Slean Wolfhead

When we got here we had a little trouble insuring without Australian driving licenses, but Virgin insurance came through ok on the UK ones, if you get stuck. As LKC says, you need to do CTP as well as your own personal insurance. CTP is a charge irrelevant to age and experience..you just choose from various suppliers per state but the price is fairly even between them. You shop around for your personal stuff. As an example, our CTP in Canberra is about $550, but personal insurance is another $700 for a 2 litre SUV. We're in our 40's.

I think life in summary is just a long search for contentment and happiness. It's quite easy to read between the lines and see who is unhappy with their lot, who protests too much, and who is trying to convince themselves by criticising or tributing random objects to try and shape their own sense of worth. I don't post here much anymore and only come on for quick spurts and to catch up with any changes, but I've had some people on ignore for years because they added nothing to my experience and still cannot seem to move on with their lives. You just have to filter them out.

A lot of the cheapest Coles biscuits are made in the UK, such as bourbons etc.. They're not the good chocolaty M+S or Waitrose ones though, they're the cheap, nasty and tasteless homebrand stuff like you'd get at Tesco or Sainsbury's. Mr Kiplings UK-made cakes and the UK-made Cadbury mini-rolls are always in Coles mixed in with the local stuff. There will be a lot more of this as the £ drops, and hopefully at better prices than the usual international sections in the supermarkets. I tried some British bacon recently and paid about $8, it shrivelled up into nothing. Much prefer the Aussie stuff now.

It's a tough one. Australia has used immigration to fight off a recession for 19 years, so what you say is true...even the Poms have been criticised for coming over on 457's and ruining the stability of Australian job security....you might have been one of them, and now the same is happening to you. We're all part of the circle. What has happened though, is that people have become incredibly wealthy in Australia, but less productive as a whole compared to rapid advances in efficiency in the 3rd world. There is always somebody coming up from behind. The bottom line is, they can only prop up quality of life and wages for so long before it reaches tipping point for the pre-immigrant population. The UK reached that stage years ago and has been dropping ever since, to the disaster that is unfolding today. If anything, Brexit will lead to increased immigration as they will need more cheaper workers to remain competitive in whatever market they end up in, or the businesses will have to relocate to wherever the workers are. If the UK and Australia want to survive in their current formats, the people who haven't already made their fortunes will have to accept that they will have it much harder than now, and work for less personal benefit, if they want to survive and eventually prosper. Young people today won't have the sort of lives their parents, or grandparents had. They will see a drop in standards, balancing out against the immigrant and poorest people who are coming in from poverty and seeing a rise in their living standards. They incidently, don't see a problem as their own lives are improving dramatically and they are being lifted out of poverty. This is the underlying principle of capital democracy, and everybody is happy to argue for democracy as long as they are still on the upward curve. What happens when the beneficiaries of democracy reach the top of their own cliff and realise that their dramatic increase in life quality and wealth is heading for a plateau and then a decline, is still being played out. The Brexiteer voters from the poorest classes are hoping their Government is going to save them from the competition, the rust belt voter from the USA is hoping Trump is going to save them and send them back to a time of digging coal. Australia will hit this point in about 10 years. It's all bullshit...both Trump and the UK Government are already doing what Government's do and dropping the promises that put them in place, because none of them really want to change the system to protect their people. Isolationism and protectionism to keep the wolf from the door need a wholesale change in principle and belief, and we're just going to get more of the same. Can they be saved, and do you trust Government to do what you want, or are they going to use your vote as a mandate for them to whatever they want and retain the status quo just in a different format?

If it's a hard Brexit and no single market, they need a border and a customs point. Or how can it work? Maybe tourists walk through on a free VISA, but everything else will need to be checked, including the validity of labels on boxes, and what's inside them.

One of the things you have to realise is that Australia is different, and it won't change because you miss the English system which in many ways is better and more efficient. Every single day i see something that the UK does better, but it's getting out of that habit of comparison that is crucial to your future if you decide to stay. If the UK was that good, it would have a better quality of life, the population would be wealthier, healthier and happier, but any comparison you can find says that just isn't the case (overall). There are horses for courses, but maybe the more relaxed perspective over here is actually beneficial, although frustrating at times. It took me a long time to realise that I was trained to respond like a monkey in the UK and see the bad side in everything, when there are more important things in life that i was missing and at the time, didn't care about. If you're British trained in health with experience, you should get on very very well here, and that will stand you in good stead when you find your feet and break through the cultural barrier. 5 years ago we were down to our last $2000 and I, being the partner of the VISA holder had taken 6 months to find a job as i had nothing lined up, couldn't get an interview. Very depressing, very worrying and I was falling into the same sort of "what the hell is going on" frame of mind. 5 years later, we're citizens, have a house, earning enough money to aim to pay off a 30 year mortgage in 6 years. We have money to invest which we never had in the UK, we have cars each, better health, better food, and we're 100% happier for feeling we've achieved something that really wasn't going to be possible in the UK. I miss the pub, miss the closeness of mates, a good balti, the football away trips, the sarcasm and pointed humour, even the whinging and blind optimism to bad news. But for me it's a much nicer place to go back for a holiday and actually do the things i want to do, than have to live there and try and build a life. Australia is a huge place and it's not the same everywhere you go. Take a look at the greenness and wetness going on in QLD and Northern NSW at the moment, then have a look at the South East corner about 400 miles long for spectacular coastline, views and mountains..and your 4 distinct seasons. It's all on the doorstep.

You can backpay 6 years NI if you like, that will cover a gap you're going to have in your pension entitlement. It's very reasonable if you can pay Class 2 contributions as an expat to cover some of the 35 years needed for a full pension...less than £3 a week i think.

So what is it then? Toyota have an engine plant in the UK. Where do the parts come from that make up that engine? Would you consider that a British engine? Are you talking about volume of parts or value of parts, so giving the same value to a screw as a seat? You remember Amstrad, Alan Sugar's computers with a Union Jack on them? Made abroad and then put together in the UK, they had to stick about 3 pieces together and put it in a case, made him a fortune. When it got to Europe, he was going to get tariffed as an import, so he sent them to a factory in France that added on a useless chip that did nothing. So they could then be classed as manufactured in Europe too. Same game.

Even this isn't actually as clear cut as it appears. 260 parts and materials suppliers in the UK and Europe. That is car components yes. 800 suppliers providing supplies and site services. That is not components. That is food, coffee, gas, electric, water, security guards, alarm systems, internet, building maintenance, toilet rolls, light bulbs, ink, fencing, payroll, banking, etc...all the non-car supply chain from the local economy. That would be the local economy that would suffer if they left. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/mar/03/brexit-uk-car-industry-mini-britain-eu

They invested 2.5 billion in 2015, last year was 1.66 billion. This announcement of a injection of a 250 million investment is BAU, they need to invest every year to keep going. What he's saying is that this is dependent on them being able to do business in future, because as yet...NOTHING HAS CHANGED. It's a vote of confidence in today and tomorrow, not 2 years time. This is from this weeks Exiting The European Union Committee: Davis to Benn "presumption of No Deal is literally that a presumption of WTO Most Favoured Nation status, which means there will be tariffs" Benn: Have you made an economic estimate of No Deal? Davis: Under my time, No. Benn: Given this do you think leaving with no deal would be bad? Davis: havent mentioned upsides, for 60% trade could relax things other way Benn: so there will be tariffs, so e.g. UK producers of dairy and meat will be facing 30-40% tariffs, cars 10%? Davis: Approximately correct 85% of the car parts come from the EU. We bolt them together and send them a complete car back, and the EU will charge us 10% for the privilege, wiping out the Toyota profit margin. So either the UK Government subsidises Toyota and pays the 10% for them, or they move away as soon as the deal is signed. Why would the UK subsidise the car manufacturer when that's totally against policy and was the main reason for Rover sinking because we wouldn't do it, and 10,000 were put out of work? It's the exact opposite of Tory policy and the only way it can work is if they cut wages, cut contract and workers rights, and force the bottom end of society to take less. That isn't a success and makes you worse off than before.

The Chinese I know have had no problems whatsoever. As long as you can both speak English well, you won't have any communication confusion. The difficult issue for any immigrant is getting used to a new country. It's different to China, both with freedom of media and expression. You can say and do a lot more, and a few of my Chinese friends took a little time to get used to that openness of discussion. You can criticise the Australian government and you can criticise the Chinese government....but it's not meant as a personal insult to anybody. Your daughter will find integration far easier than you if she's only 3, she'll be fully Aussie by the time she's about 14.

The Chinese have been in Australia for nearly as long as the British,very early settlers.

Some mortgagors were really good and just ticked a box, totally unconcerned. Others like Nationwide, who were a building society that became a bank and then got into trouble with their building society business, wanted around £3000 to change a mortgage and allow property rental. Pure chancery for doing bugger all, but this was when they were trying to reduce mortgages because they'd given them out like confetti, so i'd take issue if anybody at that time was taking loan terms seriously, most of all the people who were giving them out.. We re-mortgaged with a building society that were quite happy for us to go abroad and live, but lots were not interested in BTL mortgages and we needed a broker to find one. However it was well known even back in 2011 that subletting a residential mortgage could be a big risk for insurance validity, because the mortgagor has an ownership interest in the property and you may have invalidated the building insurance, putting their money at risk.

My mum tries the ALDI Aussie wine in the UK, but it's hard to find out it's provenance with masked names and various mixes. She sent me some names to google and i couldn't find them, so they're constructed names for Aldi. Basically, exported tanks filled with wine and then bottled in the UK and branded. You may get some good stuff at a cheap price, where a good winery wants to protect their usual pricing behind a cheap supermarket brand, or you might get the real cheap stuff mixed in that wouldn't make the grade at home.

The first thing Australia will do is ask for the UK to pull it's finger out and sort out index linking of expat pensions to standardise treatment of British Americans and British Aussies. They've been waiting for that for years and William Hague's last excuse was that the UK could not afford to pay the money, which was just bullshit. Well they should be made to pay now, if they're desperate for a preferential trade deal. Maybe they could do a deal on a specific allocation of VISA's for certain countries, like the very good deal that Australia has with the USA. However, they need to be skills based. What everyone is afraid of is the UK exporting it's less desirables, rather than the people who can be net contributors. Boris Johnson was spouting on about increasing ties, but he didn't specify family. He was obviously on about letting in some high performing Aussies, in return for British business getting a better foothold in Australia with regard to service industries, where the UK could teach Australia a thing or two. Whether Australia would accept the likes of Capita is another matter though, it's the road to a declining standard of living as can be seen from the mess the services are in in the UK.

regional migration scheme VISA's give you PR immediately, then you're supposed to commit to ACT for the subsequent two years etc.. Hence the preferential treatment compared to the usual migration hotspots (beach cities) Theoretically they can cancel it if you do a runner before the 2 years are up, but ACT are pretty reasonable if you've committed to move to the other side of the planet and then the job disappears or the skill is removed from the list.

This is a different subject, but...I couldn't give a **** what they taste like or what they say, it's just a lump of cheese to me. The rebuttal was to the other bloke who said it wasn't happening. The low pound will be good for anything made in the UK...whether it's factory or handmade, beggars can't be choosers with exports when somebody elses money is worth more than your own. We toyed with making "artisan" blackberry jam over here, it's so pretentious and a license to print money. Boil it up in a pan and jar it, take it down the farmers market, stick a Union Jack on the jar and say it was artisan Scottish Bramble jelly made with real Scottish hands from an ancient Scottish recipe using ingredients that were originally imported into Australia 200 years ago! They'll swallow anything like that :-)

http://somerdale.com.au/blog/costco-somerdale-team-up-for-speciality-cheese-roadshow.aspx

But the people who that may be targetted at are the ones who don't recognise it, you just have to read through some of the absolute drivel spouted by people even on this thread. Just like the post-WW1 Germans were guilty of nothing but sleepwalking into a populist vision led by Hitler, who nobody could conceive would become the mass murderer and genocide perpetrator he became. He was popular, he was for the average Joe, it was easy to create a populist following of people who felt they'd been treated unfairly after the Treaty of Versailles. We have people like that in the UK now, calling for anything and not being worried about the consequences because they don't know their history and they can't imagine what a consequence is. We're seeing it in the UK now : populist calls led by the media to ignore the laws that made the UK into the most stable and respected nation on the planet...it's no secret why people file claims in British courts because they want unbiased rulings untainted by political or populist pressure....and look at how the right-wing media are betraying them! Calls to ignore the checks and balances that are deliberately designed to prevent fundamentalism occurring, calls to ignore our legal agreements and just resign from the EU and walk away from the lot, forcing them to take whatever deal we offer them. Calls to abandon EU Human Rights legislation because it has EU in the title, without realising that the UK actually wrote the damn thing for them to PROTECT workers and people just like themselves. This is nonsense, coming from stupid ignorant people whom you wouldn't trust to clean your car properly. But the question has always been; how do the stupid know that they're stupid? The answer is that they don't, and they're easy to manipulate by charlatans promising them a rosy future. I wonder who will declare war on whom first and who it would affect most? Not the Editor of the Daily Mail or your Nigel Farages, they'd be straight on a plane to the south of France making sure they were well away from it.

It's a marker to the kind of people that have been created in the last 30 years. They don't understand the meaning of words, laws processes, education ; they don't even know how their own country works or how it came to be. But they want it back instead of something else they don't understand. It's been well known since Victorian times, even in the richest of societies when Britain was fabulously rich, that around 20% of any population just didn't bother. They've always been there, but they were safely ignored as they know little about anything and contribute nothing more than labour to put food on the table and beer in their belly. A malleable workforce that could be used as an engine. The difference in the last 10 years is that with the internet and explosion in media and ways to link up information, these voices are being heard and they self-perpetuate in an echo chamber of moronic bullshit and despair. There is no use for their engine anymore, the future is in technology and robotics where humans will be less needed. So what happens to a growing world population, what do they do and how do they survive? None of these people have got the ability, intelligence or skills to take on a job like the one that's coming. Truth and fact isn't important, the media have become a biased mob of opinion promoters, rather than news reporters. They're completely successful because they know a huge part of the population haven't got the intelligence or education to make sense of the truth anymore and will just follow slogans. What they're calling for anarchy, because that is all they can imagine with the knowledge at their disposal. Maybe they're right. The old rules don't apply because the world and information age has changed everything. Capitalism is eating democracy and it's happening in more countries than the UK. The countries where they've decided that not everybody needs to be educated are the ones that are suffering the most, because they never expected that these baying disenfranchised mobs could ever mobilise into groups that had power. The internet, greed and the inability to keep down the poorest has changed all that. Maybe it's just destiny? Maybe people like Trump have read the tea leaves better?

He'd flown to Australia, i think he was taking it seriously.

https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/britain-s-economic-future-will-be-decided-home?utm_source=Chatham%20House&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=7709539_CH%20Newsletter%20-%2004.11.2016&utm_content=Britain-Title&dm_i=1S3M,4L8PV,NUT248,H1REC,1#sthash.v37d4o2z.uxfs

I don't know if you have a Costco up in QLD, we had a load of English in Canberra promoting cheese last week. Lots of extra brands, giving out samples etc. I asked the bloke in charge why they were over here right now promoting it, when it's been on the shelves for months. He said it was because they don't expect the Brits to be able to afford to pay the required price in future, so they're taking advantage of the weakening pound to strike deals to send more overseas....otherwise they'd be stuffed if they relied solely on UK sales. Good for UK exports and will keep people in jobs, but as with a lot of things, it won't be as good for the quality of life for UK folk if they can't afford the best produce the country manufactures.

It's a maths calculation. Is it worth paying somebody an age pension of about $400 a week so they can live overseas and you can forget about them, or do you force them to stay in Australia and then have to account for them with public healthcare costs and the other benefits that pressure the public system? You'd think any country would rather be rid of their oldies in the cheapest way possible when they stop producing benefit and leave the workforce.

The other option is places like local or state government buildings, or existing hospitals, lots of the systems are the same, so if you have any specialisms in BMCS systems it puts you in a good position. And if you have a good set of ideas on how to save money based on UK experiences, that will be useful in coming years......