Battleneter

I have heard of people commuting from the Sunshine Coast to Brisbane CBD and really its a stupid thing to do if you can avoid it. Lets say you car to Caboolture train station (32 mins), park and catch a train to the CBD (+64 mins). Basically you are at over 1.5 hours in both directions. 5 days x 3hrs commute a day = 15 hours a week JUST commuting, that sounds like living the dream! ALTERNATIVELY live somewhere like lets say Strathpine North Brisbane, spend 6.6 hours commuting a week AND then on weekends visit the Sunshine Coast 1hr in each direction. If employment is your goal the Sunshine Coast and Hervey Bay are weak choices with higher unemployment, but this is of course situational.

That article feels like its paid for by the mining industry, "While iron ore, coal and gold have traditionally been the nation's big earners".......... actually traditionally its agriculture, unless Australia's history only goes back 10-15 years A lot of the land they plan to do this Gas coal seem fracking on is some of Australia's most valuable farm land and the state governments are only looking at short term $$ solutions. Don't count on this "Boom" being as big as the mining industry is claiming. you can only push farmers so far and I see a large war on the not so distant horizon. If it boils down to food security vs short term gain $$ I know what side I will be on. Anyone that is interested... http://quitcoal.org.au/fracking-in-victoria/ http://actiononcoalandgas.org/?p=407

Yes and no.......... but you need the back story to make a informed judgement. Australia and NZ negotiated a free labour market bilateral agreement decades ago that basically allow Citizens from each nation to live in either country( Aus has the Special Category Visa). After 2 years of permanently living in the other country applying for citizenship was pretty much a formality in either country. In the 90's early 2000's a number of sensational Aus news reports ran on a few hundred Kiwi kids living it up on the dole on the Gold Coast (bottom dwellers). Even though overall Kiwis had a higher "employment" rate than Aussies in Aus there was a knee jerk reaction and the Aus government made some very short sighted changes that didn't seems a big deal at the time including making Kiwis apply for standard PR. NZ did not retaliate and the 68,000 Aussies in NZ still have full original rights as per the agreement, remember NZ is 5X smaller so that many Aussies is "basically equivalent" to 340,000 Kiwis in Aus (5x68,000) of "potential" support on the NZ government which of course is a stupid and negative bordering on racist way to think. So whats the problem?........ There is around 500,000 NZ born permanent residents living in Aus, maybe 250,000 (pure guess) would not qualify for PR, as in don't work in high demand jobs, maybe bakers or business Admin etc. This means even after 40 years living in Aus paying full taxes they still can't vote, get government assistance, will pay the NDIS tax levy but not be eligible to receive it (that's a new bombshell), no sickness or unemployment etc. The Special Category Visa in its current form has created a subclass of Australian permanent residence accidentally (one would hope accidentally), when I say permanent residents that's a accurate description not a legal definition. Solutions imo 1. End the SCV and Bilateral agreement completely, but the subclass problem for residents already living here still needs to be resolved. 2. Fix the SCV (maybe no government support for 5 years and can apply direct for SCV). So there we have it for anyone that was interested enough to read It annoys Kiwis NZ being used as a back door into Aus, and its not in the spirit of the bilateral agreement. I can think of a number of more intelligent ways that could have been stopped.

New Private Hospital is being built as we speak in Springfield. It seems Greater Springfield has hit a Critical mass with public transport about to arrive, the "preplanned/allocated" business district is getting interest from some heavy hitters which means working more local is a real possibility for many people, also retail in the central area is accelerating. http://www.qt.com.au/news/springfield-hospital-unveiled-hospital-to-service-/1881991/ http://www.qt.com.au/news/theyanks-arecoming-ges-springfield-site-will-be-ma/1992123/ http://www.qt.com.au/news/the-lions-are-coming/1985921/ Public Transport is interesting, I am not sure I will use the New Springfield station. At the moment I am car 11 minutes to Gailes Station and using the "express" train 27 min to the CBD, which would work out identical to a stop all stations out of Richland's that Forest Lakers use. Distance should be ignored with commuting, its all about "time" well at least for me. I can get to the CBD faster than some suburbs 10K closer! I like Forest Lakes too and we considered it carefully, I even use the Mens Barbour in the mall down there as its not far away. For us Greater Springfield has the edge and the original Springfield is mega quiet which is what we wanted, each to there own however. /end advert

Reading the other replies, I would have to weigh in heavily with $54K will be a HUGE struggle if you are having to pay full rent out of that. You can do it but you will have to be incredibly frugal watching every dollar, and hearing those words and living them are two different things. If you arrive with a spare AU$30K "after" purchasing what you need here, then that may be ok as you have some emergency fall back money, but if you have no reserve I could see 5+ years of real hardship. Unless you have a real chance to get a 20K pay rise in the first few years, I will say don't do it!

Half of your salary would be about $630 a week on rent, big contributor to your struggle and if its crap I am "guessing" you are renting in a old inner suburb, My advice, find a "quality" place to rent in a outer new estate suburb for around $350-400, yes you may have another 20 minute commute and maybe $30 more in commute costs if using public transport, but run the numbers you will be far ahead and just view the extra commute time as a few hours a week as overtime.

Ahhh South West Brisbane is not North Lakes, strongly advise against renting in the North of the City if you have to commute to the south (maybe a mistake your post, you meant south east QLD?) +1 but id say Anywhere in the "Greater Springfield Development", Springfield, Springfield Lakes, Augustine Heights, Brookwater, a few minor differences but not much in it. http://www.greaterspringfield.com.au/index.php I also quite like Forest Lakes as another option for South West.

Fair enough, probably age comes into it a bit as well, Inner city is great if you are in say your 20's and renting a apartment simply more closer to do, but a 20 year old is likely to die of boredom in some of the housing estates.

Yea see personally I hate older QLD housing in which make up most of the areas you listed (I call them substandard overpriced shacks on stilts) with the exception of the rare TRUE Queenslander not those wooden boxes pretending to be Queenslanders. Also hate those chain link fences you see everywhere in the inner suburbs, some people love the inner suburbs but I am not one of them, which is kinda my point about what each individual wants. I would be more like North Lakes (North) Mango Hill (North) Forest lakes (South) Springfield/Springfield lakes (new private Hospital being built now). (South) Middle Park (South) Augustine heights Plenty of others with modern housing but a few to steer clear of imo like Redbank planes.

Generally speaking most employment agencies don't like to deal with people not already in he country as overseas enquirers often fall flat so I have been told.. Its not impossible just a lot harder. My advice is go on Seek.com.au and change to the city you are after, pretend you are looking for a job right now!, see what is available, do it for a few weeks every day. If there is 5 maybe 10 jobs a week that seem like roughly you then you are golden, if not then you may have to ponder your options.

Largely if you work near the CBD, north or south doesn't really matter, however you want avoid commuting across the CBD to get to the other side is generally a nightmare (done it). As for best suburbs, depends what you want, apartments or don't mind old housing then inner city suburbs, if you prefer new larger modern houses then go to the housing estate suburbs. Being further out doesn't necessary always mean a longer commute, can be situational. Really you need to detail what you are after so people can recommend based on your criteria, most people will recommend the suburb they live in, they like it that's why they live there (presumably).

I work for a ASX200 listed company in Brissy with a sizeable IT department and I am not seeing good experienced staff finding it hard to change roles or companies at all. I know my company hasn't exactly had a huge selection to choose from when filling positions. I am with you "I have a mate that works in IT that and is finding it hard" means nothing, is he a 18 years old Service Desk guy with 4 moths of experience, or a 40 year old DBA with 15 years+ of experience. Brisbane is a very clear #3 for IT and "per population" I would estimate 20-30% weaker than Melbourne which isn't bad.

Well if you want to do corporate IT think Brisbane CBD (or fringe CBD). There are a number of small company's out in industrial estate areas like Wacol for example with maybe a few dozen to few hundred users but large IT is unfortunately centered around the CBD like most cities probably 90%. Best advise is don't try and live on the Sunshine coast or Gold coast and then spend 1-1.5+ hours a day each direction in a hellish commute, live in a area with a good rail link and VISIT those nice spots on the weekend. Plenty of nice housing estates you can buy or rent with a pool, personally I live 1hr from the GC guess around 1.40 from the GC. I feel your pain but IT is all about major centers, I chose Brisbane to keep the size and speed of the city down over Melbourne or Sydney if you get what I mean.

I am a IT L3 Infrastructure engineer here in Brisbane, took 9 days from sending out my CV (email), 4 job interviews, to having two job offers on the table at the same time. I am a Kiwi not from the UK, however should make no difference. Looking at Seek today there is 3 or 4 jobs that are exactly me I could apply for, and probably a dozen more I could settle for (total of 88 in my field advertised). I feel like I could change jobs any time if I desired. Brisbane is not as strong for IT as Melbourne or Sydney but its still very good for a number of fields. Saying your are in IT is kinda meaningless as its so vast, you really need to be specific with your experience qualification and field.

I would strongly advise loosing those CD's and buying a MP3 player, its like 2013 forged sakes BTW whats a book?

The US has indicated it will slow down on printing money, mean while funds and individuals are abandoning there position in Gold and the $US is rising. There is so much cheap printed $US currency (excessively created out of thin air) bouncing from one speculative bubble to the next one at the moment, the entire system has become a giant unproductive casino. The only prediction possible is seeing these huge swings in Shares/Gold/Currency continue for the next decade and that's assuming the money printing stops now.

Commute times around greater Brisbane can be VERY unexpected and not dependent on distance as some might expect. For example I live in Springfiled (30k's ish from the CBD about 5 K's further). Its about a 10 min drive to the Gailes train station and then 27 minute train trip to the CBD (37 minutes+ walk in CBD). Wellington Point is prob a 5 minute car/walk to the local station and a 49 minute train each way (53 minutes+ Walk in CBD). Its all a matter if you can grab a express train that skips stations and how many stops along the way. I suggest checking the Translink journey planner site using your actual commute times. http://translink.com.au/

Exactly, better off living and having a business located in the general Brisbane area where there are clearly far more potential customers for a small business. Visit the Sunshine coast or Gold Coast on weekends. That said my undertanding is the tradies are generally doing it pretty tough atm

With respect I believe you generally have happiness issues and looking at countries as the cause. The truth is you can be happy in nearly any country, you can be happy rich or poor. to me it appears your home is where your heart is and you are currently home. Some advice/thoughts 1. Commit to where you are as the 100% right decision and make it work. 1. Seek career progression and seek higher paying employment. 2. Actively seek a partner this will help with living expenses along with emotional benefits. 3. Don't worry about the future so much, enjoy today (a problem I suffer with), enjoy the little things. 4. Your parents may well change their minds and come home eventually. 5. You still have time to return to Aus at a later date, ther eis no panic. If you make a REAL effort to improve things but fail then sure start think about Aus again, but you are going to have to commit and put in the same effort no matter where you live.

Aus building industry is still very flat, you should consider Christchurch NZ as a alternative, decades of work there and it is picking up.

Cough actually I pointed out the median Salary here maybe 6 months ago To be clear the "average" salary is around $70K, the "Median" is around 55-56k (all excluding tax). Average and median are two different things. Median is a better indicator and usually what people are referring to when they mistakenly say "average". Keep in mind also not all part time workers want full time jobs. Personally I think raising families with tow full time parents working is a mistake. My wife for example does casual work and that's all we want. Certainly there is a underemployment issue in Aus however no argument there. In addition as I have posted before the Aus government is hiding around 500,000 unemployed people in the massive 800,000 people on the disability benefit (a stupid figure for the populations size). This disability figure should be around 300,000 when comparing with similar nations. This is allowed to happen as it makes the unemployment rate look up to 3% better than it should be. The NZ government got busted in the mainstream media for this trick going back about 6 years and clamped down on the practice. For some reason the mainstream media here have run a few timid stories and all the politicians seem content not to seriously tackle the issue. Its like a dirty little secret Aus doesn't want the rest of the world to know.

Actually the "Median" full time salary in Aus is around AU$55,000. This is where 50% of full time employees earn more, and 50% of full time employees earn less, so $55K is actually what most of us are thinking when we think average. The word "Average" is misleading as those CEO jumbo salary and other high pay workers push up the "Average" dollar figure to $70K. Keep in mind this is probably true of any country where "Average Salary" is quoted, however some countries have better wealth distribution than others so not always directly comparable.

The SINGLE biggest clue the UK economy is extremely sick is the ongoing money printing. The UK has never before had to resort to money printing in its modern history, sorry I mean "quantitative easing" the term generated for the mainstream media. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/liamhalligan/9591594/Brace-yourselves-for-another-round-of-money-printing.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15198789 The UK is not alone with its money printing, its been going on for years in the US as a "temporary policy" that has done nothing but pick up pace. This cheap money is artificial stimulus and fakes GDP growth, and simply cannot continue indefinitely. I see real pain in the US and UK down the road as the governments treat the symptoms not the cause that seems to favor the rich at the expensive of the middle class and poor. Australia has similar issues to the US/UK, its just 5 years behind in the symptoms imo, the entire capitalist system has become extremely corrupt and heavily manipulated. We can't compare this recession to previous ones, this is new territory.

Yep agree with most, Redbank appears like a fairly low socioeconomic type of area and it shows, my wife and I had a look at the area when we got here and drove straight back out. I wouldn't rule out the original "Springfield" area as its has fairly modern houses and you tend to get more land and house for $ than Lakes and pretty much a identical cross section of people to Lakes, or Augustine heights both are part of the greater Springfield development and close to the Orion mall center. Springfield Lakes is generally nice, but watch out for land size as there are a mix of small and decent plots.

Mount Ruapehu was mount Doom, who knew (and I am a Kiwi). Nothing new, it threw its teddies out of the pram in 2009 as well, the only real impact is aircraft have to take a steer clear, would be awesome to watch