Cerberus1

Unfortunately, for the second year running, Kate's in hospital on her birthday. She's been in for the past 3 weeks. Not sure when she'll be online again but I've let her know that people are wishing her a happy birthday.

Watching the cricket, Keaton Jennings having a stormer

If you're moving to Australia and haven't decided where to want to live yet, it may be worthwhile keeping an eye on CommSec's 'State of the States' reports. The quarterly report attempts to find out how Australia’s states and territories are performing by analysing eight key indicators: economic growth retail spending equipment investment unemployment construction work done population growth housing finance dwelling commencements. Just as the Reserve Bank uses long-term averages to determine the level of “normal” interest rates; CommSec do the same with the economic indicators. For each state and territory, latest readings for the key indicators were compared with decade averages – that is, against the “normal” performance. The latest State of the States report also includes a section comparing annual growth rates for the eight key indicators across the states and territories as well as Australia as a whole. This enables another point of comparison – in terms of economic momentum. Victoria remains the top of the economic performance rankings. Victoria ranks first on economic growth, unemployment and construction work done. NSW is second on the overall economic performance rankings but still holds top spot for retail spending and dwelling starts. NSW is second ranked on three other indicators. The ACT has held on to third spot in the rankings. The ACT is top-ranked on relative housing finance and secondranked on population growth and business investment. Tasmania is in fourth position on the economic performance rankings, but is closing the gap on the ACT. Tasmania is ranked first on the relative position on population growth and business investment and is in second spot on housing finance. South Australia is now in fifth position on the performance rankings ahead of Queensland. But there is still little to separate the two economies. South Australia is thirdranked on construction work done and fourth on two other indicators. Queensland is now in sixth position. Queensland ranks fifth on four of the eight indicators. The Northern Territory retains its seventh position on the economic performance rankings and can be broadly grouped with Western Australia. Both are facing challenges with the transition of resource projects moving from the production to the export phase. The Northern Territory is third-ranked on economic growth. But it lags all other states and territories on five of the indicators. The good news is that employment has now been growing for the past five months. Western Australia is seventh or eighth on all indicators (eighth on three indicators). But equipment spending is now the highest in 3½ years

The 2018 Expat Insider Survey has recently been published. The Survey had 18,000 respondents from 178 different nationalities, living in 187 different countries. After ranking in the top 10 from 2014 to 2016, Australia faced a big drop in 2017, falling to 34th place out of 65. In 2018, it has recovered most of this lost ground, ranking 12th out of 68 destinations thanks to significant improvements in the Personal Finance, Quality of Life, and Ease of Settling In Indices. Australia is, in fact, among the biggest winners for all these indices, and also rose 19 ranks in the Working Abroad Index.

Turns out we have koalas on our property. Nat's heard them calling over the past couple of weeks so went to track it down today.

Synthpop/rock at the moment

$12 https://www.westpac.com.au/international-travel/international-transfers/receive-foreign-currency/

Trip up to Kuranda on the Kuranda Scenic Railway, then back down from Kuranda on the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway.

Hi The new link is: https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/Panelphysicians/Documents/panel-member-instructions.pdf

Dogtainers & Jetpets are the two main companies. We used Dogtainers a couple of months ago to pick our Dog up from Quarantine and ship to Brisbane.

Nat spotted this little snake on our land last night. It's a White Crowned snake - never seen this particular species before. Only tiny, around 15cm, not particularly venomous. Website I was reading up on about it says "Relying more on bluff display than bite. . They will generally rear up & 'mock strike' with mouth closed, more of a 'head butt'.

https://www.stayz.com.au/ is probably the biggest furnished rental / holiday accommodation type site. Some people rent cabin style accommodation at Big 4 sites - https://www.big4.com.au/ Apartments - could have a look at Quest https://www.questapartments.com.au/ Also worth a look at https://www.realestate.com.au/rent - you can refine the search to show furnished rentals

Migrationcover.com

There are many good registered migration agents who post on the forum who I wouldn't hesitate to recommend. Westly Russell - http://www.pinoyau.com/ Raul Senise - http://www.ozimmigration.com Richard Gregan - http://www.overseas-emigration.co.uk/ Alan Collett - https://www.gmvisas.com/ All MARA registered, many years experience as agents, all have contributed on the forum for around a decade or more.