Loopylu

So you know my mind about Australia? Why do you always have to have a nasty dig at me all the time? No I don’t “love” Australia and it will never be my true home. As Quoll often says, it is just another first world country. It’s ok if all you care about is sunshine and big houses.

Yes - I worked much harder in private practice in Australia than the UK but now work in-house so have my life back. I used to have to do all-nighters on deals here and never got any TOIL or extra pay. I’ve spent nearly 30 years working as a solicitor in both jurisdictions but it appears I know nothing….

Have you visited Australia previously? I am concerned that you think life will definitely be better here. It took me over 10 years to be on a salary better than what I was on in the UK. The pay differential here between partners and staff is much more pronounced than in the UK. In the UK, I had free private health insurance from my law firm in Birmingham. Here Medicare is not all free with expensive gaps and private healthcare will cost you upwards of $500 a month for your family - it won’t be provided by your employer. There are also huge gaps (ie it only covers part of the cost of treatment and you pay the difference.) The public hospitals here are struggling just like the NHS. State schools.are very underfunded. I also went from 29 days annual leave a year plus public holidays to 20 days plus public holidays. To get long service leave you have to do 10 years with one employer which may be hard to do if you want to progress in your career. I am only here because I agreed to live in my husband’s country. If I had my time over I would have stayed put.

I stand corrected as this was never the case previously. However, when I just searched the list they only want IP lawyers (a very limited category). Barristers are specified as a general category but, as they are contractors affiliated to chambers, they don’t have employee rights and it’s a hard market to break into. You need connections from law school or have gone to the right private schools to make it here. The shortage of specialist IP lawyers is because outside of Sydney and Melbourne there is little work and what there is is run of the mill. Most young Aussies who specialise in this field go to London or the US to get interesting work. They come back after a few years for family reasons and often go in-house to universities. The IP teams in top tier law firms are very small.

Mitchelton, Ferny Hills/Grove are good areas. We live a bit further north out of Brisbane in the new City of Moreton Bay (our suburb is Eatons Hill). We are only 20km from the CBD though and you get more house/land for your money up here. However, we bought our 5 bedroom on 888m2 in 2009 for $565k and it's now valued at over $1.1m. Hopefully you've experienced similar appreciation on your property in the UK so you have a good deposit to put down on a house here.

The system is weird - if you lose your job in Australia or retire but your partner is still working you are means tested and get no benefits/aged pension. I know a lady who worked all her life and is now 78. She doesn't qualify for an aged pension because her partner is 55 and still working. Conversely, there is no way of sharing your tax burden with a partner who doesn't work and use their tax free allowance. It's a very unfair system. We are in a similar boat to you. My husband can't work due to serious health issues so I have to support him fully on my income but can't use his tax free allowance....

Hi Danielle Firstly I don't think lawyers have ever been on the skills list for Australia. Australian universities churn out loads of lawyers and the government has actually increased law degree fees to discourage the uptake and to encourage students to study STEM subjects. Secondly, you need to get a few years' working experience after admission as a solicitor in the UK before trying to make the move. As a UK admitted lawyer, I relocated to Qld in 2008 but was sponsored over by a top tier law firm because I specialised in energy law and there was a shortage of lawyers at that time with the required experience. At that time I had 13 years PQE experience. To practice here (rather than work as an overseas qualified lawyer under supervision of an Australian admitted lawyer), I had to take exams and then get admitted here. This took a year and I only had to do 3 exams. Since then the number of exams has increased and so, if you are working fulltime and studying in your own time as I was, requalification may take longer than a year. I was then under supervision for 2 years before getting an unrestricted practising certificate. Law firms here will not be interested in employing you with just an LLB. You will need to do your SQE, two year training contract and get a few years of post qualification experience in the UK before they may consider you. If you are still relatively young, you could maybe get a working holiday visa and then try to get work as a paralegal here and then you could see whether working in the Australian legal profession is for you. I hope this information helps even if it is probably not what you want to read. All the best

Sound advice, as usual!!

Hi - sorry to hear about your husband’s diagnosis but good to hear that he is stable. If your husband is an Australian citizen and chooses to return to Australia to live then he will qualify for Medicare treatment. However, in our experience, you cannot just handover all the NHS medical notes and instead you would likely have to be referred by a GP for ongoing oncology specialist treatment. When we moved here in 2008, my Aussie husband had Stage 3 chronic kidney disease and could not shortcut the GP and waitlist for seeing a specialist. Queensland Health failed to treat his condition with certain drugs that slow progression of the disease and we blame this on moving between systems and care not being smoothly transitioned. Basically, the NHS tests and diagnosis were binned and we were back to square one. My husband is now on dialysis and hoping to go on the active transplant list. All the best with whatever you decide to do and try to enjoy every day that you still have your husband.

Actually I had to phone up the local health authority administration team for the vaccines and ask for an appointment at the mass vaccination hub. It was not a case of just bowling up and sticking my arm out. I had to give my name and show ID to security and be ticked off the list. Really no different to getting a GP appointment. It was not a free for all as you suggest. Unlike the vaccine fiasco in Australia, people with current NHS numbers were sent a vaccine appointment, starting with the most vulnerable first. If you couldn’t make your allotted date and time it was easy to rearrange to a convenient time. As I did not have an appointment in the post I had to arrange one as described.

We flew with this airline a year after the two incidents and it was fine. The crew and food were lovely. The only perturbing feature was the Islamic prayer before take off for a safe flight....

As others have commented, public hospital care in Australia can be hit and miss too. I don't think that you should move back to Australia solely based on a belief that the public health system may be better. I think you would need a few more reasons than that for a major upheaval in your living conditions which could increase your stress levels and set you back. I think it also depends on where you live in the UK as to the quality of care you receive. My Dad was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer in February 2021 and the care he received up until his death in February 2022 in Carmarthenshire. Wales was second to none and better than the care my friend's husband received in Brisbane (again with a terminal diagnosis). If you decide to move back to Australia for other reasons and base yourself in or near to a major centre then your care should be of a first world standard (as you would get in the UK, Canada, EU, NZ etc) but noting that I have read of other first world countries such as France having medical staff shortages too. A lot of first world countries have limited the number of doctor training places at the insistence of the medical unions and now that the baby boomer generation are retiring there is a shortage of medics all round. This leads to first world countries poaching each others' doctors and those from poorer countries.

Hi Caz Not childhood vaccine, but I was in the UK in 2021 and was able to access a free Covid vaccine from the NHS without showing a British Passport or quoting my NHS number. The NHS was more than happy to vaccinate anyone who wanted it who was staying in the UK for a while. I was only there 2 months. Unlike Australian medical facilities that require sight of a Medicare card before treating you, NHS hospitals and GPs do not tend to turn people away who need treatment. I suggest that you ask your family in the UK to make enquiries at their local GP as to whether your son can have the vaccinations he needs. If they are frequent fliers there then the GP will likely help out. I would take your records with you so that the nurse or doctor administering the vaccine knows what your son has had to date and can sign off on the vaccinations. You will need evidence of vaccination on your return from Australia to obtain any child related tax concessions. Hope this helps.

Be very careful if you choose Sandgate. It’s a lovely spot but in recent years the avenues near to the water have flooded badly. We know a few people (including family) who have sold up after being flooded a couple of times. You may struggle to get 4-5 bedrooms near the water for $900k as house prices have rocketed in Brisbane. Houses of that size in good suburbs 20km to the north of the CBD on more than a postage stamp of land are going for $1.1 million at the moment.

With the PBS safety net, it is easiest to manage your entitlement if you both go to the same chemist as they will keep a record of all your expenditure and, if you hit the $1400 threshold, they will apply the lower rate charge for all subsequent medication for the calendar year. This is not something that is advertised and we probably missed out on the PBS for several years before we cottoned on to how the system works.

My husband is on dialysis and does home haemodialysis. All of the equipment, home alterations are provided and paid for by Medicare. However certain drugs included in the infusion (heparin, iron) are prescription items and the patient pays. If you do home dialysis then you get some financial support towards water and electricity bill but it does not cover full additional cost. If you go to a dialysis hub to dialyse then no additional costs. You save Medicare about $20k a year doing home dialysis but you have out of pocket costs and subsidise Medicare in order to have the convenience of not having to go to a dialysis unit at a set time for 4-5 hours 3 times a week and sit next to some random stranger….

As a lawyer I agree with Marissa on the tax front. Tax law specialist lawyers are the most expensive lawyers to consult, typically charging a 20% premium on the average commercial lawyer rate. They are also more versed in how to help the very rich and corporations to avoid tax. A tax agent is the way to go.

Australia is not a cheap place to live. At least in the UK all medications are free to those on an aged pension… no need if you are on a low income to choose between your health and food/rent.

I agree wholeheartedly about the 80s. Not sure how this issue is going to be fixed in either country as people continue to vote for minimal tax cuts over hospitals, schools etc for the greater good. All we can do is try to be kind and generous to others and make the most of life I suppose.

I tend to agree. I have noticed lots of new housing developments in the villages of Worcestershire and also in Carmarthenshire. New industrial estates and shopping centres too.

Unfortunately due to my husband being on dialysis I don’t think he will ever live back in the UK again. He may not be a candidate for a transplant as his kidney failure is caused by an autoimmune condition and you can only dialyse for so long. The average life expectancy on dialysis is 5 years but obviously some people go much longer. I will look into being a living donor as a new kidney even if attacked by his body may give him more time.

My Australian husband returned to Australia in 2008 after 15 years in the UK and he found the culture had changed immensely and in his opinion not for the better. He felt Australia had adopted the worst excesses and selfishness of the USA. No one was laid back anymore and everyone whinged about first world problems. The cost of living and housing had also shot up making it far more expensive than the average cost of living outside of London and the South East. Fast forward 14 years and he is starting to think the UK would be a better place to grow old after the way his mother was treated by aged care and Medicare in comparison to what my parents have experienced in the UK.

Healthcare in Worcestershire has been dire for a long time. I grew up in Kidderminster and we lost our fantastic A&E and maternity (reports showed it was well run and kept within budget) so they could pump more money into the terrible Worcester PFI and Redditch hospitals. I would not recommend North Wales healthcare either as the health authority there has been in special measures…. My Mum lives in Carmarthenshire and they get excellent healthcare there (Hywel Dda). My Dad had terminal pancreatic cancer and every area of care (GP, district nurses, Marie Curie, Macmillan, oncology and palliative) was second to none. My friend’s husband had terminal cancer at the same time in Brisbane and she was amazed at how much more support was available in that very rural part of Wales. She had major issues and wrote a 15 page report on the terrible care her husband got at the Royal Brisbane Hospital. It is now being investigated by the Department of Health. My family’s experience of the RBH has also been bad. Qld Health is failing too. Yes - scans are easy to come by in Australia but in my view a lot of Medicare funds are wasted on just in case scans by GPs who are afraid of being sued which could be spent on more beds for elective surgery. Australian healthcare is great if you can afford private healthcare and live close to a city but places like Doomadgee where young Aboriginal people die of easily preventable rheumatic heart disease due to institutional racism in healthcare are terrible. Also that young white lad who died of an in growing toenail in SA shocked me. I hope your Dad is OK and has the test results he needs to get the best treatment.

I have often read your posts and thought we were singing from the same or a very similar hymn sheet. You are lucky to have some property here in the UK that you could potentially use as a home for part of the year and split your time between both places. I'm currently away for a week with my Mum in very rural Worcestershire. We are right by a mill pond in a beautiful barn conversion. The sun is shining and all is well with the world when you can sit outside (with no flies or mozzies) and eat some lovely grub from the local Waitrose in Droitwich....