Whelehan

hi Thanks both for your comments... I will check the website out thanks Does anyone know about the car safety regulations in OZ? My cousin will be picking us up from the airport and I will have my 17mth old in a maxi cosi and my 5 year old in a booster seat? Thank you

We also fly Emirates on 3/2 from Dublin - Dubai - Melbourne. Me, husband, 5yo boy and 17mth girl. It's a one way ticket and because we are permanent migrant we got 130kgs altogether (me (40kg), husband (40kg), boy (40kgs) and little girl (10kgs). We will be bringing our phil and teds buggy and hoping to bring it all the way to the plane and fold up. We will be bringing travel cot and baby car seat (maxi cosy), so I'm assuming they will but those two things within the baggage allowance and let us just bring the buggy free....do you think we should just arrive with everything and see what happens and make sure that including car seat and travel cot that we are under 130kgs?

Thanks so much for replying. I am taking Brunswick off my list now. A friend said Camberwell might be a nice spot so I'll look further into it...

Hi, I was wondering if anyone could recommend Brunswick as a good suburb for a young family (2 kids aged 1 & 5) and why? Also are there any good primary schools there? I'll be working on Lonsdale street and thought Brunswickcould be an option for us. Thanks a lot.

Hi All, These are the issues we worry about too. We want to live in a nice suburb, near to CBD but are worried that the house prices will be too high in the future to buy. I have a five year old boy and wouldn't like the idea of moving him around schools. We leave Ireland on the 3rd of Feb and will be staying with my cousin in Cheltenham for two weeks until we find rental accomodation. We like Brighton primary school and Brighton Beach Primary schools but when we looked at the house prices I was in shock! We are hoping for Bayside somewhere but think that and hour to the CBD is a bit far. I start work two weeks after we get there on Lonsdale Street. We looked at Elwood but then through the gardens might be very small as it's so close to the city. We are now thinking of Hampton but again house prices are probably high and rent is high too... We are going to hire a car when we ge there and get a feel for each suburb. It's a bit headwrecking choosing where to live, but I suppose there are worst things to worry about as we have been dreaming about this for years :biggrin: If anyone has any more suggested suburbs about 40mins from CBD I'm be delighted, doesn't necessarily need to be right beside the beach as we hope to buy a car a few months after we arrive.

Hi All, Sorry to hi-jack this post but I'm wondering if anyone has any experience of primary schools around Bayside. We will be flying out on the 3rd of Feb and will need to get my 5 year old into school. There is not a huge panic once we get there as he's already started primary school here in Ireland (since Sep) and will kind off be starting again in Melbourne. We are thinking of Hampton as a place to live but not fully decided until we get there. Any replies gratefully accepted.

Hi, you need to do the Academic IELTS and get 7 is all sections

Hi, I was assessed based on my accountancy degree and since qualified as ACCA but assessment was only on my degree.

Hi Everyone, My family and me have recently been granted a 190 residency visa and we are heading to Melbourne in Jan'13 (all going well). I am ACCA qualified accountant with over ten year experience, seven of which being in a very large recognized global company with managerial experience. However I'm starting to get slightly worried as all the job advertisements reference CA/CPA qualified. I feel reluctant to start studying again after everything I went through to get my ACCA exams. I feel I am a qualified accountant and also feel like I would be betraying my ACCA qualification (or recognizing that is it sub-standard) by taking another body's exams. But am I going to be successful in gaining employment in Melbourne or am I going to in a situation that I take the first job I get and stay there for fear of not getting another better job? We want to give it a good go in Oz but my career is obviously very important and I don't want to feel my qualification is sub-standard to CA/CPA or that I am less of an accountant in Oz than I am here (Dublin). Any experience of this from anyone out there would be great, any positive stories welcomed!! Thank you.

I hope it's soon for you pswebb38, I have been following you for ages :biggrin: I'm just very bad at posting :chatterbox:

Hi All, Visa granted today for us. 190 visa lodged on 28/08/2012. We didnt' hear anything from CO until we got approval letter this morning. Hopefully more grants are coming soon.

I think I am in the same boat. Although it's my agent who's having issues. They have now managed to put through the application with uploading the documents. They do not know how to do it or where to go...does anyone know the procedure to uploading documents? I'm doing a 190 visa? thanks

Hi, My agent has been trying for 2 days to complete our 190 visa application and is getting to page 4 and it says the system is not available and try again later - has anyone else had any issues like this? They are going to try again tonight when the system is hopefully a bit quieter and if this doesn't work they are going to contact the tech support. Thanks a lot.

I applied for VIC SS on the 24th Apr 2012 and received approval on the 17th July 2012. My approved skills assessment letter was lodged on the 2/07/2012.

I applied for Vic SS prior to July changes and received approval on 17th July 2012 so maybe it's 12 weeks from SS lodgement date.

Hi, Does anyone know if documents uploaded for the 190 visa (eg passport, marriage cert, birth cert) need to be certified or will a colour scanned copy of the original be enough? I know the old system accepted them as colour scanned copies so I'm just wondering has this changed for the new system going forward? Thank you.

Thanks all for your responses. I'm thinking it's too late to change my EOI now as I've already received my invitation to lodge? I think the agent is confident I will be ok on my work experience as I have seven years and claiming for five and I have a good reference from a large multi-national company. I hope it's going to be ok

Hi All, I received email from my agent this morning stating that I have received invitation for my 190 visa. One Question regarding this. When I got my skills assessed by CPA I had to do the Accounting Theory exam. Because of doing the exam, CPA would not comment on my work experience as they deem me to only qualify post doing their exam. I do have a number of years experience in a large multinational company. I see from my EOI that my agent has claimed 10 points for my work experience. This has given me 70 points in total including my 5 points for SS. I questioned this with my agent and they said that they would not be submitting the letter regarding my work experience from the CPA and that my employer reference letter detailing my years of experience would be sufficient. They also said that the invitation I received will be based on the VIC SS and since I received sponsorship I shouldn't be worried about CPA not recognizing my experience. If I didn't have the 10 points for the work experience I would then have had 60 points which is enough for 190 visa. Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Thanks all - EOI was submitted on 2/07 and VIC received on 17/7 (but I applied months ago). Am delighted it moved so quickly

Hi All, I just thought I'd share with everyone that we received our invitation this morning for the 190visa (we got Vic SS approval on the 17th July 2012). :biggrin:I guess the states were given the go ahead to to nominate some more applicants.

Thanks so much. We were thinking of Student Visa as she's currently looking at options regarding attending college to study nursing, but fees in Oz are too much for us. Maybe study here and then go in a few years. Anyway thank you for your responses.

Thought so, thanks.

Hi All, This is a long shot, we are currently applying for 190 visa and will be going to Melbourne. Just wondering is there any possible way of us bringing my husband's sister with us (she is our child-minder), she is over 30 and have no approved skill or qualification? Thanks for any comments.

Wow congratulations, you must be so thrilled, bring on the adventure!!

Hi alanandemma176, thank you for your post. This will be my second time doing the IELTS, I originally did the Academic test and received, 9,8,7.5,9 so because I got 7.5 in the reading I missed out on ten points (20 for all 8's). As it stands right now I have 60points and had assumed I would received an invite to lodge since I have Vic SS (from what our agent tells me and from reading this forum). I was just doing the IELTS again to get another 10 points in case we were refused SS. Also, we were about to lodge a 175 at the end of June but CPA Australia wouldn't recognize my work experience because I had to one of their exams to get a positive assessment (they deemed me to only qualify post doing their exam and then any work experience became n/a), so that all meant we lost 10 points and couldn't lodge at that time. Luckily we had the VIC SS in the background and that became our Plan B.