Help!!!

[traykas]

Hi, my name is kerry and my partner and myself are currently awaiting for the TRA response, I have spent most of this afternoon looking through the threads on here and am now a little , our situation is that we are a female gay couple, ( as far as we've been informed from our migration agent we can apply on the same skilled visa from the 1st sept) my partner, Tracey is a qualified cabinet maker of 18 years, and she is very stressed about arriving in oz and finding work, ( again reading the threads we are both )
she currently runs her own business, subcontracting to the likes of B&Q and MFI, but also fitting kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms for private customers, she spent a year in oz 18 years ago and states that it is a mans world out there in her trade and feels she might be penalised for being female, i tell her things change, am i right in that? this is probably our main concern, i am currently studying IT, hopefully to be finished soon, but we also want to purchase a property asap when and if residency is granted, and want to know how to go about doing this,
also would anyone have any recommendations on travel and quarantine for our animals,
and also our vehicles?
really appreciate your time

[hays]

Hi Kerry and welcome to the site!

I'm afraid I have no idea about the work and the whole 'mans world' thingy, but can help with the quarantine stuff. Im not sure of exact costs, but dogs are approx £2500 -£3000 ish each and cats approx £1300-£1700 ish. The quarantine time is 30 days.
I dont have any info on shipping cars over, but a few on here have decied not too, due to costs and all the hassle at the Oz end, re-registering etc.
Hopefully somebody will be more helpful that me! Where do you think you want to go in Oz?
Hays

[traykas]

Hi thanks for coming back to me, at the moment i am set on coffs harbour nsw, although never been! we visited melbourne in 2004 but wasn't fussed on the place, my partner has family in melbourne, queensland and adelaide, we are pretty open to suggestions and any advice as family tend to be a bit selfish, we want a fresh start, where we can work and feel comfortable as a couple and also for our dogs, currently they love the woods and beaches, and are off the lead alot, i know there are alot of restrictions out there, don't mind renovating as thats what we are currently doing here in wales, so please any advice would be great, i am a sponge!!!!! can't believe the cost for the dogs!!! got 2 dogs and 1 cat!
Thanks again

[hays]

bit of a shock to me a well! we have a dog and 4 cats! 2 of the cats are old now, and i dont want to take them or re home them, so we're on hold for a while (please dont think im mad! thats not the only reason!! hehe) Also probably wont take the dog, he will go to mum in law's.
I think melbourne looks lovely, very cosmopolitan, but not where we're heading. I'd really like QLD, maybe north of Brissy, maybe even Cairns. OH has different ideas and wants to go to Perth, I like Perth too, but it so isolated, and quite pricey house wise.
We'll go and have a look at all of them before we make up our minds thou!
Good luck with the whole visa/move thing
Hays

[ali]

Hi Kerry,

It cost us £1,300 to bring our cat to Perth. I'm not sure about the 'mans world' bit for your partners job but guess even in the UK it's a bit like that anyway for her profession but by the sounds of it she's managed to do well... so I would say that she could achieve that here. It may be worth dong a search and contacting a few companies - australia has discrimination laws too. My brothers ex girlfriend had a similar problem too as she was in the building trade and ended up becoming site forman.

Good luck
Ali