MACDONALDO67

Been thinking about the politics of this. If you have a lot of money and live comfortably then you can make that money work for you. Increase pension payments to the max. Good accountancy to pay a lower tax, off shore accounts. If you live month to month then you are screwed. What comes in goes out. Work more over time, (miss out on family time) run faster but get nowhere and lose out on benefits, tax credits or child benefit because you exceed the limit, which defeats the object of working that bit more. You don't have the extra money to pay in to your pension so all in all you end up paying the extra tax. If you are well off or come into a windfall then economical doors certainly do open up for you. If those doors don't open then a working life can be a very long and frustrating process at times.

Pilbara region. Cold and wet. You know it would be nice to wake up and think "yeah great it's raining" and really warm to that. This has to be the wettest year I have ever known here in the UK this past year. I was looking at the cost of houses, purchase and rent, on the net, realestate.com, for Dampier and Karratha. My word !!! I remember a headline in one of the Perth papers saying that Perth was going to embrace a chilly 15 degrees. :laugh: I guess with acclimatisation that would be similar to our 1 and 2 degrees here at the moment.

Yes this past year there are lots of threads on people wanting to go back to the UK. That disappoints me. All that effort to give it a go for it not to work out. Must be concerning for those about to go out there questioning themselves if it is the right decision. In 2008 I can't remember that many. Seems to be on the up the discontent for some. The title of the thread was 2 million leave and a question was why? Just a few points that I made that affect me. Weather and aspiration in particular. No naivety here. Utopia isn't 10,000 miles away and I did make that clear. What is clear that within the next 9 years, one way or another, whether it be permenent or holiday home, we will be spending more time in a warmer climate, whether it be OZ, Cyprus or Spain but it won't be the UK. I need a better weather country. I won't be going back. There are a lot of good things about the UK I like but my mind has been made up for a long time now, more so now watching this lot behave in PMQ's. :laugh:

Thanks for that. It is nice to hear opinion from the other half in OZ. So it's out of the frying pan and into the fire then? I guess it's just crap wherever you go :biglaugh: I'm a weather orientated person. I'm miserable in the cold and happy in the heat. November to March I can't be arsed with it, honestly. I'm a Tshirt, shorts, cargo pants and shades guy and 24/7/365 if I have the chance that is all that I would wear. I guess if the UK had a similar climate to Southern Spain or Cyprus then all that **** I could put to one side. It's this time of year when the soap box comes out. Anyway I'm off my nights now and I'm off for 7 so I'll feel a bit better after my sleep. Roll on Spring / Summer.

That's the thing. I don't expect it to be better. The weather, lifestyle, opportunity yes but it will just be the same sh1t but different rock but not as bad as the UK. Politicians are probably the same. It's dearer in some or most cases and pay differences similar. So with me the grass isnt greener but I need a change, better weather and better opportunities. I can't see that here for the forthcoming future.

Couldn't give a fig where you come from or where you work as long as you are contributing to society. These past 13 years moreso, I would say the rot with me took hold 2004, I have just wanted to get my family out of here. Fresh start, better climate and more opportunity. Next year the whole of Europe opens the doors to Romania and Bulgaria. Countries with next to nowt for the work force and benefits. What is the estimation for migrants from those countries to the UK? My lad has got 7 "O" levels and is extending into college for "A" levels. He can't even get a part time job at the moment.

Jimmy I am concerned. Think about it. All those people from April 2014 under £10000 not paying any tax. Subsidised by top up entitlements but paying NI next to nothing. Bosses already paying a low wage to the Brit but Jan from Warsaw or George from Somalia will do it even cheaper. More money in the bosses pocket. Now there is this compulsory pension payment that bosses have to pay. Some wont be happy about that already having to pay the NI. It's a mess. My wife worked and had to give up to look after our kids. We received a letter through last week to say that she is 5 years short on contributions to a full state pension My wife is 44 and changes next year means she will be 10 years short in NI contributions for a full state pension. We have WORKED! ! I have luckily been employed for 28 years but my wife is penilised???? Things like this tick you off. Work should pay. Having a family should not be a penalty.

There is no aspiration. Politicians live in their own little bubble. No idea what it is like to juggle money, struggle to pay bills and yet pillage from the UK's coffers and say that they made an error of judgement. Any other normal person would be jailed. Then there's the child benefit scam. One family member earning £50,000 onwards is penilised yet two working members in the family below that threshold keep the full lot. Insane. Then there is the good old propaganda of the Government selling the good old "we are taking thousands of people out of paying tax" lark by increasing the allowance to £9440 from April. What they fail to mention is the top rate threshold of 40% figure is being reduced so your working/middle classes get nothing out of it at all. National Insurance gone up and will be going up again in the future. On top of this is the benefits scam. At the moment, if you play the system you and a very large family can get yourself a very nice house with benefits at the tax payers expense. Why do you think the Tories are trying to limit the benefits to £26,000 max? What are they at the minute then????? So in essence that's £26,000 tax and NI free yet a working/middle class person on £35,000, less tax and NI must be asking, (and everyone below that wage), just what am I working for???? Terrorists. Hamza stays yet look at those two Brits, one with asperger's syndrome, that they were doing their best to deport to the USA. Pensions, Students paying for their education, debt blah, blah, blah. We have the best benefit system, rewarding, I would say in the world. This may explain why so many travel from afar to get here to get the help other well off European countries should be doing. Free NHS, education etc, etc. Love it here !!! Immigrants coming in. Are they screened for their criminal record? Maybe if our politicians grew a pair, had a backbone, then they might get my respect. For starters, the differential between pay and benefits should exist to give aspiration to encourage work. If you work then it should pay. Simple. Retention bonuses. I believe this operates in OZ. Won't happen here. Employers just want bums on seats and they don't care who. You want to go then see ya. That's the culture. And if you don't like the cold weather, rain, wind, cloud then there's always the free doctor to get some pills from if you can get an appointment. People just want fairness. If you work hard then you should be rewarded but in some cases you are rewarded for not doing anything at all. Maybe if working people were valued more instead of getting shafted then the figure would drop.

What railway company did you work for in WA?

My wife likes Italian and she has her eye on one in Bondi.

I like to lurk in the hope that someone will send me a private PM offering me a $120,000 job, 3 months rent, all expenses paid to get over including shipping, flights etc and beach time every Saturday and Sunday as part of the contract. I'm not asking for much :laugh:

When you say the planes could be updated a little? What did you fly over on? Did you not have the luxury of one of the new Airbus A380's?

Nice bit of info in here northshorepom thank you. I've got a date with Tony Roma's when I come over. That pub crawl looks like a good idea :biglaugh:

All the best Missus B. You are sure in your mind so you have to do what is right for you and what makes you happy.

Since joining this forum in 2008 I've seen posts of people jumping with joy, got my visa's, going to OZ, new life, new beginning and then some of the postees months down the line saying they are going back to the UK. It's a shame really because of the effort, time and expense getting out of the UK to get a bout of homesick, or miss self belonging, identity, culture to want to go back. At least you had a go Missus B. It wasn't for you but at least you can pick up from where you left off in the UK. Have you given it enough time? October 2012 to January 2013 isn't much time. Would a different part of OZ not appeal to you? Good luck anyway.

Incidentally, Where is Blair and his family living now? Just interested to know?

I live in Warrington and we have had a mass influx of Polish over the past few years. Whenever you are around the town, in Tesco's, Lidl you are always within an ear shot of Polish language. We even have Polish food shops here now. My train of a morning, I call it the Polar Express because at Padgate, which is the next station outside Warrington Centre, the best part of 30 to 40 polish people get on. The same in the evening when I come home off Late shift, lots of Polish getting on at Padgate heading for the Warehouses in and around Warrington centre. They seem pleasant enough. They keep themselves to themselves and don't seem to cause any bother. I must ask one of them one of these days if I get into conversation with them... why Warrington? What was the appeal? Is it the Warehouse work? Same as Boston is it the field cabbage pulling work? A few of my friends went on a piss up to Warsaw the other week and said that everything is dirt cheap and the wages are poor. That will explain part of the influx because a minimum wage here is a hell of a lot more that what they get for an hour over there I presume. Thing is that once upon a time all this work was done by Brits so where have they all gone? A lot of these migrants that work here that provide a service I guess the vast majority will be earning under the £10,000 mark so by April 2014 they will all have been taken out of the PAYE bracket completely. Meanwhile, with the exploitation of the cheap labour the big boss at the top coins it in with profit. From another angle... there are Brits abroad everywhere. Funny old world.

With all these businesses going to the wall, with all these people that have to find another job, knocking on 3,000,000 unemployed and the UK is opening up to Romania and Bulgaria next year. How many people are going to be chasing one job? The prospects for my kids are looking bleak. Nothing like competition is there?

I'll be giving them some custom early hours of New Years Day then when I'm trying to get back from the CBD to Bondi after the fireworks.

How much are cabs please? :biglaugh:

Bloodyhell this is going to be fun. :biglaugh: I had a quick gander at the "Fines" page. Working this trip out is degree level. :biglaugh:

We are staying in an apartment on Hastings Parade and I notice there is a yellow pin to buy tickets at Ben Bucklers Newsagents. So I take it you can buy single bus tickets from there or do you get them from ticket machines and do they do returns or is it all single trips?

Noted Northshore. Thanks for that. I was just perusing the site for the Zoo on the link Notts provided and the cost is $144 for a family and that includes the ferry trip so it may just be worth, like you said, paying for the bus from Bondi to the CBD. That Sunday Family fare will come in handy. That's the Sunday planned already. My daughter will be 15 by the time we get there so I think she still qualifies for a childs ticket. Botanic Gardens of course. I'm going to try and do as much as possible in 3 days because the other 9 I want to spend on the beach and the surf, (although my wife doesn't know yet) :biglaugh:

Cheers for that Notts. That's a great help, thank you.

OK we will be visiting Sydney later this year and I would be obliged if the local Sydneyites can assist me on transport tickets please? Can you get all in one tickets that cover train, bus and ferry travel? Looking at doing a trip to Taronga zoo and probably taking a trip down to Cronulla and generally a run about into the city. Will be staying in the Bondi area so I know the train goes direct to Cronulla from Bondi Jct but to get to the zoo over the water there is a ferry that runs. Just wondering if there is an all in one ticket for covering all modes for a day, few days or a week? Looking for the best way of doing it for a family of four and where you buy the tickets from. Noticed on Google Maps some buses don't take money ??? Thanks in advance.