twinsmom65

Thats cause us women get stuck cleaning out the kitty litter :twitcy:, but it makes us more attractive to men apparently :biglaugh: :biglaugh:

Love it !!

Have a safe flight !..... Best wishes for the start of a new life/adventure in Perth (beautiful city btw) Cheers Karen

PB it sounds a lovely place to live. I never got a chance to visit Stratford whilst I lived in England. Sounds like a nice area of the UK. I live 40 mins away from Stratford, Ontario Canada, which sits on the Avon river, and is home to Canada's Shakespere festival and is well known in North America for it's great theater. Unfortunately our Stratford is more known as the birthplace of Justin Bieber :twitcy: Cheers Karen

Honestly I don't think you will have time. We flew Perth to Toronto via Dubai. Our layover was almost the same amount of time. We had enough time to do some duty free shopping (highly recommend it), stopped for a quick drink and that was it. Then boarded the plane and did a 14 hour journey. Emirates terminal at Dubai is large, and normally when you land they shuttle you to the terminal and that can take up to 20 minutes, and then you pass through passport control, and I found it a bloody long terminal. Cheers Karen

Well that's me fooked got three kitties, might explain my behaviour. :twitcy: :twitcy:

We arrived October 2008, just as the GFC hit, OH got a job as a project manager (big step up from his role as a sheet metal mechanic in Canada), within a week of arrival. He was with the same company for two years until he got laid off. I on the other hand had five jobs in two years. One of our reasons for moving back to Canada was OH couldn't find employment after he was laid off, he went to quite a few interviews including jobs in different states, however, no offers came through and we couldn't survive on my wage alone, so when my old company back in Canada offered me my old job for more money than I was making in Australia, I jumped at it, as we could live with family until we got back on our feet. Cheers Karen

Have you looked at the Hills Gazette to see if they have any rentals listed? Sorry about my link not working, I am in Canada so 12 hours behind you. I will keep my eye out for you. I used to live in The Vines, so I know some of the areas you are looking at. Cheers Karen

What a gorgeous house Joanne. Good luck with the move Cheers Karen

http://reiwa.com.au/_layouts/REIWASPAdvancedSearch/SearchResults.aspx Check out the two places in Greenmount, the one is pet friendly and has an open house on July 7th. Cheers Karen

I also find it ironic that people will accuse a person of being selfish if that person is not in love with Australia and wants to move back home and yet says nothing about the person who was the driving force in the emigration. I guess in some people's eyes their burning desire to emigrate does not preclude them to being selfish, even though they are taking their family away from family, friends and the familiarity that they know.

Totally agree with you on this, you do have to put your needs before others and it that way it is selfish. Also with respect to not growing up with an extended family, if you are a self reliant family you will be fine as a migrant. Personally myself, I have enjoyed my kids having that special bond with their grandparents, enjoying that cuddle time when they were younger. I have often said that I would have stayed in Australia longer if we had family around.

I would recommend Mandurah area as well, great train link to Perth and I love the foreshore at Mandurah. Cheers Karen

First of all I am going to apologize in advance for my lengthy response. I don't think there is a solution that anyone can come up with that will work 100%. There has been a lot of money and resources spent on how to effectively deal with the Aboriginal Communities. To date, IMO none have worked. I believe that a lot of the Aboriginal people feel so out of place. The ones that are living in the major cities are losing their cultural identity and language skills, a lot of them end up relying on government benefits and have way too much time on their hands and nothing to do. Alcohol abuse is pretty rampant throughout many Aboriginal communities, and if they can't buy booze, they sniff glue. In WA, Aboriginals account for approx 10% of the population, yet 75% of the children in care at DCP are Aboriginal. Social workers at DCP are stretched to the max with their caseloads. Each DCP office has an APL (Aboriginal Practice Leader), along with Youth Workers who work with at risk youth (Aboriginal), yet they can't make much headway. Who knows if compulsory income management will work, what looks good on paper may not work in real life. As I have stated before, working as a welfare officer for DCP, I don't think it is a bad idea, especially the compulsory credit counselling. When I used to give out vouchers for food at DCP, I always had to put down no cigarettes, to ensure that the money was used for food and only food. Just as an aside note, we have a Indian reserve about an hour away from where I live, the natives live, work, go to school and self govern themselves on the reserve. They do a very lucrative business selling cigarettes and running other business's, now I am not saying that we don't have any problems with our natives, but I don't see a lot of the social issues that I saw in Australia. So after all that rambling, my opinion is that let them try income management, I don't think it can do more harm than what is already going on in a lot of communities and in the cities. Cheers Kare

When we emigrated we moved to Perth in the October, like you there was only 6 more weeks of school left by the time we arrived. I waited until the new school year for my girls to start, which worked out great as we had moved areas by the time they started school. When we moved over, my girls had only done 6 weeks of grade 9 in Canada, and then were put into grade 10 (so effectively missed a whole year of school!!). It was tough for the girls I think, as we moved over at the end of October, then my OH and I started working full time within 3 weeks, and they were left on their own at home, with no friends and no transportation (were still getting used to living in Australia). If your employer is willing to allow you to move in January, I think that would be a better solution. Trust me moving with teenagers is no picnic (mine were 15 at the time of the move !!) and if we can make life easier, it helps out everyone !! Cheers Karen

Hi TopBhoy, Have a look at this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed_size Cheers Karen

You know what Ali, I am the same way, I chat to anyone and everyone, so if a check out person asks how's it going, I go into a long convo about my day. My hubby will usually run off to the car at that point. We met good friends in Australia through talking to the wife at the checkout lol...see it can have it's upsides. Lol Cheers Karen

When we moved back to Canada, we had three weeks from decision to move back to actually flying out. I placed my car on Gumtree (got fire sale price), luckily I made up a list of items to sell and posted it at my work, I was very lucky all my work mates brought 90 % of my items, other friends brought the majority of the rest. We left Australia as we had arrived just with suitcases. Good luck with moving back. Cheers Karen

Well as i was driving to pick up my two girls from my mums tonight (150km roundtrip), I was thinking how do you find driving in Australia compared to the UK? Do you find you drive longer distances, and if so how do you find it? I didn't have any problems with driving distances in Australia, as I am so used to driving in Canada ..tonight was a perfect example of just a normal drive for me. So what are your thoughts??? Cheers Karen

I also wanted to add that if people go on voluntary income management and stay on it for a period of 26 weeks (13 is the minimum), that they can qualify for an additional payment from Centrelink (I believe the amount is $250). Also for those that are placed onto compulsory income management, i.e. DCP referral or Centrelink social worker referral, have to attend a budgeting course as part of the program, which in my eyes is a great thing, as I think that far too many people don't have any budgeting skills, and the people on the lowest income can only benefit from this. Cheers Karen

Sorry can't help, we did ours in Canada and got our police check from the local cop shop on the spot (that was over 4 years ago!!). I have seen threads posted on here, if you want to do a search, that reflected that it does take time for the RCMP. Seeing as you have already submitted your application to the RCMP, the only thing I can suggest is patience (I know it is hard... trust me been through this emigration thing :arghh:), but you will get there in the end !! P.S... Canada Rocks and it's Canada Day weekend coming up !!... oh and gonna be HOT HOT HOT in Southern Ontario :jiggy: Cheers Karen

Hi Dom, Compulsory Income Management has been around for a few years. It has been a joint initative between Centrelink and DCP. They decided a few years ago, to put everyone in the NT on Complusory Income Management. I knew it was going to be spreading to a few more areas outside of the NT. Personally I think it is a good idea, the number of children in DCP care in the NT and northern QLD and WA is very high. DCP has always had the right to put people on Complusory Income Management even in areas like Perth. As a Resource Officer (Welfare Officer) at DCP, I saw the other side of the coin.... children who weren't being fed or clothed (necessities of life) due to their parents squandering their Centrelink Benefits. I went out to Cullacarbardee (an Aborginal community in Perth) a few times, and the number of times that the people were getting their Centrelink payments and the first thing they did was head to the bottle shop or send some one on a run to the bottle shop. There is also voluntary income management as well, I had a few clients when I was working as a Financial Counsellor who went on volunatary income managment. It meant that the necessities of life were being paid first - Rent, utilities and food and clothing !. Personally I don't have an issue with it. I think it can be a great benefit to some people. Cheers Karen

Oh gosh, sorry to hear that, such a young age. My thoughts are with her family!! Karen