Incata

What is a booze bus? Never encountered one before.

With the 457 (as of the 23rd November) companies are required to evidence (rather than just say they do) that they spend either 1% of their total payroll on training staff, or pay 2% of their budget to a Regional Training Organisation. Up until now companies could just say they were and they were not checked. Now they have to show the invoices. So while the training budget is not specifically for the people on 457s, it does mean that the company can't just pay lip service to training existing employees.

He is the chap you don't agree to go for a swim with.

You can go to the DIABP website http://www.immi.gov.au and go to the VEVO section. Here you can register, input your passport details and it will show the visa you are on, it's expiry date and any restrictions on the visa.

The requirements to do labour market testing comes in on Monday 23rd November.

I have found in Perth that Recruiters will often put candidates forward for roles, without the candidates permission. They will also tell candidates that they are recruiting for the role, thus stopping the candidate from applying direct, when the company has not actually placed the job with that agency. My advice would be that if you can work out who the company is who is recruiting (from the agency ad, if it is genuine), then apply to the HR Department direct. You can always give them a call and ask them if they are advertising xxx job via xxx agency. If they are, you know the job is genuine but you will find the HR team would prefer you to email your CV to them directly.

We bought very quickly when we got here and it has helped us feel more settled. I didn't get so stressed when one of the kids decorated the walls (he came and told me he had drawn me a picture and would I like to see it). I like the fact that despite the fact that it needs doing up, we can do it in our own time. I like that it does not matter if I put the kids pictures up all over the walls and I don't have to get permission to put a hook in the wall. However, I have been a military wife and have been in military married quarters for the last 6 years, so having our own place at last is wonderful! Our mortgage is also a lot less than we were paying in rent, and we live in a much nicer area, so it has worked well for us. It's also good for the kids as they are now starting to understand that it is really home and not just somewhere else we will be moving on from.

I would suggest that you get advice from a migration agent.

Currambine Butchers are fab! We buy all our meat from there.

They are as good as they look and the red Christmas boxes make them look really special. I wish they shipped to Australia!

There is a wonderful company called "The Cheese Shed". They sell over 100 cheeses from Devon, Cornwall and Somerset. They do the most amazing Christmas Boxes (had some for the last couple of years and have ordered them for the rellies this year). They are really worth a try: http://www.thecheeseshed.com/ We used to order from them regularly for special occasions. If we were going back, I would be ordering from them to have something ready for me on arrival. After lunch we would be going straight for a decent Indian.

It was down to my husband's work. I have been doing contracting for much of the last 10 years, to make it easier to move round the UK with him (he was moved regularly in the armed forces), so for me the location was not a big issue - although I would have had many more opportunities in Sydney or Melbourne. We took the view that if I could not get work it would be fine for me to stay at home and bring up the kids but we needed one reliable income. My husband's trade (Hydrographic Survey) is predominantly on the west coast which is why we came to this side of the country. If there had been as many jobs on the East Coast, we would probably have looked over on that side of the country. The isolation does not bother us much at this point in time. It may do as the kids grow older, but right now they want beaches and play parks, so Perth is fine for that.

Didn't know that. It was back in early Feb that the school told us they got extra funding and since my son is happy in his current school and they have never mentioned it, I have not really thought about it unless conversations like this one come up. When was it cut?

My kids have afternoon naps and are generally down by 2pm, so it would not work for us as they would be complete ratbags!

KM75 has a good idea there. Is there any way your husband could get someone to manage the business while you are in Australia, giving you the time to make a decision as to whether it is for you or not?

I can dream! With two under 5 we are lucky if we are still in bed at 6.30am!

If you are coming on your own first, youth hostels are about $25 per person per night. Might want to try that if you don't want to pay $100+ per night for a hotel or cheap apartment.

I think it has something to do with the schools attracting extra funding for every child with a label. My son has anaphylaxsis and his first school in Perth could not wait to get his medical forms signed as they got extra money for support staff to help him with his "disability". He is allergic to mango for goodness sake. We moved him to a private school after 3 days and they have not labelled him and apart from wanting the medical forms to post on the staff room walls (so the teachers know who has anaphylaxsis), they don't treat him any differently (other than to make sure they don't use mango in cookery classes).

It is very interesting when you observe children of 4 and 5, just how much difference 6 months in age makes in terms of their emotional development. My son (4) is very clever, but emotionally he is a lot less mature than others in his class who are six months older. We noticed this in his pre-school in the UK. I also know that my youngest brother (who is the most intelligent and gifted person I know), was put up a year when he was in primary school. This is a lad who was reading Shakespeare at 5. He was the youngest in his year, so when he was put up a year he was 18 months younger than many of his classmates. He was much less mature than them and from my point of view, the consequences were very sad. He wanted to be a vet his entire life, and yet, at 16 when he was doing his A Levels, he lost his nerve and applied for a different degree instead, as he did not believe he was talented enough to be a vet. He was, he got all his A Grades and got to Cambridge, where he excelled. However, he always said that he regretted being put up a year as he felt that he missed a year of his life. He felt, and I agree, that if he had not been put up a year, he would have developed emotionally much more and had the confidence to go for what he really wanted to do, rather than what he felt he could do without a problem. He is doing very well in his career, but he has always been sad when talking about his career choice. As a result, even if either of my children were exceptionally talented (which naturally they are :wink:), I would not have them put up a year as I think the long term emotional damage that can be so easily done, cannot be as easily undone.

Me, two kids (4 + 3) plus hubbie if he is back from sea, would come. Weekend morning preferred!

I fully agree. I regret coming here immensely and wished I had pushed harder to move back to Canada, which I loved and which is so much more advanced than Perth. If we had had the life of the OP, we would not have come here and even though we did a preview visit, it has not worked for me the way I had hoped it would. We've not been here a year yet and I know it takes at least two years to settle, but I'm not enjoying it that much (and I was the one out of the two of us who had emigrated before). I disagree about there not being much difference on a day to day basis. You don't have lifelong friends you can call in the evenings, if you are sick and your husband is away there is nobody to help or to pop over and look after the kids to allow you to have a rest. It is very different on a day to day basis.

I am quite happy with the school my eldest is in (youngest is too young at this point). However I would prefer them to go to an all boys school as I think the teaching styles tend to be aimed more at boys than girls. It seems to me that my boys learn by trying things out and experimenting, whereas many of the girls in his class prefer to sit and listen or look at a book to learn. The single sex schools I saw in the UK (for boys) used much more activity based learning and the boys seemed to get on a whole lot better than in mixed schools. However we don't seem to have a lot of choice in Perth (NOR). We can't afford the likes of Hale or Scotch, so unless the boys get scholarships for Year 7, they will be out of our reach. Interestingly though, how happy a child is seems to depend as much on the teacher as their classmates. My son is only in Kindy, but he started in a school which had him crying and having to be dragged out of my arms by the teacher in the morning. He hated it so much. After a huge row over the way the teacher was treating my son (due to a mango allergy), we withdrew him and were lucky enough to get him a place at a local Catholic School which treated him exactly the same as everyone else and didn't try and separate him and make him feel different. At the end of the first day he came running into my arms telling me what a wonderful time he had had and then asked when he could go back. We have not had any issues with him since (there was one instance of name calling which was quickly cracked down on by his teacher, but that was it). So yes to single sex schools for boys, if the option is there. However a school with caring, compassionate teachers ranks almost as highly.

It has to be admitted, the northerners are easy to spot in the Northern suburbs, and that is before they open their mouths!

I thought that a Church without a God already existed - it's called the Humanist movement.

We have used realestate.com.au for finding prices that houses have sold for recently. When you click on a house and look at the details, at the bottom of the page are details of houses in the area which have sold recently, and the prices that they went for. You can pay for a more thorough report but as many of the houses can still be seen by clicking on the link, it is quite easy to get an idea of whether or not the house you are interested in is accurately priced.