Cerberus1

South Australia only charge the Visa student contribution fee if you're on a 457 or 482 visa (in which case it's $5,200 for each primary school student & $6,200 for each secondary school student). The 489 visa is viewed more as a precursor to PR and as such, you won't pay any fees (aside from the contributions which every school charges, which normally are a couple of hundred dollars a term). Yes, you'll be able to enroll your children in a public school

That's because the Private Message Facility only becomes available when you've made a certain number of posts on the forum. As you've elected to use a new account, you don't have that facility yet.

I send a 20kg parcel a few times a year from Uk to Aus. I use https://www.parcelmonkey.co.uk/ and it usually costs around the £100 mark. Usually takes 5-7 days to arrive.

As at 31/03/2018 The number of people in Australia on Temporary Resident (Skilled) Visas is 84,676 (Dept of Home Affairs stats)

Gondor on his morning walk

Local dam this morning. Nice and crisp, around 8c

As above, 2 bores, lack of insulation in house, inefficient hot water system etc. Things which can be improved, if/when funds allow

Massive growth in Australia's ballooning temporary migration is dwarfing the Government's cuts to the permanent intake. The number of people who hold bridging visas — the same kind of visa given to the Commonwealth Games athletes who are seeking asylum — has hit a historic high. At the end of March, 195,000 people with bridging visas were in Australia, including more than 37,000 whose nationality was not specified. That is up more than 40,000 on a year ago, and close to 90,000 since 2014, according to official Department of Home Affairs figures. It has pushed the number of people in Australia on temporary visas to more than 2.2 million — again, a record high. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said the Government was planning on cutting the permanent migration intake from its traditional level of 190,000 per year, down to approximately 170,000 this year. But that number is dwarfed by the scale of the temporary visa program. In the past year an additional 150,000 visitors are in Australia on temporary visas, including 33,000 more foreign students. The Government has rolled out an overhaul of both temporary and permanent migration programs in the past year. Jonathan Granger, director of Granger Australia and a former national president of the Migration Institute of Australia, described the migration program as "chaotic", saying processing times in major visa streams including the temporary skill shortage (formerly code 457), employer-nominated scheme and skilled independent visas had all grown in recent years. A Department of Home Affairs spokesperson said processing times were driven by a range of factors including: the volume of applications received, completeness of the application, how promptly applicants respond to any requests from the department, and the complexity of assessments in relation to health, character and national security requirements. The boom in bridging visas has been driven by a mysterious component of 37,000 visa holders for whom the Department of Home Affairs will not reveal their nationality. The Department of Home Affairs declined to provide more explanation about this group. Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-22/bridging-visa-surge-overwhelms-permanent-migration-cuts/9785946

If, like me, you live in Regional Queensland, then you're in for a brucie bonus. Wait for it.. The Queensland Competion Authority has determined that power prices will drop.. saving the average consumer.. a whopping.. 5.5c per day

Well this is pretty disappointing given the Australian offering is pretty poor in comparsion to Amazon's US or UK sites. Online retail giant Amazon will block Australian consumers from its global sites to counter new laws to force it to collect the good and services tax on transactions. From July 1 when the new GST regulations begin, Australian consumers shopping on Amazon international sites will be redirected to the local Australian site. In a statement issued to the ABC, Amazon said it regretted the move and the inconvenience to customers accustomed to visiting Amazon's global online stores. "We have had to assess the workability of the legislation as a global business with multiple international sites," a spokeswoman said.

A plan to make migrants wait four years before accessing welfare benefits would affect 66,000 families. Tens of thousands of families would be hit by a proposal to make migrants wait four years before accessing a range of welfare benefits. Legislation already before parliament seeks to push the welfare waiting period for newly-arrived migrants from two to three years, in a measure expected to save $1.3 billion. The federal government is now proposing to stretch the wait times for migrants out to four years from July 1. The extra squeeze on migrants is expected to save an additional $200 million. The government predicts 66,000 migrant families will be forced to wait longer for tax benefits, and 47,000 people will be impacted by the freeze on access to Newstart, Youth Allowance and other payments. Social Services Department officials say the two cohorts are not mutually exclusive, with some migrant families tapping into other welfare payments. Department officer Shane Bennett played down concerns the proposal would prove a disincentive to migration. "There is evidence from the OECD that reflects access to social security systems is not necessarily high on the factors people consider," Mr Bennett told a Senate estimates hearing on Thursday. "There is also a Productivity Commission report from 2016 that shows non-humanitarian permanent migrants had effectively lower take-up rates of income support to the general population." Migrant and community groups have pushed back hard against moves to extend welfare wait times, fearing it could force some new arrivals into destitution and poverty. Exemptions will continue to apply for vulnerable groups and humanitarian entrants, while hardship provisions also will also remain in place. Source: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/longer-welfare-wait-times-for-migrants-would-affect-66-000-families

Interesting article on th ABC about catchment area fraud for Brisbane State High school and the steps some parents take - buying investment properties in the area and pretending to live there. Brisbane State High School has become so pressured by rising enrolments it is employing an investigator to weed out families who are rorting the catchment system so their children can attend the school. The high school has just called on the Queensland Government to introduce a cap on enrolments to tackle overcrowding. School council chairman David Gillespie said rorting resulted in an extra 200 students attending per year. "The big problem is what I would call catchment fraud," Mr Gillespie said. "It's a combination of people lying about living in the catchment, which is part of it, and probably an even bigger problem is people who do live in the catchment on the day they enrol and they didn't live there the day before. "They have no intention of staying there any longer than they have to." West End resident Lainie Diacos said she had enrolled her daughter at the school. She said she had heard horror stories about the lengths some parents went to so their children could attend Brisbane State High, including buying investment properties in the area and pretending to live there. "The kids go there [to the properties] after school and turn taps on and run electricity so they look like they're living there," she said. Ms Diacos said the school already went to extensive lengths to prove prospective students lived in the catchment. "The hoops that we had to go through to prove that we were legitimate catchment dwellers was tough," she said. Mr Gillespie admitted the problem was serious enough to prompt the school to hire an investigator and liaise with police to stamp out fraudsters. He said it was not an ideal situation. "The end of that process is ripping a kid out of that school and no matter what you think of their parents and what they did to get them there, this is still a kid we're talking about," he said. He called on the State Government to cap enrolments. "Make sure that cap is generous, make sure it allows for everyone we know who lives in the catchment — and a lot more — but when that cap is hit you can't enrol in the catchment anymore." Full article at: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-30/brisbane-state-high-catchment-fraud-rort-locals/9817190

Perfect time of yea r

It's a go on the Skips Unfortunately, there's a bit of a crisis on the Skampi Fries front https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink/scampi-fries-disappear-from-pubs-1302117