Cerberus1

17th

Australia has been ranked 5th out of 80 countries for 'Quality of Life' in the recently announced 2018 Best Country Rankings.

The results were based on a study that surveyed more than 21,000 global citizens from four regions to asses perceptions of 80 countries.

The Quality of Life ranking is based on an equally weighted average of scores from nine country attributes that relate to quality of life in a country:

• affordable
• a good job market
• economically stable
• family friendly
• income equality
• politically stable
• safe
• well-developed public education system
• well-developed public health system.

The Top 5 Countries for the 'Quality of Life' ranking:

1. Canada
2. Denmark
3. Sweden
4. Norway
5. Australia

According to the CGU Migrant Small Business Report, a third of all small businesses in Australia are being run by migrants and many had no entrepreneurial experience prior to setting up thriving enterprises. Greater independence was said to be the primary motivator for migrants in starting up their own businesses.

The CGU Migrant Small Business Report was based on EY Sweeney research of over 900 business owners. It was released on Monday.

The report shows that migrant owners are determined to create jobs for themselves. It also suggests that they are more highly educated compared to their non-migrant counterparts, with 51 percent having a bachelor degree or higher.

Among the key findings of the report was that 83 percent of migrant small business owners did not own a business before coming to Australia. While the key motivator for those setting up their own businesses was greater independence, they were also more likely to take the plunge when they can’t find other work.

Some Australians are currently working for migrant bosses. Over 1.4 million Australians are reportedly working for migrant employers at this time.

The number is expected to climb by a further 200,000 over the next five to 10 years. A third of businesses in Australia, which are owned by migrants, can possibly hire more people due to increasing demand.

CGU Insurances's small business spokeswoman Kate Wellard said the “significant contribution” migrant small business owners make to Australia is largely an “untold story.” "Our research helps challenge perceptions that our migrants are taking more than they're giving and the positive impact they have on our business community.”

Australia's five biggest cities have "severely unaffordable" housing markets, according to an international housing affordability think tank.

Sydney was ranked "second worst", with house prices almost 13 times higher than the median household income, Demographia said in its 14th annual report.

It was beaten only by Hong Kong, where property prices were about 20 times higher than household incomes.

Also in the list of top-10 "least affordable" housing markets were Vancouver, San Jose, Melbourne (fifth place), Los Angeles, Honolulu, San Francisco, Auckland and London (in that order).

The study found Melbourne's house prices were almost 10 times higher than the median household income.

As for Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth, they came in at 16th, 18th and 21st place respectively — with house prices about six times more than incomes.

Only about 35 here today, which is probably why I'd to take electric blanket into hospital for @The Pom Queen 

Cornerstone Medical Recruitment are in Brisbane - https://www.cmr.com.au/

General job sites such as seek - https://www.seek.com.au/medical-administrator-jobs/in-All-Brisbane-QLD

UnitingCare Health - http://unitingcarehealth.com.au/careers

Hopefully other members should be able to assist with other sites/ideas.  

Hi

If you're from the UK, then, as the UK and Australia has a reciprocal health care agreement, you would be covered for:

• medically necessary care out of hospital
• medically necessary care as a public patient in a public hospital
• prescription medicines at a lower price - this is the general rate for drugs in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme

among the things you wouldn't be covered for:

• care that isn’t clinically essential
• medicines that aren’t in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme
• private hospital care
• public hospital care as a private patient
• ambulance travel
• dental care unless it’s in the Chronic Disease Management scheme
• care from a physiotherapist, occupational therapist, speech therapist, eye therapist, chiropractor, podiatrist or psychologist unless it’s in the Chronic Disease Management scheme
• glasses and contact lenses
• costs someone else is responsible for - for example an insurer, employer or government agency

There are other things which aren't covered as well.

Have a look at https://www.humanservices.gov.au/individuals/enablers/rhca-medical-care-visitors-australia

http://www.go-walkabout.co.uk/ do specialist travel insurance for backpackers and people on Working Holidays. Both their backpacker & Working Holiday policies do cover for emergency Medical Expenses outside home country.

I'd make sure you covered for ambulance cover if possible as that potentially can run into thousands in some states (especially if Air Ambulance is required).

Australia's household debt to income ratio has hit nearly 200 per cent, a level UBS analysts have called "extremely elevated" and "one of the highest in the world".

Total household liabilities have been revised upwards to $2.466 trillion, or 199.7 per cent of disposable income, by Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The revision was due to higher debt held within self-managed super funds, as the ABS is now incorporating new data from Australian Prudential Regulation Authority in its national accounts numbers.

UBS analysts expect households to become even more leveraged over the next one to two years, as income growth remains subdued.

"We expect total household debt to disposable income to peak around 205 per cent before the slow deleveraging process begins," analysts Jonathan Mott and Rachel Bentvelzen wrote.

As house prices continue to cool, particularly in Sydney, the UBS analysts see a number of brakes on the property market as "the housing bubble begins to deflate".

These include APRA's crackdown on interest only loans and the banks moving to improve lending standards amid scrutiny over "liar loans".

"Sentiment for investment into the housing market is waning, with the 'fear of missing out' euphoria fading quickly, especially in Sydney," the analysts wrote.

"Further, affordability remains a material issue."

According to the latest 'Cost of Living Index' (compiled by price aggregation website Numbeo.com), many Australian capital cities have become more expensive over the past year compared to the rest of the world.

Australia's most expensive city — Sydney — has risen to number 32 in this year's Cost of Living Index, up from 41 last year.

Melbourne rose to 64, up from 77, while Adelaide, Cairns, Hobart and Canberra also moved up the list to 58, 69, 82 and 103 respectively.

Only Perth (56), Darwin (68) and Brisbane (93) have become more affordable.

The UNSW Business School's Professor Kristy Muir, chief of the Centre for Social Impact, said although we have had a "couple of decades of the strongest growth in GDP" and are seeing low inflation rates around the country, "day to day this doesn't reflect individuals' household living expenses".

"The cost of living for people on welfare is particularly challenging because you have a limited amount of income coming in, and yet your expenses have increased.

"Housing has gone up, whether you're paying rent or whether you're paying mortgages.

"The amount of money people are spending on housing has gone up relative to increases in wages or wage growth."

But Professor Muir said it was important to realise that not all of those who live in poverty were unemployed.

"One in three people who are living in poverty actually have wages, so we have challenges not just about how we make sure people have jobs, but we also want people to have stable jobs," she said.

"We want them to have jobs that are secure, and we need them to be able to get the amount of hours to be able to work to cover their living costs."

The top 10 most expensive countries has remained largely unchanged over the past 12 months, with Hamilton in Bermuda hanging onto the top spot and Swiss cities including Zurich, Geneva, Basel and Bern dominating the top 10.

New York came in at number 14, with Tokyo at 21 and Paris at 23.

At 42 on the list was London, which again ranked more affordable than Sydney.

The index, which uses New York prices as a benchmark, showed the cost of living in Sydney it was 91 per cent of New York's and in London it was 89 per cent.

Nationally, the Numbeo report found costs like groceries, rent and restaurant prices were most expensive in Sydney and Darwin, while cities like Hobart, Cairns and the Gold Coast had some of the cheapest.

Australia's jobs boom has extended to its 15th consecutive month growth, the longest unbroken period of growth recorded by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

In seasonally adjusted terms, 35,000 new jobs were added in December, well ahead of the median economist forecast of 15,000.

In the past 12 months, around 400,000 new jobs have been added.

However, unemployment in December also ticked up a notch to 5.5 per cent as more people looked for work, pushing the participation rate up to a seven-year high of 65.7 per cent.

The growth was split between 15,100 full-time positions and 19,500 part-time jobs in December, although over the year 300,000 full-time jobs have been created compared to 100,000 extra part-time positions.

Job prospects for women were brighter over the year as well, with the number of women in work rising by 240,000 and the number of males in work up by only 160,000.

However, with part-time work growth outpacing full-time in December, average hours worked fell over the month, as did hours worked per employee.

Capital Economics analyst Paul Dales said, while there was some "softness" in the figures, the overall picture is bright, with the unemployment rate easing back from the 5.7 per cent recorded at the start of 2017.

"Looking ahead, other indicators suggest further progress will be made this year, albeit jobs growth will probably come off the boil a bit," Mr Dales said.

"The labour market will drive a modest rebound in real income growth this year, but more needs to be achieved before wage growth rises meaningfully."

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-18/unemployment-december-2017/9338664

10 hours ago, DrPopkorne said:

Have to be honest this was one of my biggest worries with moving to Aus (QLD in the next year hopefully) as I often work, research,and play over the internet pretty frequently as part of my life. I currently get a steady speed of around 75mbps on my home network in England and believe me I make good use out of it.

I am scared of what speeds I would be expecting after the move.. and certainly when I visited my girlfriends family in Queensland I twitched a little when they were showcasing me their beautiful 4K TV... but then downsizing the stream to 480p. @Cerberus1 you live in Brisbane right? Is it possible to get a very high broadband package, something 50MBps+ on NBN and expect a similar speed in return or are they limited to like 8, 12, 25 etc like some others suggested?

The other question I'd like to ask is what providers are recommended? I come in with very little experience on who is a reputable company or not, Telstra and Virgin are about the only two I recognise.

Hi

I live rural now, about 100km outside Brisbane in the Lockyer Valley. I connect to the NBN via fixed wireless (which is like a small satellite dish on the roof which points towards the nearest nbn tower). Despite being a fair distance from the tower, lots of trees in the way etc, I can hit 40+Mbps off peak and probably 25+Mbps peak (both of which are fast enough to stream 4k).

In Brisbane, you'd be more likley to be on a Fibre to The Node connection (or Fibre to the Premises if you were really lucky). There's lots in the news at the moment about Fibre to the Node as the companies advertised speeds which they knew customers couldn't receive and as such, have been investigated by the ACCC

(eg https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/telstra-offers-to-compensate-42000-customers-for-slow-nbn-speeds )

I guess the upshot is, at least you're more likely to know exactly what speed you'll be able to get in future as the companies won't be able to offer unachievable speeds.

It's impossible to say what speeds you'll get as it will differ suburb to suburb and even street to street. When you're loking at properties, go onto the Telco's websites and enter the property address's and they should tell you what connection types/speeds are available.

Telstra and Optus are the 2 biggest Telco's. There's also providers such as iinet, TPG etc.We're with Optus

It's an important decision when you work from home. When we moved over, he bought a fantastic house, only to be discover there were no ADSL ports available and all we could get was ISDN - which would make running a business from home impossible. Fortunately after writing to various elected representatives and kicking up enough fuss, I was able to get ADSL.

16 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

Thanks. Which one turns off the notice for "someone reacts'?  Is it the "reputation" one?

Yes, that's the one (I just had to check myself)

4 hours ago, Marisawright said:

I've set mine up to get a daily digest and that's working just fine - EXCEPT for one thing.  I get an individual email every time someone "reacts" to one of my posts.  How can I turn that off?

Account Settings -> Notification Settings  (or click this link - https://www.pomsinoz.com/notifications/options/ )

Scroll down and you'll see a section like this:

enable/disable as required and click 'Save'

New data from the Housing Industry Association (HIA) shows that the overall proportion of state government revenue coming from stamp duty on property purchases is the highest it has been for ten years.

The data is contained in the HIA’s latest quarterly ‘Stamp Duty Watch’ report. Highlights:

• The dependence of Australia’s states on stamp duty revenue has increased significantly in recent years. During 2015-16, stamp duty accounted for 26.1 percent of total state tax revenues – the highest share since 2008-09. Stamp duty dependence is highest in Victoria (30.0 percent) and NSW (28.1 percent).

• During December 2017, the typical stamp duty bill faced by owner occupiers across Australia was $20,587, adding an average 3.1 percent to the dwelling price.
• Stamp duty bills eat into homebuyer deposits, requiring them to settle for smaller homes or else take on bigger mortgage loans. In this way, stamp duty increases mortgage repayments by $1,247 per year – equivalent to over $37,000 over a 30-year loan term.

• Based on December 2017 prices, typical stamp duty bills were highest in Victoria ($31,970), NSW ($25,190) and the Northern Territory ($20,805). Stamp duty bills are typically lowest in Queensland ($7,175) on a median price dwelling.
• Dwelling prices usually increase over time but governments adjust stamp duty price brackets very infrequently. This is the problem of ‘bracket creep.’ As a result, the burden of stamp duty has grown heavier in most states including NSW, Victoria, SA, Tasmania and the NT.
• Stamp duty on foreign investors has been increased over the past 12 months. For the purchase of a median-priced unit, the bills are particularly high in Sydney ($91,115) and Melbourne ($74,524). Such excessive taxes risk hampering the effective operation of rental markets around the country.

“Stamp duty bills have increased almost three times faster than house prices since the 1980s,” said HIA Senior Economist, Shane Garrett. “This trend will continue unless stamp duty is reformed

“In Victoria, the typical stamp duty bill increased from 1.9 percent to 5.2 percent of the median dwelling price between 1982 and 2017 – equivalent to a surge of 4000 percent in the cash value of stamp duty. NSW homebuyers fared little better, with the stamp duty burden rising from 1.6 percent to 3.8 percent over the same period.

“Increases in home prices cause stamp duty bills to accelerate because stamp duty rate brackets are rarely updated. This is the problem of stamp duty creep. In NSW, stamp duty rates have not been reformed since 1985, when the average house price was just $70,000,” said Mr Garrett.

“State governments are compounding the housing affordability crisis. Total stamp duty revenues have almost doubled over the past four years: from $11.7 billion in 2011-12 to $20.6 billion in 2015-16. Most of this is likely to have come from residential building.

“State governments are now more reliant on stamp duty revenues than at any time for a decade. This trend will continue unless they recalibrate their taxes on housing. This situation is not sustainable. The stamp duty burden is increasing under every metric: nominal dollars, real dollars, as a proportion of dwelling prices and as a share of total state revenue.

“By draining the pockets of homebuyers to the tune of over $20 billion each year, stamp duty is a central pillar of the housing affordability crisis. A long plan to do away with the scourge of stamp duty would be a huge victory for housing affordability in this country,” he said.

Source: https://www.governmentnews.com.au/2018/01/state-governments-relying-stamp-duty/

Have been happy with NBN at this house (Fixed Wireless) and previous house (FTTP)

The optus 4g near Greenslopes Hospital is pretty rapid, 170 Mbps during the middle of the day, that's more than 4x faster than my broadband.

On 12/01/2018 at 04:30, simmo said:

what does that cost you (out of interest)?

Around $100 pm for broadband,landline & optustv box packaged together 

The Courier Mail is reporting that the Australian Tax Office (ATO) will be analyzing the records of up to twenty million migrants (past and present) to ensure they are not ripping off Australians and are paying their fare share of tax.

The financial and personal details of visa holders who have come and gone from Australia will be audited over the next three years to enforce income tax and superannuation requirements.

The massive blowtorch, which includes migration agents who help get migrants to Australia, also aims to identify potential fraudsters rorting foreign investment rules.

While the ATO has put migrants in the crosshairs previously, it has not been at this mammoth scale.

It comes as the ATO is launching a targeted and well-resourced crackdown on the black economy, which benefits some workers but duds Australia of revenue.

The latest information sweep is extensive and will include the address history visa applicants and their sponsors; all their arrivals and departures in Australia and details of their education provider if they are on a student visa.

A spokeswoman for Revenue Minister Kelly O’Dwyer said the operation could recoup cash for the taxpayer and ensure eligible migrants receives their superannuation before they left the country.

“The ATO has a responsibility to protect the public revenue and to maintain community confidence in the integrity of the tax system,’’ she said.

“The data-matching program does this by detecting, dealing with and deterring those that are not meeting their obligations.

“It also enables enforcement activity and recovery of taxation revenue – without undertaking this data matching program and subsequent compliance activity there are no assurances that a wider risk to revenue does not exist.

“The data also supports the ATO to administer aspects of Australia’s foreign investment laws and reunite seasonal workers with their superannuation entitlements under the Labour Mobility Assistance Program.”

The ATO said, “It is estimated that records of 20 million individuals will be obtained over the course of the three year period.

“These records will be electronically matched with ATO data holdings to identify noncompliance with obligations under taxation and superannuation laws.

“The objectives of this data matching program are to maintain currency of our knowledge of taxation and superannuation risks within the visa holders, visa sponsors and migration agents populations (and) test the accuracy and strengths of our existing risk detection models ... and identify areas for improvement in our models, treatment systems and practices.”

Source: https://aumigforu.ms/2D1sKkm

Hi Marle

Have a quick look at 

It may be worthwhile running your case by a MARA registered migration agent, such as @Richard Gregan who deals with lots of cases involving medical conditions.

38 today, then a couple of days of 31/32 before going back up again 

Lockyer Valley, QLD

Bit of a scorchio today in the Valley, 41c

local dam this evening