boganbear

Abbotsford children's farm or most parks have play areas. The sun can still be strong so use sun protection or do what my parents did. Lock me in the car whilst they go to the pub. Just keep a window open.

I think this might be more related to LAFHA (Living Away from Home Allowance so it is best to check with them. This was an allowance if you had tolive away from home. Great if you live in one part of Oz and working in the mines somewhere else (say Mt Isa) but i know it was taken away from most 457 as you have not moved from one part of Oz to temporarily live in another for work. They woud say you have moved from abroad to the town where you work so you are not living away from home.

You could say that Melbourne and Brisbane have exactly the same problems as well but to differing degrees for your different criteria.

Sounds like you are being ripped off then

If you import personal possessions to Australia there s an exemption from many charges, import duties and GST. I am sure there is something similar in the UK. If you did not complete the relevant paperwork then the company has to do all of the paperwork. I sent 2 removal boxes from the UK to Oz, door to door for £100

My school did allow Service families to have holidays in term time as they might not be able to have a holiday if a parent is overseas for long time. As my dad was in the Navy we often had holidays in term time. The school didn't like it and but as my dad once told them, I would be away for less time than the teaching staff were on strike or closed the school because it was 'cold'. That shut the headmaster up. Schools are paranoid because unauthorised absence is one of the league table measures and nothing else. At primary level, a couple weeks away is going to make very little difference to attainment overall. It didn't affect me getting my undergrad or post grad degree!

"you or your spouse have not owned property in Australia before". I would have thought it is pretty obvious. DO NOT be tempted to lie as they do very thorough background checks and they will find out if you have even owned property abroad. The fines are quite high

You have to have your degree assessed so keep your course handbook and transcripts. You will have to do a conversion course which could mean doing a number of subjects you have already done again as the law is very different in key areas, then you will have to get your practicing certificate. To be honest, you will find it hard getting a job here. The grad market is extremely competitive and as your degree is an English one, in my experience, it is worthless in Australia unless you have at least 5 years post qualification experience in a UK law firm. I've known a few English lawyers who have PQE who started again from scratch by getting an Aussie law degree as they found it so hard to get jobs.

Just wait until you get here. You can get SIM cards from petrol stations and supermarkets

We are building a house in Narangba and hope to move in next month. My mother in law has lived there for years and loves it there so it will be great to be 5 mins away in the car. The new station is great and there will be more trains from next week and it is an ideal location to be near everything. It's not too far away from North Lakes, the new Costco, Ikea and Bunnings, Sunny Coast, Morayfield out of town stores. There's a massive swimming pool, loads of sports facilities, all of the supermarkets together at Burpengary (Coles, Woolies and Aldi). The pizza place in Narangba village does the best pizzas I've ever eaten. It seems to me that its like living in the countryside but having all of the advantages of a city on your doorstep.

I remember the days when the only place you could fly from London City Airport was to Plymouth. Now that was a claim to fame

you have to fill it in

Try the UK, they let anyone in

I used to live about 100m from Wiliamstown Beach and only went in the sea a handful of times in 2 years. The sea is cold and the weather is too much like England which is one of the reasons why we moved to Brisbane.

i cant think of anything worse than a Christmas dinner on a hot day. I never liked doing a big dinner when I lived in England anyway. We have a BBQ breakfast with the family and have beer n nibbles as we feel like it. Its so nice not to have to do any cooking

i have no idea about the schools but Petrie is quite a small place so there are not any bad areas. Most of it is quite "well to do"

We are in Petrie but moving soon to a new house in Narangba. Petrie is nice but it depends what you want. The parks and riverside are lovely and it is not too far from the main shopping centres, swimming pool at Lawnton and it is like living in a small village. The whole area from Lawnton to Narangba,/Burpengary and the Redcliffe peninsula is going up in value quite a bit and when the new train line to Kippa Ring is finished Redcliffe/Scarborough/Rothwell have already started to skyrocket. A new uni is might be built in Petrie Many people will say DO NOT look at Deception Bay but that too is becoming a nicer area, although slowly. Personally, I hate North Lakes. Its like a massive Barratt estate and you need a GPS to get out of the place but its probably not a bad place to start off and see how it goes

If your son doesn't need the clothing of othr bits and bob in the Uk why would he need them in Oz? If you are on the GC you only need a few winter clothes which you can buy here and Harbour Town is great for cheap stuff. We sold or gave everything away and only came with 2 suitcases with clothes and laptops.

If you love further out you can rent somewhere for a lot less. Our rent is $320 a week and our mortgage will only be $335 a week when we move. You can get a good Internet and phone deal with TPG For about $80

Lots of shiny new offices for government departments in Canberra that none of my private sector customers can afford

College girl is right. 309 visas are not temporary visas. They are provisional which is different to temporary and permanent visas. Essentially they are permanent visas with a condition to you are still in a relationship after 2 years. You do not apply for a permanent visa, you just have to prove the relationship. This is why you can claim many benefits temp visa holders cannot. As such you are classed as resident in Australia in the same way as perm visa holders and citizens.

Whilst i agree that the treatment of these animals is terrible, i doubt there is anything that the government can do. banning exports will not achieve anything as these cruel people will just find a cow from elsewhere and carry on. Aussie companies cannot be held accountable for what happens in a foreign country after they have shipped the animals over. The responsibility rests with those carrying out such cruelty and the local authorities for enforcing the law. If they do not have anti cruelty laws then there is nothing illegal about what they are doing. Remember that Gaza is not a properly functioning state and I doubt that those in power (Hamas) will actually do anything about it. Many people think that Halal and Kosher processes are cruel (myself included) but such slaughter processes were used in the Uk and Australia a generation or two ago. My mum's family ran a butchers where animals were slaughtered out the back in a very similar way. In some respects they were possibly more humane and 'natural' methods of meat processing than what we use today such as mechanically recovered meat - blasting carcasses with high pressure hoses to extract every last bit. no wonder we end up with BSE, Creutzfeld-Jacob disease and horse burgers. In Peru, they breed guinea pigs to eat not as pets. Some of you may remember Blackie the Donkey in Spain from many years ago and The Sun 'saved' it. Well, it didn't stop the village from getting other donkeys and doing the same thing every year afterwards as you can see from this article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/1455596/Ill-sue-Spanish-for-donkey-cruelty-says-animal-lover.html I agree that the treatment of these animals is wrong but you cannot get on your high horse about other culture's values or expect them to share ours

Yes you can. it took 6 months for the HMRC to finally give it to me but i got it back in the end. Had it paid into my UK bank account which I kept open then used the bank account to buy things on theinternet rather than pay fees to send the money over.

Sorry but this has to be one of the dumbest questions I've ever seen. Why on earth do you think that you could use a UK licence plate in Australia? You will have to get a new driving licence and even if you move to another state within Australia you have to get a new licence and number plate.

Why would you come to the other side of the world, supposedly for a holiday but then do some work. When i'm on holiday I don't do a thing related to work