nicolac34

Well, sort of, you won't be 'coming back' so to speak. If you get a sponsor then you just stay. If you haven't got one by the time you have to leave chances are that you won't get a sponsor at all. What are you hoping to be sponsored as?

Insurance wise it really depends on what you are taking with you. We got a fairly comprehensive cover with Downunder Insurance, £560 for a year - but I added a few specified items (laptop, iphone, cameras) that I wanted covered. Basic backpacker insurance usually has very stingy limits where personal posessions is concerned.

What's an ESW? If you don't get a sponsor then you have to leave Australia. Coming on a WHV isn't a sure fire way of being able to stay permanently, happens to just the lucky few!

I guess it is a shock if you aren't used to steep rental prices! But we pay $1,822 a month and have a view of.......a wall. This is actually cheaper than we paid in England, our last rental for a 2 bed place was £1,250 a month (in Windsor).

Where did you hear it was easy?! It's anything but I'm afraid! Without a good deal of experience in an occupation that is on the SOL then you wont have enough points to qualify for an independent visa. You could do the sponsorship route if you could find a Company to take you on - but again you'd need experience to pass a skills test. As for being young, English and having a degree as enough to get into Oz - you've missed the boat by about 25 years! If you wanted to come now your only option would be a WHV, but this is temporary, you can only work in one occupation for up to 6 months and you'll have to return to the UK after a year (or two if you do three months regional work). I'd save this little gem until you've got some work experience and then use it to come over later on and potentially secure a Company sponsor - that's what I did and I've now got PR. There is no easy fix to get to Australia.

Oh ok then ) Dwellingup - Lane Pool Reserve (WA) Rottnest Island (WA) 4WDing at the Lancelin Playground (WA)

Bell has covered most of it. 1) We didn't show proof of funds when we arrived in Perth, would have been tricky as we didn't have very much! But then we had my brother to go and live with, not heard of anyone actually being asked to show it, but if you have it then you may as well bring a statement with you. No idea how long it will last as it depends on what sort of lifestyle you are planning on living and how much you like eating out and drinking (if a lot, then it wont last long!) 2) Sorry, can't help with ideas on bar work. I do know that lots of hostels put up temp jobs on their boards. Had a friend get a few bits of work this way. 3) Don't use your HSBC account over here, you'll be charged a fortune in fees. Open a bank account whe you arrive (any will be fine, I'm with Bankwest which is Commonwealth Bank and I'm happy enough), you just need to take your passport and visa in with you (print out of the WHV grant email). Once you have an account it would be wise to transfer your UK funds into this account to use. Before you leave sign up with a FX company. I use UKForex and find them brilliant, very helpful. You do an 'order' which is to say you want to transfer X amount from GBP into AUD and it asks you for your Oz bank details. Once you submit you then just need to transfer the cash from your HSBC account to their account and before you know it (2 days max) it will be showing up in your Oz account. Loads cheaper than doing it though the banks, think UKforex charges about £7 a trade whereas through the bank you're looking at HSBC charging you around £80 and then the incoming bank charging you a similar amount. You can't get a tax file number until you've landed, you need an address for it to be posted out to and can take a few weeks. No idea what you'd need to go to the embassy for!! 4) Just bring what you think you'll need! 5) Make sure your smartphone is unlocked before you come out, your phone company should be able to do this for free. I was with o2 with an iphone and it was a simple fill in a form online jobbie. You have to make sure you sync it with itunes and it comes up "your phone is now unlocked" otherwise it wont be!! (Mum got caught out with this when she visited for a month!) Sim cards of all varietys are easy to come by, just do a pay as you go (pre-paid over here) Telstra have the best coverage if you're travelling around. $30 a month should be ample for calls, texts, data etc. Don't use Vodafone, they are crap. Good luck!

If you're already working for the company the 2 years starts ticking down from when the visa is granted, which may be a blessing or a curse depending how you view it!!

Hi All, Just wondering if anyone has any recommendations for home contents insurance? It's the one thing I've been putting off as last time I looked I was getting quotes that were near the $1,000 a year mark and this totally freaked me out! (I was paying £176 a year in the UK). We don't have particularly valuble household contents, but need cover for items outside the home that are rather expensive (engagement ring, TAG watch, laptops, iphones, DSLR Camera) and also need this to extend to overseas cover for items away from the home (UK policies allowed upto 30 days overseas cover). Not having a comparison website to use over here I'm getting bored of googling companies, so if anyone can recommend decent/cheap cover it would be appreciated! We're in WA and we are renting.

Tricky one really. I don't think we had a bad standard of living in the UK, we lived in Windsor (lovely place) which I loved, I had a job that I enjoyed, we ate out often and we enjoyed nice food. It's the same here in Perth. I don't 'love' Perth like I loved living in Windsor, but the proximity to the beaches and the weather sell it to me. We still eat out at least once a week, more often than not twice. We shop in farmers markets and nice food shops, we don't scrimp and scrape - but then that's because we have enough money to do that. I do take the view as Rupert suggests above, that if you're not outdoorsey in the UK then you wont be here. But there are plenty of outdoor things to do here in Perth so that should keep you occupied if you like that type of thing. You'll find your standard of living is closely associated with the amount you earn. You'll find plenty of people on here who say that you can quite easily live as a family on under $80k per year, and others (such as myself) that think you wouldn't be comfortable unless you were earning a combined salary of nearer the $180k mark. Like I said, tricky to quantify.

No effect. Credit historys of different countries have no bearing on each other. Which is why when you come to Oz and try to get credit it can be hard in the first instance as you have no history. I wouldn't recommend not paying it back though - you never know, you might want to go back someday.

Just to note on the shipping things over later. We shipped our belongings 12 months after we arrived and our agent had a last minute panic attack about it when it arrived at Customs. Apparently because it had been over 12 months since we'd used our things they could no longer be classed as personal pocessions and would be classed as Commercial (and I assume, some kind of charges introduced!) We got around this because when we came out 12 months previously we were on temporary WHV's. We were granted PR 10 months later and flew home to the UK two days later to sort out the shipping and that's when it was all arranged. Because we flew home they took the time we flew back again on our PR's as the time we officially entered the country - so therefore our belongings were being shipped out within the 12 months. I don't know the ins and outs of this - but worth checking with a shipping agent first!

Welcome to Perth! Nice to see you are all settled in, starting jobs already, that will be hard to get your heads around! Subiaco is great, we live at the bottom of Rokeby Road opposite Kings Park. Not quite central Subi, but close enough to walk to and only 10 minutes on the 103 bus into the CBD. Just a recommendation re: Iphone 5. If you are going contract go with either Telstra or Optus as they are the only Companies that are doing 4G network (spoke to someone in Apple and they said there was no point getting the iphone 5 if you didn't have 4G as all the software was designed to work with the 4G network). If you are going Pre-Paid then it's only Telstra that offer 4G network. I was on Optus, but have now swtiched to Telstra Pre-Paid as they have 4G. It is so quick, feel like I was in the dark ages with my 3GS now! Also Telstra have the best coverage, so I'd recommend them anyway.

Maybe you're IP address that's the issue not your email?

Ours are probably around $6,000 per month for two adults. $2,100 of that is rent, foxtel, phones, broadband, medical insurance. The rest is food, petrol, eating out, trips away, random electronics (new iphone 5 this month!). We are aware we spent a lot on non-essentials, but that's only one salary, we save the other.

Quick question. Lodged my parents 173 on Thu 16th of August, money was debited on 23rd August - still no acknowledgement email. Should we have had it by now??

Just attempted to lodge my parents 173 visa application at the Perth immigration centre - was turned away and told I had to post or courier it to them. I asked why I couldn't be a courier as it would be the same as them dropping it off to me dropping it off and she just said no. Had to go round the corner to the post office and post it to them from there - seemed pretty stupid to me!! Anyhoo, after around six months of sorting out all the relevant documents and information, and waiting until August as we figured that would be our best shot (Brother been here since Nov 2009, 457 in August 2010 and PR in March 2011) it is now finally on it's way!!!

Hi Mike Thanks for coming back to me, sorry, my timeline always throws people off when I talk about my parents coming over! My brother is the main sponsor, he's been here since 2009. There are three of us kids, all actually living in Perth now, two of us on PR the other on a student visa :biggrin:

My parents are thinking of taking redundancy with my dads work and coming over on a tourist visa whilst they wait for the grant of their 173 visa (they know they'd have to leave the country for it to be granted). Has anyone else done this? They thought they'd be able to ship their cars and belongings, but I have a feeling you actually need some kind of visa before you can do this sort of thing - am I right?

Craig, would you be able to break down the costs of bringing both cars? He's still interested in taking the Leon as he's planning on keeping it for a long time.

Thanks Craig, I'll pass the info along to my dad. He loves the Leon, but if the numbers don't add up then I doubt he'd bring it.

Hi Iron, My dad is considering taking both his cars out with him on a parent visa: Car 1 Seat Leon FR 2.0 Litre Turbo Diesel 170bhp BTCC Body Kit with Black Alloys Registered October 2009 Manual 6 speed 33,000 Miles Air Conditioning UK current value £13/14k Doesn't seem to be an Aussie value, the Leon doesn't show up on 'redbook' But a close compare might be a VW Golf TDI which is $22,000-$25,900 Car Sales for the VW Golf is $28,000+ WA Car 2 Mazda MX5 2.0 Litre Petrol Convertible Registered December 2005 Manual 6 speed 49,000 miles Air Conditioning UK Current Value £6,000 Redbook Value $20,000 - $25,000 Car Sales $22,000+ WA

Thanks for that Alan, so the fact he has been living in Australia consistently for 2 years 7 months now (1 year 4 months of that on PR) should mean we can prove he is settled. Do we need to include a letter or anything explaining all the documents or is it enough to assume DIAC will be able to work it all out??

I've also managed to get a tenancy agreement out of them for their rental before they purchased, started on the 12th of August 2010. Probably should wait until this date to submit to be on the safe side then?

Hi All! I’m now in the final stages of putting my parents 143 application together. I went up to my brothers yesterday and picked up the information I think I need, I guess I’m just after a bit of reassurance that I’ve got enough to prove that he is ‘settled’. He arrived in Australia on 28 November 2009 on a working holiday visa, was granted a 457 visa on 5 August 2010 and his permanent visa on 2 March 2011. What I’ve got so far are payslips dated Feb 2010, bank statements from July 2010, bills from his rental from September 2010, his car regos from when he bought one in February 2010 and in May 2011, car insurance policy from August 2011, health insurance from August 2010, mortgage statement (bought his house in May 2011), vet bills from 2011 for their dog, his tax income statements from August 2010 and August 2011, recent payslips, recent credit card statement. It’s this ‘2 year’ thing that I’m worried about. Should I wait to lodge until August which is when he got his 457? Is that better than when he was on his WHV? I don't know how important it is that I have to show he is settled from 2 years ago from now - so June 2010, when if this isn't going to be looked at for another 12 months he will have owned his house for 2 years by then. Just want to make sure that I don't mess up my parents application for the sake of waiting a couple of months. I was also wondering whether it was worth writing a sort of timeline/explanation to go along with all the documents I’ve got? As on the sponsorship form it doesn’t ask for addresses in Australia or anywhere you can explain why you believe you were settled from a certain point. Any advice on offer would be appreciated!