Mike@Bonbeach

Bribery. State election in November.

North of Frankston there are some nice suburbs with the facilities you are looking for. Seaford, Carrum. Bonbeach, Chelsea all within a 20 minute drive to Frankston Hospital and on the Railway line to the city. Plenty of shopping, no big malls. Superb , friendly golf club. Can't help with rental prices, sorry. Mike

When I started claiming the Australian Aged pension after 10 years of being here I had to detail all my incomes in GBPounds and it is a legal requirement to keep Centrelink up to date with any changes. As the UK aged pension doesn't change after emigrating then yes Centrelink does know the value of my pension.

I have just received from Centrelink a monthly breakdown of the exchange rate UK/AU saying that that is the rate at which my UK pensions were calculated. Certainly my UK pensions vary each month after exchange rate is applied, and my AU pension also varies (by small amounts) each month so they must look at what I receive from the UK, and adjust accordingly.

I give up, all I wanted to do was to mention my bugbear about the way things are as far as Extras (the ones in my experience) are concerned. Didn't expect to get into all this. None of this has alleviated my bugbear, or changed the way I think. I'm sure the responders have tried to explain things as they see it but I see it a totally different way.

Sorry, I am obviously not making myself clear. I think that if I am covered for $300 for say Opticals, then I believe I should be able to claim $300 and not have to pay $500 or whatever to get the covered sum back. And yes I do and have read the detail but I still believe the way it is done is wrong. After all, regardless of the way it is done, the insurer would only pay out the insured sum so it would make no difference to them.

I think the point I am trying to raise about Extras is that if you are covered for up to $300 for optical and I go to an optician and find a pair of frames plus lenses for $300, when the claim goes in (my experience is with BUPA and NIB) then I will only get back about $180. Similarly for dental, you are covered say for up to $1000 and your treatment costs $1000 you will only get back in the region of $600. Both NIB and Bupa do give you free dental inspections, cleaning, xrays and fluoride treatment twice a year but you do have to visit specific dentists. IMO you should be able to claim up to your limit and only pay once the limit has been reached.

My bugbear about Private Health cover is the way Extras work. They all say you are covered to a certain annual amount, for example Optical $300 dollars, but to actually get $300 dollars back you have to normally pay out $500 or so. Can't complain about Hospital cover as fortunately have rarely had to use it, and on the odd occasion I have then I've been satisfied. I think they are all much of a muchness especially since the government standardised the Hospital offerings.

"Probably " damaged the crop?. I would think 100%. My brother-in-law is a farmer and I know what damage can be done by people having a bit of fun.

Had a GPB25 win just this month, probably a sight more than the monthly return on my Term Deposit with a much larger amount.

Before emigrating in 2007 Connie and I had a holiday chalet in the South of France near St Tropez. Without fail we took out the AA's 5 star cover for our trips down by ferry and car and every year we were incident free. Then one year I decided we would not take out the cover but at the very last minute I thought about it and changed my mind. Once we were down there and settled in went off to do our shopping and were sat at a T junction when along came along a very inebriated Frenchman in his car and took off our front end. By the following day we had a hire car provided for our holiday and the trip back, our own car was picked up and returned to the UK and another hire care for our use in the UK until our car was sorted. Not a penny extra did it cost us, and to this day I never travel without insurance. The only other time I have ever had to claim on travel insurance was when my dear wife suddenly passed away a couple of weeks before a domestic holiday here in Australia and I had to try to claim back for the Domestic flights with Qantas, but that's another story.

And now we have the SE Melbourne cluster, latest number is 43 in a matter of a few days, where, allegedly, 5 Afghan families breeched the CHO's rules, travelling and visiting each other's homes yet no action taken. The one consistent thing about Dan Andrews is his inconsistency. And the CHO actually apologising for stating the truth that the cluster is a result of these Afghan families not obeying the restrictions.

Just going to put my 2 bob's worth into this discussion. My situation is I am 80 years old living on my own since my dear wife died just over 2 years ago. My son and his family live more than 12 kms away so we can't even legally meet halfway for a catchup. I haven't seen my grandchildren since early July (except on Facetime), and they were the major reason for us emigrating to Australia in the first place. I live on an estate next to a golf club where the vast majority of us are members and well into our 60's, 70's and 80's. We all love our golf yet we cannot go and play, but it's OK to go off to the supermarket or Dan Murphys and mingle with loads of other people at quite close distances, try walking around a supermarket and keeping your 1.5 metres distance, yet looking out my window I can see a completely deserted golf club, who, incidentally we are still paying our annual subs to. Under stage 3 we were allowed to play in 2's and wear masks which we all did conscientiously, the club house was closed and your times on the course were recorded for tracing purposes. You arrived, played your round, no hand shakes and immediately left the course to go home. What was/is wrong with keeping to those restrictions?, at least we were out and about getting exercise and sunshine. Dan Andrews has blamed just about anybody for the current situation in Victoria yet the vast majority of the cases stemmed from his poor administration of the quarantine hotels. He says he doesn't know who authorised the curfew at night, the police say they never asked for it and the CHO didn't ask for it either. He didn't know who was responsible for the quarantine arrangements. Contact tracing was apparently being done on paper, and he has now sent a team of his so called heath administrators to Sydney so they can see how it is done there. It's been one big cock up after another. We are being told to get out and exercise for an hour a day and we have a lovely walking track next to the river but again trying to keep your 1.5 meters distance is quite impossible with people jogging by breathing the exhaust fumes all over everyone they pass. What could be more healthier for a bunch of older folks than getting 4-5 hours fresh air and sunshine than walking around a huge open space like a golf course. The so called "singles bubble" which comes into effect on the 14th September. Well, I can have one person visit me yet if I want to go and see my son he has to make sure there is nobody else in the house, what's his wife and kids supposed to do if I do go visiting, and we have to wear masks, yet if I was one of an intimate couple living apart from each other, I could visit and not be limited to the 5kms or have to wear a mask. It seems that so many of these restrictions have been thought up on the go, probably written down on the back of a fag packet, with no thought to the consequences of peoples general health and mental wellbeing. You may feel that my take over this Covid-19 fiasco in Victoria is just a lot of sour grapes, it may well be, but I have never felt so lonely or angry in my 80 years, and I am sorry but apart from the initial out break back in the first couple of months of 2020 the rest of the responsibility lies fairly and squarely on the shoulders of Daniel Andrews and his administration. Keep safe everyone. Mike

Why leave it so long though?. Delaying it 5 days like that gives any potential carrier more time to get across the border. The same thing happened when Victoria effectively closed some post codes, and people moved out of those post codes into non-effected areas so they could carry on with their plans. (some AFL players were mentioned in the press for doing just that so they could go off to the quarantined hubs in NSW, Queensland etc).

After 10years in Australia you can then qualify for the age pension and depending on your assessment it does help out a lot especially when they adjust it as the pound/dollar fluctuates. Works out ( for me anyway) that the UK age pension combined with the Aussie pension roughly equates to what the current UK aged pension is.

I always thought it odd that the English flag was pictured as being a sign of racism yet the flags of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were not.

Is this the book written by an Englishman who claims to be an Aborigine?

Mine are behind the ear, and it took a day or two to feel comfortable. I pay 60 bucks a year for all batteries, any service required. The bluetoothand the app quite surprised me. The app even has a tinnitus program so you can fiddle with the settings and play noise back into your ears. Hearing aids nowadays are so much more than just an amplifier. The only part that is going to hurt is on Thursday when I have to cough up. I have even been able to get rid of closed captions on the tele and reduce the volume from about 18 down to 13 or 14.

Oddly enough I was fitted with my first hearing aids yesterday. I could have gotten the lowest level hearing aid free, (I am an Aussie pensioner now) but decided to go for the next level up and it will cost me just over $1000, includes batteries and service for a year. I too was amazed at the cost of these little things that sit behind the ear. To go to the level where you can do everything through Bluetooth connectability the price soars up to $3500 and that's not even halfway up the levels off the hearing aids on offer. I do have them for a two week trial period now where I can walkaway with no financial loss, but I shall see how the trial goes before I decide to upgrade or not. Have just checked my Extras on my health cover and find out there is a 3 year waiting period to be able to claim for hearing aid assistance and I have another 20 months to wait for that. Mike

Weird, what about Christmas in July?. Now that is weird, it's not even 6 months time difference. Mike

Weird, what about Christmas in July?. Now that is weird, it's not even 6 months time difference. Mike

Can't remember exactly, but it wasn't too long. Maybe a couple of months. But I do believe your sponsor has to request it from CBA otherwise they would just roll it over into another Term Deposit. (so we were lead to believe). Mike

My son got the letter from Centrelink saying that the bond was going to be repaid, he contacted the CBA who held the bond and it was repaid pretty quickly once we'd been here the 10 years.

Hi Keith. In the end I didn't bother, put it in the "too hard too keep at it" basket. I was becoming very frustrated and my pension provider in the end didn't seem to be bothered after many delays. I think it was too hard for them to do too. We felt comfortable and secure with our income and the hassle just wasn't worth the trouble of constant emails and excuses. It also coincided with us becoming Aussie pensioners so that made things a lot easier. Mike

The UPP deduction for the UK aged pension is quite straightforward, my accountant did it without being prompted. Our private UK pensions were a different matter altogether. Neither my long term employer nor my wife's long term employer (Worcs County Council) had records held long enough to give us all the info needed to claim. We gave it up as a bad job in the end after seemingly endless emails to and fro, and it all came down to not having the records, apparently (so they said) they were only obliged by UK law to keep records for so long. In my case I was trying to get information back as far as 1972. Good luck with the claim. Mike