Nemesis

The same was true of Brisbane back in the early 2000s when North Lakes was being developed, north of the city. It became known as "Little Britain" because of the large percentage of Brits who moved there, most of them being new to the country.

just wondering, and I'm sure you've looked into where you can live and work, but I just wanted to check - if you are on a 190, are you not sponsored by a specific State or Territory, in which you need to spend the first two years?

Never heard of that one before. Surely when you are checking in to depart its irrelevant when or even if you plan to return?!

I've always been so glad I went to university in the UK for precisely that reason. We did have one person who lived at home and I remember her saying she wished she was in Halls as we seemed to have a much better social life. I couldn't imagine living at home while doing my degree, I would have missed out on so much due to pressure from parents to stay home and study, mind younger siblings in the evenings etc. Always found it odd that so many students were leaving college in Aus and starting jobs with no experience at all of being independent. We had some at work and had to explain the basics of living to them, even down to how to do supermarket shops and open bank accounts, parents had always done everything for them.

Sounds very similar to my experience. Bring in the newbies who last 5 minutes, whilst those with the knowledge and experience get sidelined

Your PR visa does not expire. Only the travel facility expires. If you stay onshore it is valid for life. My sister in law had a PR visa for 25 years before she decided to become a citizen. She never left the country so didn't need a RRV. She had a TFN and everything else that goes with being a permanent resident. Where are the documents that you used to get PR in the first place?

Sorry but your post is a bit confusing. If your residency visa expired in 2019, what is your current status in Australia? Are you on a Bridging Visa? Are you there illegally? You can't get a RRV if you don't have a current PR visa. What visa were you on in 2019? Do you mean that the travel portion of your visa expired in 2019?

The last place I worked in Australia had a team of people highly skilled in their field, we were all well-respected for our roles in a niche area of public service, but over the years several people moved on and younger ones joined, with a very different work ethic - usually just "do the job and do home" with no intention of going the extra mile like those of us who'd been there upwards of 10 years. In 2020 one of my colleagues decided to retire for personal reasons. Whilst the bosses were interviewing for a replacement, this statement was overheard by a colleague in another area - "Make sure you employ someone young, we've only got 3 dinosaurs to get rid of now and that shouldn't be too hard." Said "dinosaurs" were me and 2 Aussies guys, all aged in our late 50s. We all kept our ears to the ground after that, and it soon became clear that the department was doing its best to edge us out by any means, fair or foul. Nothing to do with a lack of skills, we were the ones teaching the skills to the newbies. All to do with poorly-disguised ageism.

If you don't intend to ever leave/enter Australia, you don't need a passport. However if you plan to leave/return you definitely need an Aus passport

I never settled in Australia, but equally I never phoned home, rarely sent emails (this was in the days before smartphones. The family refused to spend time doing phone calls, or Facetime etc when that became popular, so in between visits home I had so little contact with my family that it would take a couple of days to catch up on the major events when I did get to visit. It wasn't restlessness that drove me to spend my holidays back in the UK, it was the fact I didn't like living in Australia, that simple, and my escapes to the UK were the only way I could stay sane, with a failing marriage and nothing else going on except work.

I had a lot of friends in the Logan area, between Brisbane and the Gold Coast. Lots of vests, grubby shorts, mullets, drugged up hoons. It used to amaze me when going to a pub down that way with friends - we would never have dreamt of going down the garden dressed like some of them, never mind the pub! I also had some Aussie mates in a couple of places up the Sunshine Coast near Gympie, and they were the same when it came to going out. "Dressing up" for one guy consisted of putting on a baseball cap I have to say that I've really enjoyed your reflections on your trip, and think that by doing them this way - the good, and the not-so-good, it does show quite a balanced outlook. No rose-tinted-specs on show here. Obviously everyone sees things differently, but as you say, the whole point of forums like this is to allow everyone to give an opinion.

I can't remember the exact wording on the forms, but they ask about any treatment that the child may be receiving, any medication, any specialist reports that have been done, all that kind of thing.

Please be careful with the old chestnuts about "better work-life balance" and "better quality of life"- especially if you have never been to Australia, even on holiday. Do yourself a favour and read recent threads on here and on similar websites - and make sure they are recent as many things about living in Australia are now very different from life there 10 or even 5 years ago. I was always glad I don't have a family, as my work-life balance was a work-work balance, and though I could have afforded to have kids I would have had no time to spend with them. I do hope you would be able to spend time with your kids instead of "working like crazy" but that not the experience of many families, with kids in long hours of childcare & after-school care - and often huddled indoors because the weather is simply too hot to lay outside. You can dress up in cold weather, not so easy when its hot. Your comments on Medicare - its not all taken from your wages. Finding a bulk-billing doctor now is like finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. So even though you pay for it out of your wages, you are still paying to see doctors, paying gap fees for treatment, paying higher prescription fees. Its NOT the NHS. Good luck - just make sure you have your eyes open

I think you'll find that its not a case of people being cranky, some of us have actually tried to help by pointing out that you CAN get on a flight without a passport, but it can mean hassles and delays. I certainly appreciate that not everyone does as much research as I did before becoming a citizen - have to say the sole reason I did it was because research proved that for me a passport was cheaper than repeated RRVs. Personally speaking it wasn't so much a "privilege" as a necessary evil. I've also answered the questions about other countries insisting on their own passport use, as I know that not known by everyone. It may well be when the UK introduces its e-visa system in the next couple of years that things will change for UK citizens and we will possibly have to leave and enter on UK passports, which will be info widely shared on here and similar forums, I'm sure. Thats all help and info shared because many of us appreciate that not everyone is aware of info that some of us take for granted. If you call giving out info like that "crankiness" then maybe I'll just stop and let people go back to muddling their own way through.

My memory is a little hazy as it was a few years ago, but I'm sure I was given a list of things that I needed to be aware of, like "responsibilities of a citizen" which included the passport issue, as well as being given a form to enrol to vote, when I went to the ceremony - even though I already knew about both of them from being on forums like this for many years