Slean Wolfhead

I heard about this...couldn't find any more info about it. Is it a typical Birmingham Balti house.....this would make my year if true.

It will be yes (hopefully), not been here that long and I did all the settling in stuff while my partner had the job lined up (she was sponsored for the VISA's).

You're well qualified and would tick all the boxes. There are a lot of PMO's here who are out of work, but shortages in Business Analysts, and Testers/Test Management...but then you'd run into the citizenship issue as the projects are normally related to public service transformation, which isn't insurmountable but would preclude work in sensitive areas such as Defence, or Customs which i think ATOS specialise in? Unless ATOS can help with a waiver and transfer you to the Aussie partner...have you explored that as an option?

Currently i think the overall quality of the produce in Coles and Woolies are both better than the UK. Portions are bigger, the bread is denser, eggs are better, the meat is better quality with less steroids and hormones, veggies are more organic, fresher and locally produced....boxed goods are pretty much the same. Some things are not as advanced and supply lines are obviously more difficult here due to remoteness and the smaller number of people within a relevant distance, compared to the 65million British within 700 miles linked up by motorways and trains and ports, but i think they're pretty good overall. You can see the growing "British" effect on the 2 for 1 deals, the loyalty points, the petrol coupons. It's all designed to corner the market....and if Coles have got a UK CEO he's probably pretty certain he's going to push it in way of the British model, which has brought massive profits for supermarkets but left local food retail economies threadbare. It's in The Age today that Woolies have demanded a 10% reduction in prices from their suppliers, in order to fund this ongoing price war with Coles, but there's not going to be a corresponding drop in standard prices for the consumer. They will keep their top line high, but entice you with special deals, or maybe an extra 4c off a litre of fuel etc.. http://www.theage.com.au/business/woolies-accused-by-food-suppliers-20120705-21k9m.html The knock-on effect is not going to damage Coles, they will just respond in kind, driving their suppliers to the wall.....then they will use the excuse that they have to go abroad " to be competitive" or they will have to make their own cuts and sack staff! Normal politics. It's the suppliers and the smaller independent businesses that suffer because they will be less able to compete on price and they won't have the same clout to demand a similar 10% discount from their suppliers, and they will start to close down. So then you have less suppliers and workers, and less local businesses to service the public or provide price competition....which both damage local economies across the nation. These are real people who spend their money back in their own neighbourhoods, on mortgages, petrol, pubs, newspapers, school fees, sport..everything. If they haven't got their earnings they need to look for benefits, which puts more pressure on the taxpayer to support them, which affects everybody else....it's a huge butterfly effect which isn't taken into account when these giant supermarkets profess themselves to be doing well for Australia. They're not, they're doing well for themselves and their shareholders, and a greater proportion of their profits doesn't stay in Australia to benefit Australians or the Australian economy. This is the "British" effect in action....leaving just the main players to crush the independents, then fight amongst themselves in large scale supermarkets with little independent, or specialist local competition. When this happens, the big supermarkets are safe in the knowledge that they can drop their quality, because there's no other choice for consumers and no competition for them. The UK supermarkets already carve up Britain into zones, agreeing not to compete with each other in certain towns....they've been caught and fined for collusion : "You take this one, we'll have that one, all of us are in the money because we've got no competition". It means little...the profits pay the fines. Then they go to work on dropping the quality to increase profits even more. Naff airy light bread with more yeast and less ingredients, more intensive farming demanded to match the price they're willing to pay for bread, eggs, meat and milk, cut the lifespan of the animals to keep feeding costs down, but pump them full of steroids so they grow faster? Gradually reduce the size of the packaging...600g > 500g > 400g. Don't worry...nobody will notice for a few years. Suddenly the portion isn't enough to feed a family, so you end up needing to buy two...so how is that saving you money? Meanwhile, all the real profit is pumped out onto the world markets to be traded abroad, and the host country economy as a whole weakens because there's less overall "value" left in there. You only have to drive around a UK town to see the economic unsustainability, most of their retail food markets are built on pillars of dust, and charity shops. Then when you need your economy to work and support itself, you realise that you haven't got one anymore because you allowed it to die. The Germans have it right (obviously talking from their position of economic strength)..the UK slit it's own wrists and is now trying to revive a dead body. The farmers are already down to surviving on Euro subsidies because they get paid a penny for a litre of milk, or 25p for a chicken. How is that sustainable anywhere in the western world? Meanwhile, Coles and Woolies are gradually going down this same route following the UK model....because they're now so big they want to compete in world terms and Australia is just the workhorse they want to shape as they wish to fund themselves. If they want to ignore Australian farmers and let their animals go unpurchased because the quality is too good and expensive, they won't think twice about importing meat from Brazil and letting the Aussies go to the wall and onto the dole. What can the Aussie farmer do except start pumping his own animals full of drugs to make them grow faster, or cut the life of a chicken by 20% so he can fit in an extra breeding cycle to stay in business? It's different to even the USA where local supermarkets in prosperous towns are still local and still follow the original ethos of a "super market"...independent local suppliers bring their produce to one major market and sell in one place for convenience. You get a slightly cheaper deal because of the economies of scale but the stance is still on quality, rather than just driving everything down to the very base level of "cost is everything" which is the UK ethos. The USA is very patriotic, moreso than the UK, which is why they haven't been totally taken over by the massive markets...even Tesco have found it harder to establish there. If the quality is crap, they just don't buy it. Australians whom I've spoken to don't agree with what's going to happen to their supermarkets. They say it couldn't happen here, they wouldn't accept it, the patriotism will see them through. As Brits, we've seen it happen to a country with 3 times as many people and towns are unrecognisable to what they were 20 years ago, so the impossibe can happen. Maybe the Aussies are more American in attitude than British these days and will "buy Australian", but i think it's going to be a tight race because the supermarkets are going to try every trick in the book to undermine and confuse them, while pretending they're helping them through providing "convenience".

Ha...pretty disastrous and soul destroying at times. I've eventually been offered a good job after 4 months of trying but have been waiting 5 weeks for the paperwork now and it's frustrating...business processes are very slow in some areas, plus it's a new financial year and people are juggling new budgets and waiting for approvals. Until i get the contract in my hands I'm not counting chickens, and if it doesn't arrive I may well end up actually counting chickens on a farm or something ! Canberra's a funny place and probably dissimilar to Sydney..mainly public service which requires citizenship for employment as a general rule, they do let a few permanent residents take contract or "non-ongoing" work but other VISA's don't seem to get a look in (I've got PR). Agencies, so far have been in general, awful..hardly call you back, don't want to help. It's possible to get work through agencies with a citizenship waiver for some jobs, but some agencies are not interested in doing the paperwork so just tell you that you're not acceptable, but then another agency will say that you are . It's difficult to work out who's telling you the truth.....do they just want the applications to prove they're good at recruiting, is the job there or not, and are they even interested in you? One PR has managed to get good contract work with the Federal Govt., but her partner couldn't get a job after 100 applications so i think has gone back to college and will be changing careers. Part of the migration process is the ability/opportunity to change careers so I hope it works out for them. Nevertheless I got a good rundown on their experiences so it's lowered expectations. Just getting a foot in the door to be able to prove your worth is the key initial outcome, or as they call it here...a "fair go" ! ITIL is taken quite seriously here and used in selection criteria (even if it's not well practiced in the actual job)...at least a foundation certificate is very useful.

Career break scheme, unpaid leave?

That was a bugbear of mine...my local comp renamed itself as a "technology college" and it was nothing of the sort, just a normal secondary school which used technology like every school in the nation. A really cheeky one in Birmingham was a large failing school on the edge of a sink estate...not the school's fault, but they were never going to do well in assessments without somebody changing the whole society around them. They renamed themselves as a college with the accompanying tagline of "A Centre of Mathematical and Computing Excellence", as if it had been rated as such and was not just being used as an aspiration for the billboards. Never failed to raise a smirk, PR and vacuousness has taken over the whole country.

Good luck....it's very exciting and completely normal. Get your copies of rental packs ready, with references, bank statements and any supporting evidence that you're trustworthy and can pay. It will help in the madness of trying to swing a rental, after you've set up your Aussie banks and documents. I've got a theory that where people stay in their initial short-term accommodation is where people end up..North or South. That's where you spend your first few weeks, you use the shops, get a feel for the place, go for drives around the neighbouring suburbs, begin to recognise landmarks etc. When you're driving round looking at places, many suburbs initially blur into each other, your bearings are out, you don't know enough about the details to say which are better, you feel pressured at viewings....in the end you just want to hit the pub ! We really worried at first because it is very competitive at rentals at certain times of the year, but after a few weeks you just want to get a property that suits you and the rest can fall into place later. In our batch that came over at virtually the same time in January...nearly everybody stayed North because that's where they took root initially. The one family who went South now want to move North because Belconnen's got a better shopping centre, the stadium is there, University of Canberra, newer facilities, newer road system, there are lots of routes into Civic and you don't have to cross the bridge or go along the Parkway and hit the traffic etc.. Commuting isn't really bad anywhere, but you just want to make it as easy as possible like in all places. If you only have 1 car, you might want to check the bus routes and see where they go....there's a good planner on https://www.action.act.gov.au/ I can't notice any real difference between North and South...if you ask somebody local which is better they all have an opinion but can't really explain why, so it's often just a case of gut feeling to get settled, then take the next 6 months learning about where you live and maybe move again when your initial lease is up, if it's really a problem. In the census results published the other week, Canberra's unique in that the living density trend is lower towards the centre, the exact opposite of every other capital city. Once you get away from the very inner suburbs, everywhere is pretty much semi-rural compared to the UK, you can't go a few hundred metres without seeing a park, and they are usually big nature parks, not little English pocket parks with a few swings to satisfy the planners that they've provided minimal greenery. Between the middle suburbs there are usually large natural landscape belts and they're well-planned, so much so that you can only see countryside (though some is earmarked for future suburbs)...you're talking a good few kilometres with no building whatsover, full of birds, wildlife and kangaroos. To me that counts as semi-rural compared to where i came from, but not for Australia which is vast beyond belief...but you're only 10 minutes away from the city centre. The difference is, when they're expanding the city and releasing new land plots to build on, the housing plots are getting smaller as they push out. Even though you're nearer to the bush, the outer suburb you live in might be denser in population than one nearer the centre. The newer houses are very good, efficient, more modern in design, cheaper to run, brilliant fibre broadband......but you may not get much of a garden and the houses are closer together with narrower roads. You might get a house closer to the centre in a middle suburb, which is a lot older, draughty, and made of wood, but comes with a big garden for the kids, a broader street with more space between the houses so it's actually quieter. Ideal scenario is getting a new property on an older larger plot where somebody has knocked down/rebuilt. There are lots of threads about schools in the ACT forum....can't help you with those I'm afraid !

Yep, got that and completed it. The difficult bit on the eTax is the part year business and tying up the medicare exemption levy (or not) with number of days pre-emigration/post, then doing it for the partner who's claimed nothing in benefits. Probably just safer to get the first one done by a tax pro for the money and time it's going to save.

Does everyone have to submit a tax return? Even if you have a partner who hasn't worked or earned anything, do they still have to do a "nil return" ?

The other thing to mention....some of the phones over here are different to UK ones, so you might want to sell in the UK and buy one over here. The HTC One XL (which is 4G (LTE) compatible) isn't going to be available the UK, but I think it's better than the Samsung G3 and is streets ahead of the iPhone4s, which probably won't be around for much longer. If you want a 4G phone, you can get downloads of over 35mbps in the big cities, which is faster than most people's UK cable broadband through Virgin. It's pretty stunning.

Yes, but the 4S has better reception/aerial and will hold a weak signal better...important if you end up living on the outskirts of somewhere where coverage isn't great. http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile-phones/coverage-networks/our-coverage/maximise-coverage/

What was that like, and how long did it take?

Yes. Not on the 4G network though. http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile-phones/mobile-phones/iphone/

True...we're dreading that week now. Got one set of parents coming over in early December, then the others in late January....hence we're on our own for Christmas but can't afford to take extra holiday because we need to save it for when people are visiting. No different to England really...but at least we can fit in a few day trips to the beach this year.

Any idea where in Thailand? We did it last Xmas..stayed a month. Xmas is peak price time (still far cheaper than Australian hotels) so you need to choose accommodation carefully and book early if you want a long stay.....a standard hotel room can be a bit pokey if you're staying a month. I think prices for flights normally go up around Dec 9th to catch the Xmas holidaymakers....so if you try dates before then you might get a much cheaper flight deal. If you stay out of places like Phuket and Samui....you'll get a far cheaper holiday. Chiang Mai is beautiful, cheap and hot...but no sea.

Without knowing the personal circumstances or the skills....how can you say though? Is your opinion based on just the practicalities of settling into a new country at a certain age, or doing a manual job, or not getting enough points, or not already having money to bring over in the future etc? Some of the people we came over with are past 50 and some are past 55 i think..(I just hope they don't read this ha) and got PR on a 119 sub-class VISA with a job and hefty relocation. Their ages have actually helped them settle in easily...experience and a bit of streetwise "savvy" counts for a lot, they already know how the world works when a lot of the younger people (certainly based on some of the questions asked on here) don't seem to know how the systems work in the UK, let alone Australia. I'd be willing to bet that the "bail out" rate for older people is a lot less than the younger ones, because older people are pretty sure of themselves by the time they get past 40 and they have the life skills and realistic outlook to make emigration work. No doubt it's a lot tougher to get the points than being a young couple with a few healthy kids to bring into Oz and a lot of avenues are closed, but it's certainly not that unusual if the overall package is right.

Sorry...I am wrong. SBS have Spain/Portugal..Setanta have Germany/Italy. Not that anyone's that interested now are they ?

It's only on Setanta tonight. SBS had 2 of the Qtr Finals and tonight's game wasn't one of them. The rest of the tournament is on SBS after tonight.

It would be interesting to see the difference in numbers between Indian and Pakistan immigrants to Oz and the UK. I think Pakistan migrate more to the UK these days, and then there's up to 80% of UK marriages involving Pakistanis are transcontinental with a spouse, to get around normal immgration rules for single people. I don't know if it's so easy in Oz. I just wish there were more Balti chefs...

Oh I don't doubt it won't be cheap here, but if they now have to pay at home (and it seems they're pretty much all going to charge up to the cap level) it makes the difference look more attractive, plus they get permission to work. Might attract a few more.

That Pocock is a monster of a player...I hope the Brumbies can snaffle him for next season. They've overachieved so far this season, but are under the salary cap and have a bit to spare.

That was the criticism i read....it's too familiar and misses out a lot. Anybody who's thinking of coming, already knows about the stuff in the advert so it won't attract anybody new. I suppose the $ strength doesn't help, but if UK students are suddenly having to pay for University tuition instead of getting it free..it suddenly opens up a new market for young people to come here and study/travel and pump some cash into the Aussie economy at the expense of the UK. Perhaps that should be a different advert though.

Haha...ok, I have to say it had always been our intention to do a few years here and then go and live on the coast, like every bugger else wants to !

Excellent....the butcher at Dickson also does scotch pies, delivery is usually on a Wednesday.