half to 2/3's of a page on each of my 4 job roles over the five years. Made sure it was on company headed paper, had specific dates for each role, salary for each, stated how many hours per week it was etc. For each job I structured it with a couple of sentences giving an overview of the team/department I was working in and where they fitted in the company. Then bullet points detailing my specific individual responsibilities whilst in the role. My current manager signed it off for me and I made sure I included his title and contact number as they instructed. Did they give any feedback as to why it wasn't accepted?

Really enjoyed reading your recce report Ken & Karen! We're in a similar position to you by the sounds of it, got our grant through a couple of days ago and planning to be out in Melbourne by mid-August if all goes well, very exciting. Things have moved very quickly for us with no chance for a recce trip ourselves, so your thoughts/views are really helpful!

Got my 189 grant a couple of days ago....timeline is in my signature (CO assigned was the first contact with them requesting the police checks that we hadn't uploaded yet)

Another update from me....woke up to an email confirming our visa grant this morning! Very exciting! All in all our experience has been very positive with no major delays. It's just under two weeks since we provided them with the last police certificate that was requested, so pretty efficient in my opinion. Best of luck to everyone else, hopefully you will have a good experience like I did

I can't really comment as to whether an agent would be an appropriate choice for you or not, but it is worth noting that the CPA also assess your relevant experience claim as well as the actual skills assessment, for no additional fee. Personally we haven't gone with an agent ourselves, but the CPA's verification provided me some reassurance that my experience was relevant and should count in their opinion. They also rejected part of my experience, so I think they do go through it in detail. It stopped me over-claiming for my experience on the EOI (it was the difference between crossing the 5 year threshold or not). It's not a guarantee by any means, because the DIBP could always disagree with the CPA's assessment, but I'd say it probably helps that you have a letter from the assessing authority confirming that in their qualified opinion x number of years of your experience is relevant and should be claimed for.

Just a quick update....got an email through today having been assigned a case officer, just requesting the two police certificates that we are still waiting on. Exciting times! Fingers crossed we get the certificates through the post asap and can get them loaded up for the officer. Really impressed that we've been assigned within a week of lodging though

Hi, I submitted my application on 29th April, so a bit too soon to expect to have heard anything just yet. We front-loaded almost all of our documents and had our medicals beforehand as well. The only bits I'm still waiting on are my UK police check and my partner's Irish police check. When we uploaded our documents we scanned them in direct, we didn't get them certified beforehand. As far as I'm aware that shouldn't be a problem but will have to wait until someone reviews our case before we know for sure!

The education section in Form 80 only asks for Tertiary qualifications as well I think? Or at least that was my interpretation of it. I think I must have made the same mistake as you in my EOI as I haven't provided details of my high school qualifications at any point in my application, only my university degree and accounting qualification. fingers crossed it doesn't cause any problems!

Hi guys, I couldn't see a thread out there for April applicants so thought I would start one. We squeezed our application in right at the end of April, lodging the visa app on the 29th. All docs and medicals are front-loaded apart from my UK police check and my partner's Irish police check, both of which should be arriving any day now (fingers crossed!). So now we're playing the waiting game and hoping to maybe hear something in the next 3 weeks or so. Did anyone else lodge in April, and if so, any word from the DIBP yet?