ABL275

Yes, we've retained a UK address as it's amazing how many companies don't do 'overseas'.

We're not surprised: http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/541603/20140304/act-canberra-australia-livable-city-adelaide.htm

On the subject of right-hand lane hoggers we were mystified at just how ingrained it seems to be. Time and time again you'd see a car pull out from behind another only to then settle alongside it and then drive in formation with it for mile after mile, almost deliberately blocking the road. Wasn't sure if it was some sort of Public Service vigilante mentality (i.e. blocking the road to ensure that no-one can exceed 80kmh) or just a minifestation of Australian egalitarianism (i.e. I'm as good as anyone else so I'm not going to sit behind someone else, but by the same token, I'm not going to put myself ahead of them). My wife did a straw poll at work (in the APS) and many people said they'd never heard of a rule about staying left unless overtaking, or that it only applied on major highways. Since then I've taken to just zipping down whichever lane takes my fancy.....

I've been through Keith Cantlie too - very professional and great local contacts, certainly worth a call.

Hi FamilyHughes - good to see you made it and seem to have settled in well. Whereabouts did you end up living?

I'm really sorry but I've no experience in either of those areas,but hopefully some of the other responses have been helpful. How are you guys getting on?

There may be more daylight in the UK but when I was commuting into and out of London I frequently didn't get home until 9.00 or 10.00pm by which time it was definitely dark. Even when I was able to knock-off at 5.00pm I'd seldom be home before 7.30pm so my daughter was often asleep when I got in. Working in Canberra over the last few months, where a great many people knock off at 5.00pm, I've generally been home by 5.30 and in my pool with my wife/daughter by 5.45pm.

Hi Zoe, Back in Feb 2011 I was fortunate enough to have two offers to rejoin my old company, one in London and one in Canberra with a full relocation package attached so my wife, (then) 5-year old daughter, two cats and I opted for Canberra. So, open and honest feedback, hmmm.... - don't under estimate the value of a relocation package as there are reams of posts on this site about the costs and problems people have completing and processing visa requests. If you want see what Australia's like might as well do it the easy way and such opportunities don't come often and it would be much harder doing it all yourself. General ups and down's on Canberra: - it's a planned City, apart from the centre and 'inner Canberra' all of the 4 satellite towns (i.e. the suburbs) were built from the 1960s on and so are quite new. It's been described as Milton Keynes with sun but as we moved here from Milton Keynes that suited us :-) - it is really easy to get around with few jams except at peak hours. It'll generally only take 25 mins from any part of Canberra to the centre except in the most extreme circumstances (I used to have a three and a half hour round commute into London in rain, snow, sleet). - there's lots and lots of open spaces; there seems to be a sports field every 500 yards so if you want to go an kick a ball with the kids you never have to go far. Many of the more picturesque locations have built in BBQ's and picnic tables. - it's known as the bush capital and nestles in the valley's between the local hills (most of which are also nature reserves) so, living in Woden Valley we can be up on Isaac Ridge in 15 mins or Mount Taylor in 10 mins watching the Kangaroos bouncing around. At night time they often come down into the local streets and main roads. - as the flagship national capital it seems to have more money spent on it keeping everything mown, painted and repaired. Schools, hospitals, doctors and the like are plentiful and the educationstandard is generally amongst the highest in Australia. - the vast majority of the houses sit on their own plots and have been individually designed. There are few mass estates or terraces (although the new builds in the latest developments in Gunghalin are starting to come close). - as a downside it costs the Australian state about $10,000 (about $14,000 pre-tax) to put a child through infants/primary school and foreigners are expected to pay a percentage of this. In most states it's set at zero per cent (it was 30% for NSW) but in the ACT it's 100% because of the large number of diplomats and overseas personnel here so try and factor that into any salary negotiation (and then take the cash and send the kids to private school as it's no more expensive). - Canberra's climate is generally dry, hot in summer and surprisingly cold in winter (we're 1600-1800ft above sea level) and none of the houses really seemed to be designed to deal with the cold so heating can be expensive in winter. However, many of the local Australians I know have moved here specifically because Canberra is one of the few places to have 4 distinct seasons, or to escape the awful humidity found in Queensland and NSW. - it's the only major Australian city not on a coast but also the only major city in which no-one's ever been attacked by a huge shark. That said it's 2-3 hours east to the coast (an some of Australia's best unspoilt coast at that) and 2 hours to the snow fields of the Australian Alps, just to the west. Perhaps more importantly, it's not like driving in the UK where where driving can be so stressful; we set off early, set the cruise control and there'll be very few other cars on the road (coming back from Bateman's bay after a long weekend is an exception) but generally it's very stress-free motoring so seems to go by far fasterand we often do the coast and back in a day quite comfortably. - on the downside Canberra is quite isolated; there are very few places to visit within an hour's drive and I guess I miss not having local towns and villages to drive out to of a weekend. - it can be quite difficult to break into a social circle here; a lot of the population are public servants and either already have a set group of friends or just see new arrivals as transients like the politicians, diplomats, lobbyists etc.). It took us a good two years to really get a group of friends together. - it is a long-way from the UK; I don't miss my family much as we've always travelled and been independent of each other but my wife does miss hers. however, for eighteen months you could maybe try and see? OVERALL: do we regret it? We still have to get up and go to work to pay the mortgage each day but yes, life is more relaxed, I don't have the grinding commute each morning or the dark icy mornings. Australian employers can be awful but by and large Australian authorities & officials seem much more likely to say 'Yes' to things rather than in the UK where the default inevitably seems to be 'No'. At the behest of our now eight-year old daughter, my wife and I have now both taken up riding so Saturday afternoons are spent in the saddle in out under the NSW sun and I'm note sure we'd have ever found the time or money for that in the UK, so yes, I think we're a lot better off. Just another throught, there's a small but enthusistic community of Canberra PIOz correspondents who follow the posts for the ACT, if you repost there you may get more feedback. There's also MASSES of old posts about best places to live, how to find accommodation, what to do and where to go so that might be useful to explore too. Anyway, that's my ramble, drop us a note if you need anything else - and good luck!

Tough question as the biggest employer in Canberra is obviously the APS and you need to be an Australian citizen to work there. However there's the usual wealth of contract agencies or Seek.com.au is generally the best online source of job ads. Unfortunately a lot of the more casual construction labour seems to go by word of mouth to family friends and the like; personal networks seem to be very big in the Canberra job market. What sort of work do you normally do?

I omitted all travel in the EU. As we have freedom of movement and no longer have passport stamps to provide a record of dates of coming and going I reckoned that it should only be treated the same as 'inter-state' travel in Australia - that made the task easier!

Congratulations! I'm sure you'll be fine in Belconnen; newish area with a good shopping centre and not to far away from EPIC (Exhibition Park In Canberra - I think) - good farmer's market every Saturday but get there early, and there's a big open air market in Hall (last suburb/first town out of Canberra on the Barton Highway) the first Sunday(?) in each month - enjoy!

We did all the calculations before we came and an effective exchange rate of about 2.3 seemed to be about right having been here 2+ years i.e. $46,000 will buy about the same as £20,000 back home but there will be big variances depending upon your personal spending profile. We found basic food costs and accommodation more expensive but petrol and transportation in general to be cheaper. Any labour-intensive service costs are more expensive as is anything imported. Also beware as the first few months can be quite expensive as utilities and others all seem to take a quarter (or month) worth of payments in advance.

There's huge amounts of serviced apartments type accommodation around the Kingston area; it seems to be a favourite with government/diplomatic services/large corporates (that's where I was put up for the first two weeks after arriving) - so close to the centre but can be pricey. I know other new (corporate) arrivals who we're put up in Queanbeyan in motels - cheaper but maybe not so nice and a 25 min drive into town.

So how goes it? Any joy yet?

Maybe a worse than usual time of year as a lot of the diplomatic/political/military people tend to change postings over the Christmas period (I know that's not much help now but it should get better). Canberra (and to a lesser extent Queanbeyan) is also reknowned for largely closing throughout Christmas and January (it's both the school Christmas and summer holidays rolled into one) so many people are off work until the start of February looking after kids - this might also be depressing the market further. Hang in there, I'm sure it'll pick up soon,

Hi Elias - good to hear from you - what sold you on the ACT? Are you coming here with work? Been here two and a half years and broadly loving it, but nowhere is free of downsides and it certainly helps to know the ins and outs before arriving so feel free to ask away. All the best

Pretty sure the answer is 'yes'. Anything that goes through Australian Customs (or any other part of the Australian Government) incurs a sizeable fee. Unlike the UK where everything is given away free to any swinging Dick that wants to turn up on our shores (but paid for by British taxpayers), Australia has this interesting notion that foreigners, immigrants or visitors should pay for the cost of their own interactions with Government. I suspect may of the customs fees are relatively flat rate (seem to remember the customs search fee for 20ft sea-container was £300) so by shipping a small create you will probably have attracted disproportionately large costs.

Hi Slider - can't talk to the motor bikes part of your query (or the length of time you can drive on a UK licence) but can say that I got my Aussie licence about 48 hours after landing. I just took it along to my local CanberraConnect office (i.e. one stop shop for all local govt services), showed them my UK licence, filled in a form and they made up an ACT licence there and then (I think I also had to pay $37). The individual serving me also seemed to be knowledgeable enough about UK licence categories that he ensured that I was also licenced for the other categories on my UK licence such as quad bikes (?) and light goods vehicles (didn't even know I had those myself) - so should be easy enough.

Hmmm - saying that you have "an extremely strong application" may just be a way of encouraging you to engage their services. I've never heard of them but I'd be very wary of any service company that's not endorsed by independent happy users as there are a lot of scam artists around.

Just checked all my 457 application materials and I didn't have a police check or health check either.

ACPO in the UK had mine back in my hands in under 3 weeks from the day of my (online) application. The Australian Federal Police still hadn't responded by then so I called their helpdesk and they admitted to a problem with their online submission site; I resent the original materials and got an email response in 48 hours.

Hi Jen85 - I wouldn't be too hard on yourself, as you say, the media these days have lost the skill of reporting news and only seem to only want to grab attention by creating outrage and disgust. I suspect this is just another case of that. Living in Canberra I'm a frequent visitor to the Australian War Memorial and I'm often amused that a casual viewer would probably take away from the Gallipoli Hall the impression that it only involved Aussie and Kiwi troops - but I'm sure every country needs to have their own heroes and as a relatively young country I guess Australia has more of a need to focus on their achievements. I for one am certainly not offended.

I came over on a 457 but transferred to a partner visa (801) as my wife (of 8 years) is Anglo-Australian. There were horror stories about it taking 14 months to process an (onshore) 801 visa application and in fact I think DIAC quoted 12 months as the average. In the event it took about 10 days from receipt in Brisbane to notifying me by email. I think many of the applications that take longer must be those in foreign languages and maybe from cultures that allow multiple spouses! At a guess, if your application is in English and from the UK/US/NZ/Canada/SA etc. it'll likely go through very quickly. Both my UK and Australian police checks only took 3 weeks to complete (the UK one was slightly quicker as the Australian Federal Police (AFP) website 'lost' the application first time round but after reapplying they responded in under a week) so you could maybe get new ones. I seem to remember that the AFP website had links to apply for overseas police checks so it was really easy. Regards sending in incomplete submissions, I only started when I wanted to change jobs and couldn't do it (easily) on a 457 visa. When I left my old job I only had 28 days to get a new job or a different visa so I completed as much of the paperwork as possible and then sent it off straight away. As explained by Quinkla, your bridging visa becomes valid as soon as they receive your application (and it's normally a notional visa, don't expect a certificate). I then just sent off the outstanding components (police checks and personal character statements - which suggests that I did complete the Form 80 as well just to be on the safe side) about a month later and received confirmation of my visa change about 10 days (plus postage time) after that. I also got the 801 visa straight away. They can issue an 820 visa which has to be confirmed and made into a permanent 801 visa after 2 years ("providing you're still married") but I just jumped straight to the 801, perhaps it was because we'd already been married so long. Anyway, I know what you mean, the task looks really onerous (especially the evidence such the "history of our relationship") but it's not to bad if you approach it in an organised way and by and large most Brits seems to have sailed through it - sure you will too. All the best

Great post - thanks for being so open and honest. We've been here 2 years and 6 months and I'd be happy to stay but my wife's not so sure - still she'll have changed her mind again by tomorrow!

Oh dear, more socialist propaganda from the BBC? Why don't they just rename themselves Pravda?