Bobbsy

I am 64 years old and have lived in Australia on a PR visas for about ten years. My sole income if from a company pension paid in the UK but transferred monthly to my Australian bank account. The amounr varies with exchange rates but is currently around $50,000 per year. I was told some time ago that over 60s on an private pension under $70,000 you do not have to pay tax. However, lately, things I've read imply that this only apples to pensions paid in Australia and my UK pension might be taxable. Anybody know the details of this? FYI, transferring the pension fund to Australia is not an option--as I say, it's a company pension and the total sum is shared by all elliible employees on a "final salary" basis. Bob

Out of curiosity, how did you get a Netflix account without having a UK address or bank account? Or is it something you carried over from the UK and just didn't tell them?

Hmmmm... Since I notice from your topic in "News, Chat and Dilemmas" that you haven't even applied for a visa yet (and may not qualify once you apply), I'd say that the TV in Australia is the least of your issues right now.

Yes, but you get a tax break while paying in so it all balances out in the end.

I'm cynical enough to know that every politician pulls stunts like this... ...but I'm sure as heck not going to pretend it's true and join a Tony Abbott love in about it. I repeat: if he really wants to help on this disaster, he should get his tail back to Canberra and restore the emergency payments he's just cut.

Hopefully you'll get a Victoria-specific answer soon but, if only to give you some hope, up here in Queensland the plastic photo card part was all they wanted to see. They were more concerned about me have the proper "100 points of identification including proof of current address".

If the LNP keep their promises, the country will be the worse for it. And it does matter when photos were taken if they are proven to be a lie. If a politician lies about the small stuff, imagine what they'll do on the big stuff (like global warming, the NBN, destroying the Great Barrier Reef for his friend Gina...and expenses fraud).

It was a staged (and stage managed) photo op for the press. Support Tony if you want but be totally sceptical any time you see any politician in a hi vis jacket. If he really cared about the fires he would be restoring the emergency payments for everyone instead of grandstanding and getting in the way of the real heroes trying to do their jobs.

One of the first things to impress me greatly about Australia when I moved here in 2007 was the reaction each time a natural disater affected communities. Whether bush fire or flood, people would rally round to help those caught up in the disaster--and the government did it's part as well with rapid payments to those in need. However, now--while Abbott grandstands at a fire fighting photo op--the government announces THIS RUBBISH. If you're cut off from your home--even if it doesn't burn down--there are expenses. Many were forced to flee with only the clothes on their backs--but they still have to eat, get clean clothing, and so on. Anyone who voted for Abbott should hang their head in shame at things like this--even the Murdoch press seems to think the policy is heartless.

Foxtel is like "Sky junior". Even the electronic programme guide looks just like Sky but there are fewer channels even if you take the lot. Free to air is digital (though analogue hasn't been switched off yet in some places--but it's going totally in the next couple of months). There are 20 digital free to air channels--but not quite the variety you'd have on Freeview in the UK. The way they did it was give each of the 5 networks 4 digital channels each, one being the main channel and the other three being what they wanted. They've gone in different directions. There ARE internet package deals but I haven't explored them in detail. Some give you a small selection of Foxtel channels, others seem to have pay per view films and stuff. We've gone for Foxtel, mainly for a few of the channels like SciFi, (yeah, we're a family of nerds), Nat Geo, Discovery, UKTV and BBC World News--but it's not the cheapest. It's probably worth just tuning in the free to air stuff and seeing how you get on, with either Foxtel or some kind of Telstra/Optus internet deal there as a reserve if you really want more channels.

Well, a wink from the Pom Queen certainly helps...just don't tell my wife! :biggrin:

I'll let you know when the UK economy is healthy. I'll know because my UK pension (a private one, not a state one BTW) will be exchanged at $2.40 to the pound instead of the present $1.68. Whatever the OECD or WMF say, the UK has a way to go. I'm very glad I don't rely on the state pension--I opted out 30 years ago--but to propose cuts to those people who paid in for 40+ years trusting the government is verging on fraud. Successive governments mismanaged the whole concept of pensions by assuming they could pay them out of the current account instead of salting the money away in safe investments.

Let it hit. We're going to kill the planet anyway if we keep burning fossil fuel so it may as well be a quick death instead. (Can you tell I'm grumpy today?)

Shipping lithium batteries isn't illegal but, after several incidents of them shorting out and causing fires, they now have to be treated as dangerous goods.. The standard shippers probably don't want to get involved in this but there ARE specialists who will do it for you. A quick Google came up with THIS company. They're Australian but give their UK contact at the bottom. Of course the only issue is whether it's more economic to pay for special handling or just buy new batteries when you get here.

I had a Bosch washing machine back in the UK--it was excellent. However they're fairly expensive down here like most imported European brands. I've never tried an Electrolux fridge but our dishwasher is that brand and it's been fine. Choice of shops? We usually play The Good Guys and Harvey Norman off against each other--but we're in a position where their shops are in the same complex. Wherever you go, don't forget to haggle. You'll almost certainly get 10-25% off the display price. For decent furniture at reasonable prices, I recommend you at least have a look at Super Amart. We've had good experiences with them. Again, don't forget to haggle--you should get big discounts in either cash or other things you need "thrown in".

Take a couple of Aus power boards for things where you can't change the plug...phone chargers and the like. Just change the one plug on the end of the power board. For all the rest, change the plug. Adaptors are a pain in the posterior and many of them (unless you're careful buying) are only for fairly low power goods and might be unsafe on things with a heavy draw. I don't see changing plugs as anything time consuming or difficult. Am I the only one old enough to remember when every electrical item you bought came with bare wires on the end and you had to buy/install a plug?

Cafetiere "plunger" here. Alter the coffee/water ratio for stronger or weaker, quick as the stuff in jars. Instant coffees are the spawn of the devil.

That's far from impossible...providing you start paying into your pension (as a percentage of salary) early on--certainly before 25--and have it invested in safe but profitable things. I agree that if you simply put the money in your mattress the amount you'd have to put in every month over 40ish years is frightening--but with compound interest it grows over the long period of time we're talking about. I don't have tables to figure it all out but just as an example: From March 2000 to December 2001 I worked temporarily for a small company. I contributed to a personal pension scheme organised by the company for those 17 months then left the money sitting in the fund gaining interest. The value of the fund (despite global financial crises and so on) is still about 2.5 times what I put in 12 years ago. Over an entire working life, it would be relatively easy to amass that £200K or even more. The trouble is when you start late, take money out of your pension when you change jobs...or, as a government, you assume you'll be able to pay pensions out of the current account in 40 years. Pension contributions need to be salted away and invested, not just used like general taxation.

Thank goodness not everyone shares your point of view. Without change in the past we'd still be living under feudal lords and dying from the plague in our 30s.

So, when you see something wrong and unfair the best policy is to ignore it rather than pointing it out? Don't complain next time somebody dings your car in the carpark or you get fired for something your workmate does.

The UK has been messed up by both parties. Labour borrowed and spent like crazy during a period of economic growth when they should have been going for surplus budgets to pay down the amount of debt. Now the Tories (for ideological reasons) are focusing on austerity rather than growth, causing them to have to borrow even more money since revenues are down--and their idea of austerity is victimise the poor and cut taxes for the rich. You guys aren't going to win either way.

I think you'll find they WERE responsible, with a helping hand from their politician mates who deregulated the banking industry and allowed them to run things for themselves. Don't forget the difference between the investment banks who mess with dodgy things like hedge funds and the derivatives market and the high street banks and building societies who give you a mortgage or let you have an overdraft. ...well, at least their SHOULD be a difference but that's one of the big problems. The big banks were using money that used to be tied up in vaults or nice safe investments and gambled it away in the hope of get-rich-quick profits. I didn't borrow too much either (and by fluke sold my UK house at the top of the market in 2007) but, where some people DID take on debts they couldn't manage it was because banks encouraged them to then sold on the risky loan to other banks. As I said before, all this moving of money from pocket to pocket contributes nothing to anyone except the bankers. It's the same with the stock market. It used to be that stock prices reflected the value of a company and were looked upon as a long term investment with dividends representing a percentage of company profits. Nowadays, that link between company value and share value is all-too-often forgotten and the stocks have become a commodity in their own right. Money is made, not from dividends, but from simply buying and selling the shares with second by second accuracy. How about a radical scenario where nurses--and anyone else in a job that's actually necessary--are paid enough to put their monthly pay in a bank? If enough nurses deposit money, that might pay for 2/3 bankers to use that money to give mortgages to the nurses etc. I know that sounds very Jimmy Stewart but it makes more sense to me than the current international financial structure.

If they pay "massive" amounts of tax then your mates are rubbish at their jobs. The TOP rate of income tax in the UK is presently 45% and that only kicks in about £150,000. Beyond that, there are all sorts of dodges (for example a proportion of income paid off shore by international companies) that most bankers would use. There are far more tax dodges for the rich than for the working class. However, my point is not so much about individual bankers but, rather, about the system itself. Back in the days of the industrial revolution you got rich by building things and employing people. Now you get rich by gambling with other people's money and begging a government handout if you lose the gamble. This is totally non productive and the soon the world--not the UK or USA, the world--wises up and stomps out these despicable parasites on society the better.

Not if the whole world gets annoyed with the totally useless system and we all work together to boot them out on their bums. They caused the global financial crisis. Now lets have a global "send a banker to work at McDonalds" crisis.

Tie any MP pay rise to that received by the rest of the public service. I'd love an MP to give me one reason why that wouldn't be the fairest way to do it.