toOZ2012

With more and more discretionary powers being granted to the Minister. even citizenship is not safe. Even people born here that inherited dual citizenship are not safe.

1. If you want to bring cash then bring them as is and exchange them here for AUD. The general rule is "local" currency is always cheaper to buy. So buy AUD in Australia and buy USD in USA etc 2. Be vigilant and declare cash at the customs. Don't know if your have any regulations on cash control where you are departing. 3. Suggest you look into forex companies. There are plenty of them around. You can open a NAB account while you are still overseas and transfer money into it.

Don't have an answer for you but want to point out that you also need good tax advice from someone who is familiar with both UK and Australian Tax laws. Lawyers rarely know all the tax ramifications which can end up being a bigger sum than legal fees. Best divorces are the ones without any lawyers - they just take money from both of you. If you are still on good terms - get tax advice, work out a plan and see if you still need a lawyer - in that order.

So it begins - first it's the boats, next it's migrants, next it will be the citizens - No accountability, no transparency, no humanity. No one want's criminals in society but surely, they could have handled it better.

They should have been notified much much sooner so that they could get on with their lives instead of leaving them in a limbo.

With Listening, just practice the questions in Cambridge IELTS series. I found that the practice test scores are very close to my final scores. Listening is probably the easiest section of the lot. With Reading, I am gonna hazard a guess and say it's a time management issue. IIRC, Reading has 3 sections. Split your time to 12,18,23 minutes for each of the sections. Leave 5 to 7 minutes for revising your answers. You'll pick up on a few silly mistakes. Other than that, just do 2 to 4 practice tests from the Cambridge IELTS book and give it another go.

About time. Australia is in need of a serious sustainability boost.

That may change in the coming decade or so - super reforms will encourage retirees to go on income streams than draw out lump sums.

A hands on approach maybe? I use AustralianSuper with MemberDirect where I have bit more control on what shares I put my money in. With a sufficient super balance, a SMSF is worth the administrative and accounting hassle.

Probably enough to never have to work again

270,000 directly employed - scary prospect. It's all the genuine hard working employees that get booted during crisis times and the management takes extra bonuses for "handling" what they created in the first place. Disgusting.

I would get a prepaid card to start off. Vodafone is s**t in some parts of the country. There are only 3 networks here: 1) Telstra - Excellent but the most expensive 2) Optus - Next best thing 3) Vodafone - Cheap, can work great depending on the area All others are virtual operators and piggy back on those 3 networks.

Apparently, these are the worst kind of pollutants. VW is in deep ****. It'll probably ask for a bail out. Would be interesting to see how EU handles this, VW being German and all.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/the-who-what-and-why-of-volkswagens-diesel-scandal/story-fnjwucvh-1227542137162 THE Volkswagen Group is the world’s largest automaker but four university researchers may have brought it to the edge of collapse. It was publicly revealed last week that the company had fudged emissions tests using cheat software on diesel powered cars under its three mainstream brands, Volkwagen, Audi and Skoda. The result? $41.5 billion wiped from the company’s value, up to $25 billion in penalties from the US alone, on top of the costs to recall and fix 11 million cars worldwide. Reports have now emerged suggesting the German government was warned months ago about the existence of the “defeat device” software but turned a blind eye. A written parliamentary answer published by The Telegraph appears to show the German transport ministry admitting as far back as July 28 that “The federal government is aware of [defeat devices], which have the goal of [test] cycle detection.” Meanwhile, recall letters sent to VW owners in California in April also warned of an “emissions glitch”. The Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board agreed in December 2014 to allow a voluntary recall of Volkswagen’s diesel models to fix what the company said was a just a technical and easily fixable glitch, Reuters reports. The revelations have already claimed the career of the Volkswagen Group’s CEO Martin Winterkorn who stepped down yesteray. More high profile executives are expected to be sacked or step down in the near future, while the whole German economy is about to take a huge hit. HOW DID IT COME TO THIS? It all started with a road trip. In the Autumn of 2014, researchers from the West Virginia University in America were given a grant to do the first ever evaluation of the tailpipe emissions of diesel cars in America made by European manufacturers. The team consisted of two university professors, Gregory Thompson and Dan Carder as well as two students, Marc Besch and Arvind Thiruvengadam. All four were over the moon that they were able to study vehicles, with the aim to collect as much data as technically possible. Little did they know, they were about to unearth the biggest cover-up in automotive history. The device they used to test the car.Source: They tested three cars: a BMW X5, Volkswagen Jetta and Volkswagen Passat, while travelling over 2400kms on each car to get their results. After driving from Los Angeles to Seattle and back they noticed something odd about their Passat. Going by Volkswagen’s claims, it should easily have let out the least amount of pollution between those three cars — it had a more modern catalytic reduction system which is meant to convert toxic fumes into safer ones — but that wasn’t the case. The nitrogen oxide that came out of the Passat was in fact 20 times more than the baseline levels permitted by the California Air Resources Board. The Volkswagen Passat was one of the vehicles tested.Source:Supplied The team was puzzled. There was no way it could be wrong. They triple-checked the accuracy of their equipment after the Volkswagen Jetta they tested showed readings 30 times more than the claimed pollution rating. The BMW, though, gave off the exact results they expected. At the time, the team had no idea why the cars were emitting so much pollution, assuming Volkswagen had reached some kind of deal with the EPA. “It wasn’t that we tested three vehicles and brought down a corporation. Three vehicles is a very, very small subset of a half-million vehicles, so it was more that we had a role, the data we collected spoke for itself and CARB and EPA did their due diligence. We didn’t point and say, ‘Volkswagen has a defeat device’,” Thiruvengadam told Autoblog. However, a few months later at a 2014 conference in San Diego, they presented their research to an audience that just happened to have several EPA officials in it. The officials immediately started an investigation after talking to the researchers and their funders from the International Council on Clean Transportation. When the EPA confronted Volkswagen, the company blamed “various technical issues” for the results but still voluntarily recalled nearly 500,000 cars in December last year to issue a software patch. It didn’t fix it, and the EPA was starting to get frustrated and investigated further. Eventually they found software called “the switch” which tracks the position of the steering wheel, vehicle speed, how long the engine is on, and air pressure to determine if it is being subjected to an emissions exam. Finally, on September 3 2015, the EPA presented mountains of evidence to Volkswagen and forced them to confess the vehicles were loaded with software to cheat on emissions testing. WHY DID VOLKSWAGEN CHEAT THE TESTS? To understand this, you have to understand that there are two types of combustion engines in our cars. These run on either unleaded petrol or diesel, with both having their advantages. The engine type causing problems here is diesel. Diesel engines have been hugely popular in Europe and Australia, especially with recent high unleaded petrol prices due to diesel’s much better fuel economy. Diesel fuel contains much more energy per litre than a standard litre of petrol, which, combined with the efficiency of diesel engines, allows modern cars to get over 1000kms of highway driving off just one tank of fuel. It also emits fewer carbon-dioxide emissions than standard petrol. Sounds amazing, right? Yes, until you realise there’s a huge catch — diesel engines emit a large amount of nitrogen oxides (NOx) which can cause serious health problems and form a large amount of smog. More efficient — but at what cost?Source:AFP In the past, Europe has been quite loose on its regulations, resulting in around one-third of European cars running on diesel, however it’s also the reason why big cities such as Paris and London have smog problems. In fact, almost 29,000 people die each year in the UK due to air pollution. But in 2009 two things happened that would make diesel appealing in the USA. Increasingly, drivers wanted to get better fuel economy, while at the same time diesel technology had supposedly become cleaner. Companies such as Volkswagen took advantage of this to break into the huge US market, offering “clean diesel” cars that theoretically offered great fuel economy without giving off too much poisonous NOx. There was just one problem — their cars couldn’t actually do that. The car maker cheated by installing software that could detect when its emissions were being tested and turned pollution controls on. The rest of the time, the controls were turned off. They could have kept these controls on the entire time, but it would have defeated the purpose of a diesel engine and deliver lesser performance. WHAT’S NEXT? Everything Volkswagen did in the USA was hugely illegal, so they will have to face the consequences. In the US alone, it’s expected that up to $25 billion in fines will be dealt for all the diesel vehicles sold there since 2009. It would also be very surprising not to see other countries with stricter emissions standards slap fines on Volkswagen, too. For Australians, there is no word yet as to whether the scandal will hit home, although experts have told News Corp Australia as many as 50,000 diesel Volkswagens could be affected. This could jump even more when you include the group’s other brands — Audi and Skoda. It’s not just Australia’s emissions standards that Volkswagen needs to worry about either. The ACCC today announced that they would be investigating whether the company misled customers with their “clean diesel” claims also. Martin Winterkorn has already stepped down from his position of CEO.Source:AP On top of giant fines, the company has set aside a staggering $10 billion for rectification work and compensation claims, but that figure could rise and economic experts warn the catastrophe could be bigger than Greece. In total, it may cost the company $77 billion. The Volkswagen Group is Germany’s biggest employer, with 270,000 people directly employed, but up to a million people in the Germany auto-industry could be affected.

I concur with MaggieMay24. Too complex for forum posters and you may end of with up potentially misleading advice. http://www.pinoyau.com/ - Westley Russell - @wrussell http://www.gmvisas.com/ - Alan Collet - @Alan Collett I think they do free initial assessments - have a chat with them.

Let me see if I got the timeline right: a) You are a citizen b) He applies for business sponsorship visa (onshore I assume?). Were you together back then? c) That application was rejected. It's appeal was also rejected by MRT and he has to leave the country in 28 days. d) So a lawyer suggested your hubby(married by that time I assume?) apply for a onshore spouse visa. What was the need to show financial hardship - Was it to get a bridging visa? Did he have a "no further stay condition"? e) Since his bridging visa didn't have work rights. You used financial hardship cause to get work rights. d) His onshore spouse visa application was also rejected - based on financial hardship reasons? e) So he applies to appeal his decision and that is where you are currently at. What was the exact reason they gave for rejecting his partner visa? The offshore application fee has been bumped to $7000. If he meets all the conditions of a offshore spouse visa I don't see a reason why it would be rejected again but a good agent can help you with that.

You need proper advise. I would start by getting in touch with one of the good agents that post here. Westley Russell, Alan Collett etc

Shouldn't take more than a few weeks. Send a blank email to msastatus@engineersaustralia.org.au to get current processing times.

He is anything but a fellow man. He completely disregarded his team and the people of this country.

Good to hear. If you are using an agent make sure he is MARA registered. When you apply to EA, get assessed for code 233211 as a Professional Engineer. If they sign-off on it then immigration will take their word at face value and you just get the remaining points in IELTS or PTE.

About time. No place for a man who disrespects his own team let alone the entire country with his captain calls and what not. 2 more years gone down the drain.

EA is pretty straightforward for practicing Engineers but I've seen a friend's application come back saying they were not satisfied - it's not just qualifications unfortunately but you never know.

I would explore both the engineer and factory manager options at the same time. Depending on his qualifications EA may take anywhere from 5 to 12 weeks to let you know the outcome. At the same time, I would also pursue the factory manager option. Start with the points test, he may need to use his experience to get the required points in which case the EA option would be be difficult. Once you figure out the points, come back and post here and you'll get better feedback.

Engineers Australia is the assessing body - https://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/about-us/migration-skills-assessment Qualifications alone may not be sufficient and he may be asked to prove continuing professional development. Civil engineers may also need a separate license depending on the type of work. EDIT: https://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/sites/default/files/shado/About%20Us/Migration%20Skills%20Assessment/msa_booklet_-_5august2015.pdf

Yes, FHOG is available to permanent residents. Depending on the state you may also get stamp duty concessions etc. http://www.firsthome.gov.au/