fensaddler

It's the last line that is troubling. It suggests that the Department didn't think through the implications of many of these changes, sufficient to issue advice at the time of the policy launch. I can't imagine they would have withheld this advice, so it rather suggests they a. weren't ready in time or b. are making it up as they go along. Nobody appears to have thought to think through, or spent the time on thinking through, the implications of these changes on a number of very obvious groups of people caught up in the transition between policy programs. I'm at least hopeful that this suggests a good and reasonable outcome for the many people who had hoped to transition to PR under the terms of their 457 visa.

Hi Alan, If it does block my PR at this stage, I'm washed up. I'm 50, I've no house and no job back in the UK, and we've lived here five and a half years. Daughter has done her entire secondary education here and speaks fluent Strine. My colleague won't go back to the UK, she's younger and will find somewhere else. But that's Australia's loss.

Certainly good advice to get yourself as permanent as you can as soon as you can. I'm fine with Aus making policy decisions about migration levels intake policies etc - this is all entirely reasonable, but what really irks me is that once again this is poorly thought through, badly communicated, populist and significantly retrospective. If you're going to introduce policy change, think it through, plan for the consequences to those impacted, and communicate clearly. Particularly, don't move the goalposts on people who've made life changing decisions on the basis of your former policy - honour your moral undertakings as a country. The other thing which really troubles me is the xenophobic glee with which this has been greeted. Ironically, Australia is one of the most successful multicultural countries in the world, but you wouldn't know it given public attitudes to migration. And don't get me started on the hypocrisy of settled migrants, and the descendants of migrants, being so gleefully determined to drag up the ladder behind them - not based on any real understanding of the economic or social implications, but essentially out of prejudice (and sometimes flat out racism). You could stop migration tomorrow, and not only would Australia find it had a whole host of new problems (where's the doctor, dude?), but its existing problems that some attribute to migration - housing prices and speculation, unemployment and underemployment, transport congestion - would not go away, because the root causes aren't all about migration. It's just a convenient scapegoat that prevents pollies on both sides from having the gumption to actually tackle, and acknowledge, the real problems and their root causes. And a country which closes its doors closes its mind too... Sorry rant over...

Hi all, my position and advice so far. I already have my 186 PR application submitted since October last year, but my occupation has now been deleted entirely from CSOL (we struggle to recruit in this industry, and train a lot of junior staff who quickly get snapped up elsewhere, but nobody says there's logic in any of this). I'm advised by my MA that I am OK. My big concern is now for a very talented British colleague, who is just approaching completing her second year here, and was planning on PR, but again, same occupation, now deleted. Our MA does not know yet whether her implied PR rights from 457 are grandfathered or not. She was literally weeks away from passing the two year point and getting her 186 lodged. I can't underline how much of a loss she would be to this company, our industry, and to the country. None of that will cut any ice with a government hell bent on populism, but as soon as anyone knows anything, please post...

Thanks Dee, that was the reassurance we wanted!

Forgive me if this info is lurking somewhere in one of these threads - a quick search didn't identify what I was looking for. We will soon have 186 PR, transitioning from 457 after five and half years here. We're hoping that getting PR will finally ease a lot of the embuggerations about life in Aus that come with being temporary. However, we're not sure what our overseas travel rights are once we have PR? Can we come and go pretty much as we choose, as we could on a 457, or do we need some sort of re-entry or exit visa? I know there are requirements if we are away for a long time (two years in five), but would a typical trip of a few weeks back to the UK, or a holiday in NZ or Fiji for example be a problem? We're rather hoping not, as we are more than over the endless Kafkaesque administrative hurdle jumping that goes with 457 on so many aspects of our lives. Thanks for any advice!

Re car finance, can only say that we went with a secured loan on our first purchase, and got it about 10 days after entering the country, through the dealer where we bought the car. From what I recall, we put down about 20%, but I don't think that was essential. Your chosen bank can probably help (and will probably be most likely to lend). As soon as you get here, go to your bank, talk to the adviser they will allocate to you, and present to them everything you need them to sort. If you are a migrant with money they will usually help!!

And if you are applying for a 457, whichever you choose will tend to depend on whichever is appropriate to your job. I arrived five years ago on a 457 with one code. The second job continued this code, but the third used a different (and in my view much more appropriate) one. And its this second code I've used to apply for PR. So no, you're not tied - and it doesn't really matter so long as you can prove either - but the best is the one which best describes the job you're actually going to do. If you're going straight to a permanent visa, then the advice above sounds fine. Just get in, then you can in theory do anything you like.

Have a look at Warragul. We looked hard at it and really liked it, but it's too far to commute daily to the CBD. But close enough to Pakenham/Cranbourne for services, and a decent town with shops, cafes etc. Train service back to the big city, or a drive of about an hour and 20 off peak to the centre of Melbourne. Green, rolling country around and affordable housing.

We're in the process of building in Lara, and have spoken to a lot of people about the place, and visited a lot. Heard nothing bad, and a lot of good. Quiet, friendly, no major problems - in fact we've heard so much positive we think we might be walking into some sort of weird twilight zone... It's a small town, but has supermarkets etc, and is growing fast, with lots of new housing releases. Flat as a pancake there, but hills and coast nearby. Our daughter will be past school age by the time we get out there, so don't know too much, but whilst the local secondary in Lara is no great shakes on paper, there is a secondary in Corio (a working class suburb on the north of Geelong, so just south of Lara), that has seen huge recent improvements in its results. The worst thing you could say about Lara is it might be too quiet for teenagers, but Geelong is close, and accessible by car or train, and the centre of Melbourne is 45 minutes in the other direction. Geelong is a nice city, and one of the big advantages for Lara.

And certainly don't call Geelong Melbourne or the locals will eat you! As someone who has given up with rising prices on the eastern side, and opted to buy land and build just north of Geelong, I'd make positive noises to you about that side, especially once you get south of Werribee. Geelong itself is a really attractive small city, on the water, nice old buildings, all the services and shops you'll need, and not pricey compared to Melbourne. Don't discount the inland regional towns such as Bendigo and Ballarat either, though for your photography, I imagine you'll want access to a big market, so access back to Melbourne will be good, and Geelong is definitely nearer (just about commutable by train). I'm biased, but Melbourne is way nicer than Sydney - just a better, nicer city to live in. But you'll get a feel for what you like, and that's different for all of us. But watch the housing costs, especially house prices. Sydney (anywhere) is out of reach except for the seriously moneyed, and most of eastern Melbourne is getting that way.

I spent a year in my youth doing voluntary work in Leigh, just down the road. If I say that Wigan seemed a tough place even compared to Leigh, you'll understand. One of the scariest places I ever spent an evening was Wigan's roller skating venue, in a former mill, complete with jutting walls and pillars. Bonkers. But I agree, there are some lovely people and places there too...

You made friends in Wigan? Respect to you my friend...

As others have said, the key to making new friends is to get out and join in. I imagine many people haven't thought through how they made their friends in the UK - and many will realise that these friends are people they went to school with, or in some other way grew up with. It isn't going to be like that in a new country - it will be much more like going away to university (for those who have done that), or moving to a new part of the country - and if you haven't had successful experiences of making new friends in those situations then you may not have the social toolkit to thrive in a new country (one couple I know of failed to settle because they couldn't adapt to the big city having grown up in a small village, with their entire social circle made up of locally resident family and people they had grown up with in the same village). But it is not hugely complicated - join in with something on the basis of a shared interests or other common factors. That can be sport, religion, hobbies, politics, books, films - whatever - but that hockey club, amdram group, school fete committee, Greenpeace branch or church is going to be the beginnings of a social network. Sometimes it won't work and you'll have to try another route, but you will get there. Having said that, I met my best mate (and through him his wife, who is my wife's best mate) by talking to him at the bus stop, as we caught the same connection into the city every day. So in one sense you can be lucky, but you also have to make your own luck by starting those conversations with strangers.

Unfortunately the reporting appears to be economically and mathematically illiterate, or at best poorly written. Does it mean the growth rate is back to 2008 levels, or that the overall size of the economy is back to 2008 levels? I think the latter is highly unlikely.

But the beauty of Australia, even a big city like Melbourne, is that no one would have done. Even if they didn't like them.

I think Melbourne's the winner from this deal. I came all this way to avoid them, they can stay away. We've got far better and more interesting things to do in Melbourne than fawn over wealthy parasites.

My suburb is 95% bogan. I keep hoping we might get a few more people who are functionally literate to gentrify the place. I'm a bit down on the place having had my mother in law racially abused on the train recently, but... Melbourne works pretty well, and its definitely diverse. I don't sense the tension and distrust between different groups that I saw in the UK, and even though some areas have large concentrations of particular groups, there aren't any obvious no go areas (except for the bogans, natch), and nowhere is completely one group or another (Box Hill and Glen Waverley have the reputation for being largely Asian - yes, there are substantial Asian populations, but there's a lot of non-Asians, and amongst that 'Asian' description there is a lot of diversity). The catch is that multiculturalism and diversity is a newer thing in Australia than in the UK, and even though its working generally better than in the UK (migrants and minorities seem to have less of a glass ceiling to progress, for example), there are still a few knuckleheads who haven't got their rather dim skulls around the idea, and adjusted their language, concepts and behaviour accordingly. It's a fear/stupidity thing, but fear can be pretty ugly when you encounter it. The paradox of Melbourne is that it is a diverse city that works well, but just occasionally you'll run into a throwback (sometimes quite a young throwback) that makes you think you've landed in the UK in the 1970s.

There's some excellent advice here already. However, a little caution on the expectations of greater time with your family and the 'lifestyle'. Australia isn't a paradise of high wages, beaches on the doorstep and a better work-life balance - at least not for everyone. Just as in the UK, your life will be one of compromises. Not everyone can afford to live by the beach, because that is where everyone wants to be, and that means its the most expensive place to be. Aussies in professional occupations work long hours just as in the UK - its a myth that Australians work short days and get endless holidays. Indeed, you may well get less paid leave here than in the UK. And since most of us live in big cities here, you'll probably be commuting to your job, just as in the UK - traffic jams and crowded trains are the same anywhere in the world. There are many good reasons to come, and especially to come for a few years for experience and adventure, but there are a lot of myths circulating in the UK about what life in Australia is like (with one of the biggest myth makers being 'Wanted Down Under'), and these have a tendency to leave a lot of people underwhelmed by the lives they actually end up living. And that's from someone who has made it work over here.

Comparing like with like in terms of quality, clothes are horribly expensive in Aus. Even where I've found stuff I liked, the Aussie stuff tends to fall apart after a few months (stand up and take a bow Gazman and Myer, for the sale of notably overpriced and fragile men's work clothes). Stuff shipped mail order from the UK (sometimes now from .com.au sites) is way better and often still significantly cheaper. But major sporting events are far cheaper, decent Asian food is very reasonable, new cars and petrol are cheap. Bread is pricey, especially decent stuff, but meat, particularly beef and lamb is relatively cheap and high quality. Sweets are expensive! It's cheaper to ship in bulk from Germany and get what I like. Beer - yes, it is pricey. But at least you can get decent micro-brewery stuff and Dan Murphy's is just wonderful.

I'm not sure non-Australian experience is entirely ignored - it was what got me my job here - but inevitably you have to take a step backwards, because regardless of the job, you are in both a new country and a new company, and things will be done differently. There is a period in which you'll need to relearn. Moreover, your contacts book is useless once you get here, and don't underestimate the value that you lose there. No one knows your work, no one can vouch for you over here, and you don't have the network of useful people to help when you need them. Again, it takes a couple of years to build that back up again. So, inevitably, the first couple of years, at least, are going to be about learning and re-establishing yourself, however, experienced and skilled you are. That has certainly been my experience.

You sound very sensible to me. It's your life, so go somewhere you're happy. Having moved from the UK to Melbourne I'd put a shout in for my adopted city (and yes, I think it still has the vibe you liked). But if I could find work there, I'd be in Tassie like a shot, and I'd certainly consider NZ. There is still a lot to love about the UK (especially if you can find a good life well away from London), and places in mainland Europe that you may well love. And how about Canada - both Toronto and Vancouver are great cities?

So if there are two children, one needs to be in Australia? And if there are three, two need to be here? Is that how it works? I have one sibling, likewise my OH has one sibling. So on this basis any of our parents *might* be eligible to come here if they wanted to once we've been PR for two years (and presumably subject to all sorts of big caveats about health, money etc)?

I’m not sure what I want to get out of this post, other than to share our feelings and experience - but any feedback is welcome, especially if you have had similar experiences or can relate to this. In early December, my OH’s mum came from the UK to stay with us for a couple of months. We were very pleased about this – my own mum had been out a year ago, had loved seeing our new life, and really took to Australia. Some background, my OH’s mum was born and brought up in Jamaica, moving to the UK at the end of the fifties as a young, single woman. At the time, Australia was off limits to her as a migration destination because of the white Australia policy, and I think she has felt ever since that Australia was not a country in which she was welcome. So on this score at least I think she had misgivings when we moved here – not because we migrated (after all that has been part of her life experience too) but because we came to a country that in her eyes was still suspect in its attitudes to race and colour. Our experience was that Australia was not the country of fifty years ago – that it was diverse, largely positive about its diversity, and a good place. Whilst there was undoubtedly racism, it was probably no worse than the UK, and in many respects far better. And this is the view we reported back to family and friends. Ten days into her visit, we went into the centre of Melbourne to see the Christmas lights on the Town Hall. Because of a litany of minor disasters in terms of missed train connections, we ended up making the last leg of our trip at midnight. In the ten minutes we were on that train, our picture of Australia changed, perhaps irrevocably. There was a group of six or seven drunken lads on the train – they were roaming the length of the train, staggering drunk, scrounging, loud, smoking in the passage between the two carriages, and generally being obnoxious. Finally, they decided to racially abuse my OH’s mum using the n***** word. My OH’s mum is in here late seventies, she moves with difficulty and uses a stick to walk. She is a gentle old lady. Our teenage daughter was distraught, and later hysterical. When we got to our stop, we reported what had happened to the PSOs on the platform (the gang of lads could see us do this, and suddenly looked very small and meek). The PSOs showed significant concern, and radioed ahead to their colleagues. They clearly understood we were shocked and upset. But in the end, they took no names and addresses, and the unspoken message was ‘we have no evidence, we can’t do much’. Frankly, if the lads had been hauled off the train at the next stop and done for drunken disorderly (the evidence for that was obvious) I’d have been reasonably satisfied, but of course we don’t know whether anything happened. But the impact on us has been pretty profound. We no longer feel entirely safe or trusting of Australia. Yes, we can rationalise that it was an isolated incident, that it was just a bunch of drunks, that the same could have happened in the UK (and the only reason it didn’t to us was because we never travelled on late night public transport in the UK). We are struggling to get past this, and to feel happy and secure here again. I guess we feel like many victims of crime do – troubled, traumatised, insecure, and resigned to the fact that nothing can or will be done – that the perpetrators who did this to us will get away without any significant punishment, nor any realisation or concern about the damage they have done. We’ve talked to friends here, and they are appalled and ashamed, as we are. But right now, two months on, we can’t uncouple this incident from the way we feel about living here.

Precisely what we are doing at the moment. But we're not getting any younger, and eventually we need to get back on the ladder before we get too old to take on a mortgage. Moreover, whilst we try to sit tight, local prices climb steadily out of our reach... Classic stick or twist dilemma!