ABL275

Gosh - how long is a piece of string! I'm sure there been plenty of similar questions asked on this site so with a little searching you will probably get a wealth of information but most of it you'll have to put together yourselves based on your own personal circumstances e.g. what's already paid for and what's not, what are you bringing with you and what will you need to buy, and do you already have any job leads etc.? Things to think about post arrival: Hotel costs and rental car for about 2-3 weeks while looking for somewhere to rent - Google hotels in the area that you're looking at and whatever car rental's are available from Melbourne airport. Google home rentals etc from - http://www.domain.com.au/‎ and http://www.allhomes.com.au/ - these will cover about 99% of what's available. Normally 4 weeks deposit plus 4 weeks rent in advance is pretty standard. Most homes (at least in Canberra) come with a dishwasher but no other white goods so budget for a washing machine and dryer. The main white goods suppliers include http://www.binglee.com.au, http://www.thegoodguys.com.au and http://www.harveynorman.com.au Getting a telephone line and internet connection from Telstra as well as cable from FoxTel can be expensive as there's often a hefty installation fee (see http://www.telstra.com.au and http://www.foxtel.com.au) as well as having to pay a month in advance for rental etc. Buying a car - http://www.carsales.com.au is the biggest national site, can't remember if you also pay stamp duty on more expensive cars so worth Googling. The National Roads and Motorists' Association, known as NRMA, is the largest RAC/AA equivalent and maybe worth investing in - http://www.nrma.com.au Petrol tends to be cheaper - about AU$1.40/Litre here in Canberra but often cheaper elsewhere. Caltex, Shell, BP etc are the main suppliers. Local rail/tram/ferry/bus travel is generally also cheaper than the UK, check out http://www.ptv.vic.gov.au/ - as in the UK, places close to train stations will be more expensive so maybe check this while looking at places to live. No idea how long it would take you to find a job but the main websites that I've used are Linked-In and http://www.seek.com.au which again, is probably the biggest national site. Hopefully someone else will be able to give you an idea. You'll also have to pay for Victorian driving licenses from a local state services 'shopfront'/office - only about $40 a head (I think) Food and drink can be more expensive - Coles and Woolworths (http://www.coles.com.au and http://www.woolworths.com.au) are the main supermarkets although Aldi and Lidl are now moving into Australia in numbers so check those and see what your weekly shop might cost. Household goods can be found at Big W and K-Mart, or Harvey Norman. The two main department stores are David Jones and Myers if you need anything more comfortable. Total it all up and then add about 20% just to be on the safe side as I'm bound to have forgotten a load of things. I've also assumed you have no children as there can be a pricey contribution to their schooling required in some areas. Sorry to leave you with so much work to do but hopefully I've shown you where to start.

Completed on the Friday and flew out early Saturday morning!

Ditto - we just informed our daughter's (independent) school before we left for Australia. Since then we've had no further contact from the UK authorities.

We brought pretty much everything and haven't really regretted it - here in Canberra winter nights are regularly below freezing (and even down to -9C) so our coats and thick duvets have been well used. Glad we bought our UK DVD player when we came over a few years back as we could then play all our DVDs without any problems - although technology advances have probably made that less important. The digital TV also works fine here so glad we didn't leave that behind. Do bring plenty of UK multi-plug extension leads - much easier to initially just change one plug on the end of the extension lead and plug four UK plugs into that instead of having to change every plug when you arrive. Really glad we bought our American fridge/freezer as it's got an iced water function and it's going to hit 38C here this week. The only other things I make sure I get when I go back to the UK are quality business shoes (I can only think of one Churches' quality shoe shop here in Oz and that's in Melbourne), a decent suit from time to time - and really glad I bought my car over as European cars tend too get hit with luxury car taxes making them way more expensive here.

That's exactly what it said on my Australian Federal Police Check and I've got citizenship and Negative Vetting level 1 security clearance on the back of it so you should assume you're good to go!

We took two cats (one white, one black) to Canberra which I seem to remember cost about £1,000 each all in. There where certain parts of Canberra where you were not allowed to have cats due to concerns that they would interfere with indigenous wildlife on the local reserves (this seems to be a nation-wide issue) but the only problem we had was our white cat suffering severe sunburn to her ears which we were warned could lead to cancer and/or the need to amputate the ears so we sent both home to live with relatives. Otherwise people do keep cats so I guess there's no real problems that can't be overcome if you're prepared to adapt a little.

Congratulations - stay in touch

I've travelled a bit too. I tried to be as accurate as possible wherever possible (mainly with more recent trips) and just gave best guestimates with earlier trips - didn't get any come-back

I guess I was lucky! I went through the process three years ago so it may have changed but I seem to remember several other POI'ers having similar experiences to mine at that time.

Hi can only give you my experience; we arrived on my 457 visa but switched to the 820/801 partner visa when I was made redundant. It took me about a month to get all the paperwork together, three weeks of which was waiting for police checks from the UK and AFP (Australian Federal Police). Fortunately you can part-submit so I submitted most of it after a week and then the rest once the police checks came back. Once I'd completed submission I was awarded an 801 visa in 10 working days. (Normally you get an 820 visa and you can then get this upgraded to an 801 visa if you're still together after 2 years). Possible variances: - we had already been in Australia for 18 months (not sure that would actually make much difference) - we applied while in Australia (ditto) - we'd been married for 5 years at the time of application My take on it was that while it can take 10-14 months for people applying from non-English speaking countries (thus requiring everything to have notarised translations, interviews and possibly translators) if you're British, South African or American you can go through a lot quicker - after all if you're a case officer in Brisbane and it's a hot Friday afternoon and you have to get your case completion numbers up, would you pick up the application written in English or the one's written in Hindi/Serbo-Croat/Swahili?

PureVPN (http://www.purevpn.com), US$50 per year when I signed up but frequently has offers - have used it for 3 years without a hitch - excellent selection of world servers plus US & UK servers optimised for sport, TV, films etc.

Hi Mattt - I'm sure there's plenty of people here who live quite happily on less, but this may help: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/chart-the-average-australian-households-income-is-145400-heres-what-they-spend-it-on-2014-9

Apologies if I'm repeating anything anyone's already said but we're rushing to get out for brunch. Having been down this route and had lengthy philosophical discussions with immigration officials, the impact of bridging visas is to extend your current visa until a determination is made on your eligibility for an 820 visa. For me, having been made redundant by my 457 sponsor this meant that the 60 day count down was stopped I could stay until my 820 application was resolved. I assume that if I would have found a new 457 sponsor in that time then that would also have been OK but in the event I got an 801 visa granted only 10 days after submitting my 820/801 application.

A bit of both; age is a factor but you can't inject 6 million people into a population of 58 million in just a few years and not expect there to be some serious impacts on services. Many of these are people who've come from parts of the world with minimal public services and once let loose in the UK with free everything they tend to go a bit mad and claim everything they can, not just what they need - or so family in the NHS are telling me!

Nah, the Conservatives need him right now

I came over on a straight 457 visa so no experience with 187 visas I'm afraid. It's true that getting by on a minimum wage would be challenging but things are looking up. The long-established duopoly held by the two main supermarket chains, Woolworth and Coles (which many believe kept prices higher than necessary) is starting to collapse as Aldi have made huge inroads into Australia recently and Lidl are also appearing in increasing numbers - forcing the two Australian brands to become more competitive. One other thought: Does your visa actually require you too reside in the ACT or just work there? If it's the latter then the ACT is small enough to live in NSW (e.g. Queanbeyan or Jerrabomberra) and drive into the ACT in which case you'd only have to pay NSW school rates if the children went to school in NSW too. I seem to remember that my 457 was linked to my employer and so I could leve anywhere I wanted. It's also worthwhile also looking at the tax rates which are broadly better than the UK at the lower income levels: [h=3]Resident Tax Rates 2014 - 2015/2016/2017[/h][TABLE=class: table-striped table, width: 100%] [TR] [TD]Taxable income[/TD] [TD]Tax on this income[/TD] [/TR] [TR=bgcolor: #F9F9F9] [TD]$0 – $18,200[/TD] [TD]Nil[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]$18,201– $37,000[/TD] [TD]19c for each $1 over $18,200[/TD] [/TR] [TR=bgcolor: #F9F9F9] [TD]$37,001 - $80,000[/TD] [TD]$3,572 plus 32.5c for each $1 over $37,000[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]$80,001 - $180,000[/TD] [TD]$17,547 plus 37c for each $1 over $80,000[/TD] [/TR] [TR=bgcolor: #F9F9F9] [TD]$180,001 and over*[/TD] [TD]$54,547 plus 45c for every $1 over $180,000[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] See http://www.exfin.com/australian-tax-rates There also tends to be more generous allowances for the self-employed and even those in employment who use their own tools/assets for work. With a good accountant you could end up keeping much more of what you earn!

Hi Matt, It's not all doom and gloom. Canberra's a beautiful city full of breathtaking views and a great place to bring up children, but it can take a while to become established. The private sector is relatively small and many (most?) of the jobs are government related (like police roles) and require citizenship or permanent residence (and often a security clearance as well). However, once you've got those there are generally more jobs than resources so life can be pretty good and on balance we reckon it was worth the effort. It was difficult to make friends at first as there is a huge transient population of diplomats, military staff and political types so you have to convince the real locals that you'll be around long enough to make it worth their while to invest the time in getting to know you but once you've done that you'll be readily accepted. You can apply for permanent residency after 24 months, at which point your husband could be eligible to join the NSW Police although I suspect availability of roles (and locations) will be dependent on wherever they have vacancies. Nonetheless Queanbeyan, Yass, Goulburn and Cooma are all within about 45 minutes drive of Canberra. Regards living here, the city's well designed and easy to get around. There seems to be a sports oval every 500 yards and the city is apparently the same size as New York but with less than 2% of the population - most of it is open spaces, reserves, parks and lakes. Basically the rest of Australia pays to keep it as a model city but only we get to enjoy it all the time. I'm undoubtedly biased but having worked in Sydney for a year on a contract, unless you're in the North Shore or southern coastal areas it can be just hot and congested. Traffic can be worse than London (although the trains are much better) but West Sydney has a reputation for being way too hot in summer as well as having some suburbs with very high crime levels (http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/news/major-crime-down-in-nsw-but-blacktown-murder-rate-twice-state-average/news-story/bacd8a70ee9d213571cb13a9c030963d). Penrith may be an exception but it's worthwhile checking further. Happy to answer any other questions if I can - all the best

I think we initially put a UK number down but then updated once we got to know people locally

We have used Anglo Pacific three times and they were fantastic first and third times but only average on the second occasion. I think they have actually been taken over by Pickfords but may operate as separate brands. Pickfords moved my sister over here and did an appalling job, so much so that when I came over first on a corporate transfer I threatened not to take the job if I was forced to use Pickfords. Their sales rep was pretty slovenly and uninspiring too.

I rented in Sydney all last year. It's no different to any other large city in that finding a place in 2-3 weeks - easy, finding a nice place in a good location in 2-3 weeks - more difficult, and finding a nice affordable place in a good location in 2-3 weeks - nigh on impossible but just about achievable with a bit of work and some free time. The trick is to have everything ready to go as soon as you've seen a place you like. Many places will email you the rental contract before you've viewed so you can hand it in there and then if you like a place. The requirements around documentation always looks quite fierce but in practice if they like the look of you then they can be a lot more flexible. In my experience passport, U.K. Driving license and proof of my employement should bemore than sufficient You'll have to take a guess at where you'll work and then decide how to get there. Driving in Sydney is worse than London so most people use the trains which can be much better than London but then you'll need to be intimate with the Sydney railway system which can be found here: http://www.sydneytrains.info/stations/pdf/suburban_map.pdf As other respondents have said, renting a good property is a highly competitive sport so plan how you'll get around. Probably 95% of properties are advertised on the three main property websites: http://www.domain.com.au www.allhomes.com.au http://www.realestate.com.au If you get an unfurnished place then there are quite a few companies that rent furniture e.g. revolutionrentals.com.au - haven't used them myself although friends have. Good luck!

I also came out on a 457 married to an Australian; take the advice about progressing the 457 visa but then cut across to the 820/801 partner visa as soon as possible in case you have any problems with the company. If you were laid off for whatever reason, under a 457 you used to have just 28 days (now I think it's 60) to find a new sponsor or leave the country - not always practical, but with a partner visa you can stay as long as your wife does and even a couple of years after that!

There are a few around - and you'll only need one to come good :-) https://www.seek.com.au/job/32172016?pos=36&ref=beta&tier=no_tier&type=standard&userqueryid=805a5087aa0edb1231f1b7772ef4f53a-2071553&whereid=3100

Hi - I moved from a 457 visa to an 801 a couple of years ago when the published wait time was supposedly 14 months, but here's my experience: - The bridging visa becomes valid as soon as you submit your 820/801 application and has the effect of extending the validity of your existing visa until you get a decision on whether or not your 820/801 application is successful. - It took me about 5 weeks to complete submission of my 820/801 application, most of that was waiting for police checks to come back from the UK and the AFP. - Once submitted I was granted an 801 permanent visa in 9 days thus completely by-passing the 820 visa. My guess is that provided your evidence is all in English and pretty straight forward (we'd already been married 8 years) it's actually really straight forward. I'd guess that the 14 month 'average' relates to those coming from non-English speaking countries where it is problematic to get recognised translations and bureaucratic processes are alien to the Australian APS.

Sure? (2) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10172298/One-surveillance-camera-for-every-11-people-in-Britain-says-CCTV-survey.html

I can spell, it's just my fingers that are dyslexic!