gloucester girl

Thanks for the reply. No, it won't be temporary and yes he is on Job Keeper. But I can see that what you say here "Employees receiving Job Keeper can basically be asked to perform any task they are able to perform regardless of whether it's in their normal job description or not. " would probably apply.

Hello, Can any one give some advice? My husband works as a catering chef. Luckily he still has a job. However, he has been demoted from his position and replaced with another member of staff. There have been no problems with his work at all. He orders all the food and gets good weekly written feedback from the catering, so could prove that there has been absolutely no poor performance issues. All kitchen staff have taken a pay cut and my husband was the highest paid. But once the dust settles, he will be doing a lesser role and I have no doubt that his pay would be decreased in the future. This could explain why he has been pushed out of his job. He has been working there for 3 years. Does he have any rights? Can he do anything or does he just have to accept it (or storm out - more likely!). Thanks in advance.

Regarding the internet banking, in other countries you are given a security box/calculator thingy that generates passwords. Of course losing it is a pain in the arse, but this type of remote sim card/phone number theft can't be used to get into your bank account. I only moved to Australia last year and since then I have noticed that I have my whole life in my email account. All the id in my inbox together with my mobile number easily could result in id theft or fraud. I was actually thinking of getting my bank statements sent to my email because of the environment and saving paper, but after reading that I will not be doing that. Actually my email password was hacked about 4 years ago, luckily when my email only contained gossip and not the likes of my visa, etc., etc. With this stuff, it is almost a case of being grateful that it has happened to someone else so that the rest of us can learn a lesson from it. What I have taken from this is: - do not give email or facebook your phone number - do not get bank statements emailed to you - hope that you have a phone provider that insists on id before transferring phone number between sim cards (vodafone did for me, but maybe I just got someone who was doing their job properly) - don't use obvious answers to security questions - have different passwords and change them regularly (such a pain) I'd love to know other ways of keeping personal stuff safe online too. An IT guy at work suggested using a password encrypted website to store all passwords, but I am stupidly scared that either that would get hacked or I'd forget the password for that and never be able to access anything every again.

From the daily mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4126766/Thieves-hack-woman-s-phone-steal-identity.html#comments It seems that thieves somehow got hold of this woman's phone number, phone company, name and presumably email address. From that they rang up or did the online chat with the service provider - optus - and were able to close down her sim card and transfer her number to their own sim card. Then they got into her email by using the recovery sms function, from which they got bank account information. Got into her facebook account in the same way and got her date of birth.They could then hack into her internet bank and steal money. So much security information in Australia goes through your phone, internet banking, centrelink, medicare. Also it is that easy to change your sim card and keep the same number. I did it in a shop with vodafone going from a micro-sim to a nano-sim, but I did need to show id. So basically, from that article it seems that all that was needed was this woman's name, phone number and telephone operator to hack into her phone. The fact that she enabled the sms password recovery option on her email and facebook meant that they could get into her bank account and find out enough identifying details. Is there anything else that she did that may have allowed this to happen? I find this really scary and do not have my phone number linked to my email or facebook. On the other hand it is a daily mail article and could have left out god knows how many important details.

No space for chickens. Also, I can't keep plants alive. Wouldn't like to experiment with chickens! But thanks for the suggestion :-)

Any advice of how to control or preferably get rid of the following pests: caterpillars, curl grubs (cockchafers/beetle larvae) and snails. Last year we moved to a house with a concrete garden so started growing flowers and veggies in pots. Between the 3 of these little sods, nearly everything died or just got eaten. The curl grubs were the worst as it took me months to figure out what was going on and as they live in the soil, digging up the plant and replacing the soil was the only option then. So I have decided to get the little buggers at the start of a new growing season. This is what I have been doing so far: snails - they laugh in the face of snail/slug pellets and I don't like using them anyway (no slugs though). I tried a beer trap (as advised by the internet) and they ignored it. So I am hand picking them and killing them. Seems the most effective, if time-consuming method so far. I have found that they don't like geraniums and fuchsias, so I am growing more of these. caterpillars - these are steadily munching through my geraniums and suspect that they will go for the veggies once they start coming through. Using chemical sprays at the moment, although the current one - Yates pyrethrum insect pest - has helped a bit, but they are still creating holes in the leaves, so it is not that effective. curl grubs - I have found around 10 already in my pots. My husband decided to help me in the garden and planted about 4 eggplants in a pot that needed to be transplanted once they germinated - that's when I found them (surprising as last year they were the one vegetable that seemed to be immune to these grubs). I started using Richgo Lawn and beetle grub killa as a soil drench about a month ago, which did not work one bit. Anyway I have changed the soil and am now trying Eco Neem, which is expensive. I will have to wait to see if it has been effective (although how? dig up the plant to check?) Again I have not found them in pots of geraniums, fuchsias, marguerite daisies and chillis. I am experimenting with pouring a dilute detergent solution over the soil and hoping that they come to the surface, then I will happily feed them to the birds. Thanks for reading (those that are still here). Any advice will be massively appreciated. (If you detect a note of obsession, you'd be right. I've wanted to grow my own vegetables for so long - coming from a much colder climate - that I was hugely peed off last year to lose nearly all my plants to these little buggers. Although my gardening skills may account for some of the failure!)

This is australia and you can make payments of up to 100 dollars with paywave. Also I have never been asked to use the pin number with paywave ever. It sounds like the uk is alot tighter regarding security and paywave than australia. I guess I will never know, but I certainly check all my statements now - both online and paper.

A processing error sounds likely. Thanks!

I went to the Macquarie shopping centre in north Sydney on a saturday. Went shopping in H and M, bought a small bite to eat for me and my daughter, which cost 10 dollars at the kebab shop. All paid on card by paywave. A few weeks later while mucking about with the NAB budget planner (surprisingly good fun to categorise your expenses - or is that just me?), I noticed that 30 dollars had left my account and I had supposedly spent it in a chinese dumpling place on the following sunday. So I went to the bank, reported it, they queried it and I got the 30 dollars back. I haven't managed to speak to the bank because the department that deals with is only open till 5.30 on weekdays and I am busy working/collecting my daughter/in traffic and always forget when I do have 5 mintues free. Does anyone know how this happened? I do remember walking into a chinese place and then walking out because it was too expensive. Also the bank cashier suggested that the two cafes could be owned by the same people. Thanks.

Okay, so if you take out basic insurance then it will actually end up costing more rather than less for treatment! Is there a way of selectively revealing that we have private? Is that allowed, or does it have to be "declared"? Regarding the LHC, we are in our forties and arrived here 6 months ago (medicare registration 5 months ago), so that is why I wanted us to get in the private health system as to avoid the LHC and we have to do it soon. Other reasons for getting private is that I need a cataract operation, and am prepared to wait out the 1 year. I have tried to go public with this, but it appears that it will definitely more than a year to get this publically. And we want ambulance cover. I was told (by iSelect) that it costs $1000-9000 for an ambulance call - although I do find that hard to believe. Thanks for all your replies. I have taken out the insurance, but because of the generous cooling off period here can easily cancel it, if unnecessary.

Thanks for the advice. After looking at Frank we have decided to go for their most basic to get us into the private system, so that we can benefit from the LHC and the ambulance insurance. This is $100 a month, so I am going to put $200 in a separate savings account purely for medical costs. The thinking is that if we use it all up then we come out even compared with paying for health insurance. Or hopefully, we don't spend it all and the money is ours rather than gone towards insurance. Worst case scenario: we spend more than we would have done on health insurance and we have learnt a lesson. All insurance is a gamble either way in my view.

I am currently researching a health care fund. Do you have any recommendations? Good/bad experiences? I have just been talking to iSelect and on their website. They recommend a plan by nib. It seems that iSelect is sponsored by nib, and although the plan sounded good (although a little more than I was planning on paying) was it soft selling or are they a good company? Thanks in advance for your thoughts. In case it helps, we have been here for 6 months, a small family with one toddler, in sydney, earning a reasonable amount (less than $180,000 though), good health, so need the fund for emergencies and dental really.Quoted $311 a month.

There you go. Shows how naive we are: I didn't realise that there was a difference between buying a business and starting your own. To the people who said that 90,000 is cheap, that is interesting because we are looking at the inner west in Sydney and a quick scout on gumtree has revealed cafes being sold from a little as 60,000 in Newtown up to 150,000 in Annandale. How are the businesses valued? We would want to start off on a small scale, even just a hole in the wall rather than somewhere too big. Don't worry we are doing our homework. This will probably take months, even not years, if at all to happen. Thanks for the advice, every word from people with experience is valuable.

No house. No mortgage. If my sister were to become a partner in the company, could she use her home as security? Also we would only be looking to borrow a relatively small amount. The cost of the business that we have seen is 90,000 dollars, which is about 45,000 pounds, of which we have 15,000 already. The deposit for buying a house is 15%. What is the deposit on a buying a business? Thanks for your answers. We are getting a business plan together, but having never done this before we are doing lots of research first. Hence, the naive questions and assumptions!

Hello, My husband and I are thinking about starting our own cafe/restaurant. We have about 15,000 pounds in savings. We have only been here for 3 months. We both have permanent jobs. I would continue with mine, while husband would leave his to run the cafe/restaurant. We are here on PR visas. Is it possible for us to get a business loan from the bank or another lender to help with start up costs? Or would the bank/lenders immediately say no as we have no credit history here? Where can we go to for advice about starting our own business? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

Can anyone recommend any decent talk radio show/station? On the car radio I can only find smooth fm and the most inane shite. I like listening to Radio 2, Jeremy vine, radio 6 or radio 4 in the UK. I am looking for something with a bit of intelligent chat/music or current affairs show to break up the tedium of commuting in sydney's traffic. Thanks in advance.

Hello! I was just wondering if there are any teachers who have taught temporarily then been made permanent - did you get paid for the holiday between the end of the temporary contract and start of the permanent? Basically I have been working term 4 and will be made permanent starting from term 1 next year. Obviously I would like to get paid for the summer holidays, or at least most of the them. My school can be a bit dodgy - in fact when I got the job offer, one member of staff said "congratulations - now join a union" (!). But a job is a job and I like the kids and the school, even if the management are to be treated with caution.

Hi! I am a science teacher. Worked in the UK for 3 years in a grammar school teaching years 7-13. I have been here for only 2 months, but am nearly half way through a term as a science teacher. My workload in the UK was really high as I started out as an NQT and had 20 different lessons over the entire senior school every week. Had dreadful behaviour even from grammar school kids. Hated the first year, but loved it by the third year (stubborn!). Here in Oz I work for a highly prestigious (expensive) school in sydney. The workload is far less here. There are no expectation of outstanding lessons every lesson (although ironically because I have less year groups to teach, I can prepare better lessons than I had the time for in the UK). In fact, chalk and talk, reliance on the textbook and didactic teaching seem to the norm in this school. I only teach years 7-10, and am desperately trying to get years 11 and 12 for next year, which would mean losing some of the earlier years. There is no expectation of homework or even book marking! It is at the individual teacher's discretion. As it is the last term and the kids are winding down, I have not set any homework. I check work and give feedback in class. My head of department seems okay with this, but I am waiting to see if any of the parents complain seeing as they are paying a small fortune to have their kids taught here. Although there is continuous assessment and I would expect more marking expected with years 11 and 12 for the HSC. Also the behaviour is much much better. I have an extremely bad behaved class by their standards and inwardly I think "oh girls you haven't got a clue" when they try the naughtiness on. I am teaching the same number of hours as in the UK, but there is much less content to cover in that time - science education here is behind the UK. Only today, I left at 4.30, thinking that I had stayed later than usual, but would never have been able to leave my school in the UK at such a time. In summary, workload is less here for me, and the expectations put on teachers less. Although of course, it will be up to you the amount of effort you put and in my experience teachers from the UK are conscientious and hard-workers (I worked in an international school before moving to Australia and the UK teachers definitely found it hard to shake off the intense UK-school mentality). Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Thanks for the replies. Lots of great ideas :-)

Having just recently arrived and wanting to have house and garden plants, I have discovered that it is much expensive here than at home. I have been gobsmacked at some of the prices. At the moment I have bought a few spider plants and am waiting for baby spider plants to get the inside going, but would like some variety. I have tried Bunnings and Ikea, but the quality is so so. Woolworths is slightly better, but they only have plants on special. I am thinking of going around and taking cutting of wild geraniums for outdoor plants. Does anyone have any tips for how to get a house or garden going without breaking the bank? Thanks

Hi there! I am preparing for a job interview. How has the NSW science curriculum been changed? Are there any points on which I can try to sell my teaching experience from the UK? I know that I will already be at a disadvantage compared to local candidates, so was wondering if this new curriculum has adopted something that has already been done in the UK in science to help my chances?

Thanks for the advice. I was thinking of $30 based on tutoring. But it seems that tutoring is pretty badly paid in Sydney! What is super? I have seen this mentioned lots regarding salary.

Hi! I am currently applying for a remote-working job. The head office is based in Australia, where we will be moving to shortly. The job is setting up educational resources. They need teachers with experience to do this, which I have (6 years). So how much how should the hourly rate be? Any ideas? I was thinking of 30 dollars an hour. [They want me to suggest how much I will work for.] I guess that I will be working as a freelancer. What tax am I liable to pay? Do I have to pay GST and income tax? What happens regarding pension contributions and health insurance? Thanks in advance

Just a little update for anyone looking at this thread especially regarding child care. I sent off a lot of enquiry emails to nurseries in the inner west and got at least 3 back saying that they had vacancies for the beginning of september. Which is great news in that I would be able to get my daughter into day care with at least 5 months notice bearing in mind that I will hopefully be starting working as a teacher in january and arriving in august. The only thing is do I gamble and try to secure her a place now (my sister can visit and check it out) for september. But this will then potentially ties us the area and a day care that we may not be happy with AND have to pay 2 weeks' fees upfront (10 days x 105 dollars!!!!!) for a day care that maybe not be needed. Or wait until we get there and hope that I can find a day care within a couple of weeks notice after finding a job and some where to live. VERYSTORMY: we live in gothenburg. Love it here, but my husband is swedish and is wants to move somewhere new where both of us can have good job. I am limited my choice of job here because my swedish isn't good enough to teach in swedish. Will miss our excellent and cheap dagis! Seriously our dagis is so good and our daughter is so happy there that that is the greatest reservation I have about moving.

Thanks for the replies. The cost of food doesn't scare us (live in sweden now!). I am a great believer that things usually work out because they have to. Nice not to have have any more horror stories and some positivity.