Loopylu

Just because you have not experienced it Starlight7 does not mean it is not true. I have witnessed lots of racism in Qld on trains and in other public places, some of the worst directed at Traditional Owners whose land this is. Perhaps you have led a sheltered life. I tend to find that these attitudes are expressed by those with less education and working in lower pay grades who feel their jobs are threatened by immigrants who may work for less money or who blame every crimewave on non-whites. It does not help that the current government and its Newscorp lackeys promote these views. Funny how the views I have heard expressed from Melbourne are that all crime is the fault of Sudanese and the Muslims spread Covid during Ramadan...

I suspect that your new employer will be aware of the quarantine requirements and will have to give you some leeway. If they put pressure on you to break the law they could potentially be liable as an accomplice. All the best with the relocation and your new job.

And they bore me sh*tless…. Seen one rain forest and tropical beach, you've seen them all. I prefer the variety of the UK landscape and access to Europe and culture. I prefer the UK climate and British people, irrespective of their ethnicity and cultural background. The UK has (like Australia) in the main benefited from migration. I have found that a lot of British people who have relocated to Australia mention that they like the lack of black and brown faces here and I guess they fit in with probably 95% of the Aussie born white population. This attitude disgusts me.

Fantastic to see the result in the Lund Family case where George helped the Lund Family to stay in Australia in spite of their son having Downs Syndrome and potentially being a drain on the public purse. As a lawyer, I consider that Australia's laws in relation to migration of people with disabilities is a breach of international human rights law and up there with Nazi Eugenics. This is a rich country and, if those in power and the richest Australians paid their fair share of tax, this would not be an issue. The Lunds pay tax and Mrs Lund provides jobs for 20 Aussies. Wishing the Lund Family all the best for the future.

I love cold and gloomy. Our last trip to the UK was December/January 2018/9 and the cold weather was so lovely. Brisbane is a relaxed place so much so that it turns a blind eye to overt racism, sexism etc. When we moved here in 2008 I thought I had landed in a bad 1970s sitcom....

AliQ - I guess it depends where you live in the UK as to your experience. My parents live in a village in Carmarthenshire so no crowds or traffic to worry about. If you live in or around major towns and cities in the UK then yes it is a problem but driving in Brisbane during rush hour is also tedious. On Public Holidays the M1 to the Sunshine Coast is also a traffic jam....

Qld is pleasant in Winter but then the days are very short and so I only see my garden on the weekend.... It's dark here by 5pm now. I really miss UK summer evenings when I could potter in the garden after work until 10pm. In Qld the sun goes down by 7.30pm at the latest which when I worked for Brisbane top tier law firm meant I still didn't see my garden in the week. It's better now that I am in-house and can leave work much earlier....

Nemesis- you have captured my sentiments exactly! You've seen one rain forest, you've seen them all, ditto with the beaches and endless open spaces that all look the same. Where I lived in the UK, I only had to drive a few miles to see a different landscape, different architecture etc. It was never too hot (or too cold) to go for a long walk in countryside and the access across ancient footpaths beats the sterile boardwalks available in Qld. I enjoyed my memberships of English Heritage and the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust but nothing much similar here.

I understand that it gets difficult to get a seat during rush hour the closer to Brisbane that you live on the Gold Coast. Hopefully, someone who commutes from Helensvale can let you know what seat availability is like from that station.

Depriving someone of their property rights would be a breach of the UN HR Convention so that person should be able to dispose of their Australian based assets and repatriate their money. However, I wouldn't be surprised if the Australian Government has powers to put a charge over real property to recover its costs of deportation. It would also be interesting to know what would happen to the person's super pot as usually only temporary visa holders can transfer super outside of Australia before retirement age.

I am not terribly homesick and I am not clinically depressed. I have been there and this is so not the same. The feeling is more akin to being convicted of a crime I didn't commit and being incarcerated indefinitely. What frustrates me about the Australian government's approach to the international lockdown is the fact that they are not giving any guidance whatsoever on when international travel may restart. Just smug/glib comments about "you won't be going abroad on holiday this year" as though an overseas holiday is the only possible reason why a person in Australia might want to leave the country. Living in Brisbane, we can't even escape Qld and go to northern NSW for a road trip holiday as we had originally planned to do during these coming winter school holidays (with my parents) or go to any other State for that matter. And being told that I should be road-tripping in a State that I am already very bored with adds injury to insult. The plan is for my parents to try to come same time next year so I will try to look forward to that. Thanks for all your comments as it does help.

As a lawyer who has volunteered in my spare time to assist asylum seekers, I have a very dim view of the LNP government. If you read academic articles on human rights, the Australian approach of not giving any timelines for reviewing freedom of movement laws is an abuse of human rights. Manus and Nauru where people have been detained up to 7 years shows they have form in this area.

I do feel very down. My parents (78 and 75) were due to arrive on 12th June but are now thinking that we will have to wait another year until we see them again. That will be 2.5 years until I last saw them. We usually see each other once a year. There is no guarantee that all of us will be alive then....I have a Welsh friend who lives nearby whose mother died suddenly in her 60s. I can't just leave Australia as I have 2 x19 year olds at Uni and a 15 year old at school. As a mother, their education is more important than my homesickness and need to see my parents. My Aussie husband and I do intend to return permanently to the UK once our parental responsibilities are at an end but now is not the right time.

Thanks for reminding me that I have essentially been transported for the term of my natural life... It is an abuse of human rights not to set a sunset date on when the travel restrictions will be revisited. Other countries give dates when they will review such draconian laws.

I wish I did not have dual citizenship then I could leave Australia (flights permitting) without having to seek special permission from a country where I was not born.

There are some selective free high schools in Qld but I only know of ones in Brisbane. I have not heard of any on the Gold Coast. Hopefully someone from the Goldie can advise one way or the other. My kids have all gone to a local State High School and it ran extension English, Maths, Science for the brighter students and also an academic achievement program. If you want a school on the Gold Coast that selects by ability you'll probably have to pay for it unless your child is bright enough to obtain a scholarship. I'm also not aware of any state schools that are single sex. Personally I don't agree with single sex private schools as, certainly here in Qld, it creates old boy networks that locks poorer men and all women out of the better jobs....

It's over 10 years since we applied for our Medicare cards but I don't remember being asked for an NHS number. I remember we had to sign a statutory declaration for some bizarre reason. Aussie bureaucracy loves stat decs….

It appears that you have to take out private health cover as a condition of your visa. However, if this were not the case, it may still be cheaper to pay the MLS than pay for hospital cover health insurance, particularly if you have a family. In my view, private health cover in Australia is a huge rort compared to what you get in the UK where my employer paid for my private health. In the UK there was a small annual excess on my BUPA cover. In Australia, The health insurance rarely covers full procedures and people can be several thousand dollars out of pocket. We were $1000 out of pocket for an ingrowing toe nail where our son required surgery under general anaesthetic. Out of pocket for ENT procedures for young children can cost several thousand and when you get onto cancer, don't ask!!! We have ditched hospital cover (and kept extras - ie dental, optical) and now use the public system. My husband has had two knee replacements on Medicare and we can't fault the results compared to friends who had private surgery and complications.... He is also very well cared for in the public system for his chronic kidney disease. Personally, I wish Australia would adopt an NHS system where more is covered but the negative nellies in the British media who are always dissing the NHS convince Aussies that the NHS is not as good. My Aussie MIL waited 5 years for a hip replacement and only got it because she managed to fall and break her hip.... I have never heard of anyone waiting that long in the UK. There is not much in the way of dentistry here for the poor or low income earners. If you are lucky enough to live in a major city, then if you are poor you can go to a dental training hospital and let the students treat you or otherwise you pay through the roof. There are no capped payments like in the NHS for dentistry and even the health insurance only covers so much. The cost of braces for children will set you back around $8000 per child. Even if you are on NewStart (ie Universal Credit) or an aged pensioner, you still have to pay a small amount for prescriptions and other routine screening procedures. Often poor people here choose between food and medication. For the wider population, if your prescription is on the PBS then you can pay up to a cap of $36 per prescription. depending on how much the medication costs. My advice is tofactor health care costs (particularly dentistry if your kids have bad teeth) into your budget....

From recollection, it was free to change a UK passport when I got married (albeit nearly 25 years ago). You have nearly 8 months until you go on holiday so you should be able to get the visa and passport updated in that time....

I would say that The Gap is ahead of the suburbs around Mansfield in terms of demographics and this probably explains why The Gap got better OP scores. I believe that Naplan results may be adjusted to take into account factors such as demographics. I know Australians who have sent kids to both schools and they have been happy with the results from those schools and their kids have thrived (which to my mind is more important than academic results). My advice would be to rent somewhere fairly close to the CBD so that it is easy to commute to wherever you end up working (north or south). You can then have a look at the schools and suburbs and work out which you prefer. As all Qld public schools follow a national curriculum, when you decide where to live, you can then move your girls to the local catchment school. In Qld, if you live in catchment they have to find a place for your child, unlike the UK where they can turn you away if the school is full. We started out in Clayfield but after 9 months moved to just north of Brisbane (20km to the CBD). We just ferried the kids to their Clayfield school until the end of the academic year and then moved them to the school in our suburb at the start of the next academic year. If your girls are gifted academically or in sport or the arts, you could look to see if they can get into Brisbane State High which is a predominantly selective state school that enrols students from outside of its small West End catchment if they pass the relevant exams etc. This public school tends to be the highest performing academically in Brisbane. We thought about getting our two eldest (twins) to sit the BSH exam but decided not to in case one got in and the other didn't. We didn't send our kids to the nearest state high school but to one a bit further away which we selected because of its dlversity (racial and social class) and wide subject range which we considered more important to assist our children to develop life skills than choosing a school that hot-houses to get high academic results. Our twins are both now at QUT studying the subjects they are passionate about. Hope this helps.

As with the UK, there are excellent public schools, average public schools and some very bad public schools. I suggest that you look at NAPLAN (similar to SATS) results etc for the public schools you are considering to see if you are happy with the results. As you have noticed, there are a lot more private schools here and it is relatively cheap to send your kids to a private school, if that is your thing. Catholic schools and other religious schools are the cheapest and may only cost about $5000 per child per year. This is the case because private schools are generously subsidised by the Government in Australia. In my experience, the academic results from the low-mid cost private schools aren't that great. A lot of tradies send their kids to cheaper private schools here in the mistaken belief that their kids will become mini-Einsteins and climb the social ladder overnight. There is a lot of snobbery around what school you send your child to and, in this regard, I think the class system is worse than the UK. Alot of these cheaper private schools also have a limited range of subjects on offer. We have friends who have moved their kids from private schools to public schools because they did not think they were getting value for money or a good, varied education for their children. As with the UK, there are some elite private schools where the tuition fees are eye-watering but the facilities and academic results are excellent and, attending these schools, tends to open up an old boys/girls network. In some professions (eg law), which high school you went to may determine whether you get a training contract. However, some of the best (usually selective) public high schools give the expensive private schools a run for their money. Where we live, the selective Brisbane State High School and some specialist academies have top academic results. I'm a lawyer who has worked in top-tier law firms in Brisbane for 7 years and now work in-house. My husband and I decided to send our kids to a fairly local public high school based on the range of subjects offered and our impressions from attending the open day. Our two eldest (twins) got good OPs and are now studying at QUT. We still have one child there and she is thriving. We liked the school because it had fairly good academic results and was very diverse in terms of ethnicity and the social background of students. I think it is important to expose your children to people from all backgrounds and not quarantine them with others from a similar privileged background because they are better prepared for the real world. Good luck with settling in to SA.

If you do set up an account with one of the big 4 banks while in the UK, make sure you have a UK back-up account and credit cards in case you have any issues when you get here. We signed up with Westpac over 11 years ago and when we arrived in Brisbane duly went to see the branch to do the "simple" ID proof etc to get our bank cards issued. We had a numpty deal with us and they forgot to send off the paperwork after our appointment and so we had no access to all of our money transferred to the Westpac account because the cards did not turn up as they were supposed to.... Fortunately we still had a Nationwide account with funds and a credit card with no international transaction fees to tide us over until Westpac did their job properly. Marisa is right that the big 4 banks are pretty useless at customer service and not to be trusted. After 3 years here we moved from Westpac to St George when we got a mortgage with St George and like Marisa we have recently also signed up with ING for the great low interest credit card and no international transaction fees.

I recommend that you get your assessment from VLAB before deciding whether to relocate as you may find that, depending on where/what you studied and if you have a law degree or went down the GDL route, the number of subjects you have to study may be much more than four. I have heard that for GDL qualified people assessment boards demand a lot more subjects to be completed. A number of universities and other entities (eg College of Law) will offer the courses and you can study on line with most of them. Some people do this while still working in the UK so that they are ready for admission when they get to Australia. I requalified 10 years ago but had the benefit of having being sponsored over by a law firm who paid for my requalification and admission and guided me through selecting course providers because I practised in an area of law (energy) where there was a skills shortage. Is this something you could explore if you work in a sought after area of law? It took me exactly a year after arriving in Australia to be admitted. I only had to do three subjects (even though I did not have a law degree - I did the CPE and LSF) but it was a lot less stringent in those days and different states had different standards. I went down the NSW route to get admitted even though I was working in QLD. All the best.

Once you get a permanent visa, you have 12 months to get private health insurance to avoid the loading that is applied for every year that you are over 31 years of age. This was what applied when I got my PR a few years ago. Before that I was on a 457 and then a bridging visa when my 457 expired and I was waiting for my partner visa application to be processed. When my husband returned to Australia from the UK in 2008 after 15 years out of the country, he was 45 but again was subject to the 12 month rule to arrange private health insurance to avoid loading as he was not resident in Australia when the relevant laws came in.

I would check out a comparison website where you can put in your specific requirements for cover. If you are not a PR then you will be limited to specific policies designed for temporary visa holders and don't qualify for the tax rebates for holding health insurance that PR and citizens get. I recommend getting extras cover as well as hospital cover if you wear glasses or like to get your teeth checked regularly.