Guest crystalrose Posted November 23, 2008 Share Posted November 23, 2008 Hi guys Well everything in place OH been in OZ for last six weeks, flights booked, short term accommodation booked for our arrival, Now I am really wondering what will honestly be the positives in leaving everything in the UK and living in OZ. These are the negatives I have either read on here or been told by my OH. Please I do stand to be corrected if I have made any of the following points that are not correct. 1 Beautiful Weather - But Oz main disease to be aware of Skin Cancer 2 Variety of shops extremely Limited ie no M&S or New Look or Debenhams 3 Schooling behind the UK's children have to be pulled back one year 4 Most houses not adequately heated or insulated for the cold months 5 Deadly species lurking also horrid huge sand worms at the beach 6 Crime mainly on par with UK 7 Cost of living mainly on par with UK 8 Schooling expensive even state schools as all activities need to be paid for also insurances when participating in sports? 9 Clothing more expensive than UK 10 No cheapee Argos for children's xmas pressies 11 Flights more expensive than UK 12 Being referred to as a whinging pom, also Oh notice's racism to be pretty apparent. So please tell me is some or all of the above wrong, I do hope so Thank you for taking the time to read my thread and for any comments or views you have is greatly appreciated positive or negative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KIRK AND CO Posted November 23, 2008 Share Posted November 23, 2008 do not agree with point 7 uk now far cheaper Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Ozcans Posted November 23, 2008 Share Posted November 23, 2008 Hi there,good questions. Number 3 As far as I know in Perth for example kids start school the year they turn 6 1/2, so obviously they would be `behind` in that sense. But I believe it is also less test obsessed than UK and from what I`ve heard for young ones more fun, so I wouldn`t consider that a problem myself. Number 5 Prospective visits of deadly species - not looking forward to that! Cheap/expensive - depends on what you`re used to, how many `luxuries` you `need` and thinking in pounds and comparing. Number 6 Crime? Who knows? If you believe some people it IS as bad as here. I personally don`t think it could be. Again depends where you are I guess. I would think if I had 6 weeks to go I`d get the jitters as well! It`s only natural. Best Regards Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fatpom Posted November 23, 2008 Share Posted November 23, 2008 hi guys well everything in place oh been in oz for last six weeks, flights booked, short term accommodation booked for our arrival, now i am really wondering what will honestly be the positives in leaving everything in the uk and living in oz. These are the negatives i have either read on here or been told by my oh. Please i do stand to be corrected if i have made any of the following points that are not correct. 1 beautiful weather - but oz main disease to be aware of skin cancer 2 variety of shops extremely limited ie no m&s or new look or debenhams - 3 schooling behind the uk's children have to be pulled back one year 4 most houses not adequately heated or insulated for the cold months 5 deadly species lurking also horrid huge sand worms at the beach 6 crime mainly on par with uk 7 cost of living mainly on par with uk 8 schooling expensive even state schools as all activities need to be paid for also insurances when participating in sports? 10 no cheapee argos for children's xmas pressies 11 flights more expensive than uk 12 being referred to as a whinging pom, also oh notice's racism to be pretty apparent. so please tell me is some or all of the above wrong, i do hope so thank you for taking the time to read my thread and for any comments or views you have is greatly appreciated positive or negative. These things won't matter to you after a short while. After a few years you won't even know let alone care. :smile: Huge sand worms???? Oh! you mean those vain creatures which lie in rows along the beach trying to get skin cancers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petals Posted November 23, 2008 Share Posted November 23, 2008 Each State has a different education system here so its difficult to discuss education. Clothing is very cheap here too if you shop at markets and lots of the smaller stores they are cheaper than chains and departmental stores. You just have to learn to do things differently completely differently than you do them in the UK. Good luck keep an open mind accept the difference and you will be happy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Emmap Posted November 23, 2008 Share Posted November 23, 2008 Oz is Oz, and UK is UK, two differnt countries.....one is better, you to will decide that when your here..i know what i prefere, OZ... I love to shop, have found great small indipendant shops to buy clothes from, much cheaper than the uk...but agree, not as much choice as uk, but you do get used to it... Seen no creepies since ive been here.... Put sun cream on and ull be fine... Even the beggers say please and thank you... It is much more relaxed here then UK.....i love it!!, hope you do to....dont worry so much, just enjoy the experience, not everyone has the chance in life to do so,,good luck with it all!!x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quoll Posted November 23, 2008 Share Posted November 23, 2008 Only thing I disagree with is that kids do NOT need to be pulled back a year. They join up with kids of the same chronological age as themselves. The fact that the year level may be the same as the one they have already started or in some cases completed in UK is irrelevant. This is a new system with a new curriculum with an emphasis on different things. They will not be churning through the same text books by any means. Having said that, I do think that the standard of education in UK is higher than the standard here despite the international comparison tables. Oh yes, and I think UK is cheaper now for food etc. Otherwise that's about right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Aidan Posted November 23, 2008 Share Posted November 23, 2008 :biglaugh:I think the TV out here is pretty poor except the fact you can watch the english premiership live at 3pm on saturdays so no need to spend money on season tickets get cold and wet at the stadiums and as its shown at night the weekend are'nt ruined by having to know the score and driving around with Radio 5 Live on....Ha Ha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JoanneHattersley Posted November 24, 2008 Share Posted November 24, 2008 1 Beautiful Weather - But Oz main disease to be aware of Skin Cancer Skin cancer a big thing here but you take the precautions. Slip (on a tshirt) Slop (on the sunscreen) and Slap (on a hat!) 2 Variety of shops extremely Limited ie no M&S or New Look or Debenhams You adapt to what you have! I was a Debenhams girl in the uk but hey, what you havent got, you have to leatn to live without!! 3 Schooling behind the UK's children have to be pulled back one year No kids! Cant help there! 4 Most houses not adequately heated or insulated for the cold months Dont agree with this Im afraid! I have found that it is not the house that is not adequate....Its the Ozzie that lives in it is penny pinching and wont turn it on!! When we first got here, stayed with Mums cousin. We used to put the aircon on in our bedroom for a while before we went to bed to cool the room down and then we would just use the ceiling fan. My cousin would follow us upstairs and tell us off for doing that! LOL! 5 Deadly species lurking also horrid huge sand worms at the beach Cant help with sand worms! Deadlies???? My cousin been here for 50 years and seen 1 deadly! 6 Crime mainly on par with UK Is definately NOT a crime free country! LOL! Depends on where you live! 7 Cost of living mainly on par with UK Some things are, some things are dearer, some things are cheaper! EG: Bread can be $4 per loaf!!! Absurd price compared to Tesco`s 10p loaves!!! 8 Schooling expensive even state schools as all activities need to be paid for also insurances when participating in sports? No kids! 9 Clothing more expensive than UK Depends where you shop. Use KMart and BigW and it wont be! Go Myers and Davis Jones and it will be! 10 No cheapee Argos for children's xmas pressies Never liked Argos! 11 Flights more expensive than UK Definately! 12 Being referred to as a whinging pom, also Oh notice's racism to be pretty apparent. Racism is EVERYWHERE! If you constantly complain or constantly compare to the UK u will be called a whinging pom however it is a term of endearment in Oz. I call myself a POM when people ask where I am from! Good Luck with everything!:hug: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest treesea Posted November 24, 2008 Share Posted November 24, 2008 Where are you moving to? There are significant differences between the states in Australia when it comes to education. For instance, in Melbourne selective state schools are uncommon - only two I can think of, but in Sydney they are more typical. 3 Schooling behind the UK's children have to be pulled back one year No, not one year. They are six months out of sync. For schools, the year you go into in January is the usually the same year that you would have started in Britain the previous August or September. So in Scotland, for instance, its p1 to P7 then S1 to S6. This corresponds in Victoria to Prep to year six then year 7 to year 12. So if your child was in S2 now, in November, then they would start in year 8 in January, i.e. the years are six months out of sync. Doing it this way would be a pain though, because they would end up doing year 8 from September of this year to december of 2009. Say you're here and your children finish S2 in June, and then you go to Australia They would just start in year 9 the following January. Or join year 8 in, say, September, just to do the last term in Australia, then go onto year 9 (S3). At least they would get their summer holiday. And yes for sure, the education in the UK is really full on compared to Australian education, especially in secondary school. 4 Most houses not adequately heated or insulated for the cold months Mmm, maybe. We don't have central heating here in Edinburgh, but we definitely had it in Melbourne. And air conditioners for the summer. Our gas bill in Melbourne cost us an arm and a leg. 7 Cost of living mainly on par with UK I don't know about that. The UK seems cheaper to live, to me, than Australia. We are now all electric and the gas bill we had in Australia came to more than the electric bill here, let alone the gas and electricity combined! How they make bread here for the silly price they charge of it, goodness knows. I don't by the Tesco own brand stuff - it's so cheap I am not sure what it's made of. 20p packets of biscuits. 50p cucumbers. I haven't seen prices as low as this for basic foodstuffs in Australia for years. Whoever grows cumcumbers or makes bread in the Uk must be doing it for love, because for sure there can't be much profit to be had in it. Same with the buses. Monthly tickets on the buses here, unlimited travel, work out at £1.15 a day. My monthly ticket in Melbourne worked out to around $40 a week, and I thought that was value for money, but it 's still more than twice the price of an equivalent ticket here. Airfares over here are so low it's daft. £29 return, incl taxes to Dublin? What on earth to Brit based planes run on? Air? Fresh fish at the main market in Melbourne was cheaper than here. As for shoes! I spent three times more on shoes in Melbourne than I do here. But then, I can understand why prices are so low here, because wages are quite low and taxes, by the time you include VAT, national insurance and council tax (which is really expensive compared to rates in Australia), are pretty high. 8 Schooling expensive even state schools as all activities need to be paid for also insurances when participating in sports? It can be, because you have a school levy to pay each year, which is a few hundred dollars. You do pay for activities, but you do that here in the UK as well. Not sure about insurance. 6 Crime mainly on par with UK Mmm, depends on the type of crime. Statistics can be misleading. Here you can drink in public. Drink in public in Australia and you get arrested. Also the roads are much more heavily policed in Australia, and unlike here, the speed cameras are armed. They take road safety really seriously. Drink drive and you could lose your licence. Do it again over in Oz and you could end up in jail. And the limit is .05, not .08. There are probably more burglaries in Australia than here. After all (here) it is pretty hard to burgle a flat three or four stories up in the air, whereas in Oz the predominant type of housing is houses rather than flats. I would say though that there is more violent, street crime here than in Australia. 12 being referred to as a whinging pom, also oh notice's racism to be pretty apparent. Well, POM stands for Prisoner of Mother England, so when Aussies refer to whinging POMs they mean the English. The Welsh, Northern Irish or Scots don't figure in this particular piece of slang. Wales and Northern Ireland are seen as occupied countries and Scotland is seen as a Northern European country, more aligned with Norway, Iceland, northern Europe in general than England. The irony is all three countries are heaps better off than England, thanks to low populations and an outflow of English taxes to them. I wouldn't describe POM as a term of endearment. Anyway, I digress. Racism in Australia? Depends where you are from. If you are Arab and Muslim you would probably feel comfortable, especially in Sydney, though there can be tension between ethnic groups, e.g. Greeks and Lebanese. There were riots a few years ago in Sydney between various gans that were organised along ethnic origin lines. The people who complained most about racism when I lived there were the Africans and the Indians. But these are small groups, and relatively new groups, compared, say to oriental people who have been coming to Australia to settle since the 1800s. 10 No cheapee Argos for children's xmas pressies What about giving the kids money then taking them to spend it in the new year sales? They would definitely score more pressies that way :-) As a general comment, I would say that the Australian attitude to immigrants is much the same as my attitude to them, usually the illegal ones, here. People often moan to me about Scotland here, and while I listen, my reaction is always the same: "If you don't like it, leave. You have got another country. Go back to whereever you came from." So my advice is, forget about the negatives. Go to Australia, stay as long as it takes to get PR and citizenship, then, if you decide you don't like it, come home. If you come back here and think you have made a mistake, that's fine. You've now got Australian citizenship, so got a whole lifetime to go back again. One thing on that though - to qualify for a full pension in Australia, I think you have to have worked there, not necessarily continuously, for ten years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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