Petkula73

With regard to Simon Reeve, I know it's a travelogue not a tourist information video but I felt it was unrepresentative of Australia. Didn't see episode 1, so can't comment. In episode 2 he worked his way across the top of the country from the NT to Northern Queensland. Lots of stories about poverty, taking of land from indigenous people and so on then on to the destruction of the barrier reef and how the minerals boom is wrecking the marine habitat. Then episode 3 was concerned with the points I discussed earlier. Does all this stuff happen? Yes, but I don't think it's really representative of Australia as a whole. Something like 80% of us live in a strip of coastline on the south and east coasts. That's surely what the "real" Australia is about, not the outback. To say something like 8.5 million people live in Sydney and Melbourne he skipped over them both in about ten minutes. However, there are loads more things of note happening in these cities than small settlements in the Northern Territory. As an example, what about the big Greek and Italian communities in Melbourne, or the obsession with the AFL, or the diversity of food and culture, or the suburban bogan culture etc etc. It's akin to making a programme called "United Kingdom" and spending two and a half episodes discussing social problems in the Shetlands and Orkneys. With regard to the bikie gangs, I thought they came across reasonably well. I don't doubt the criminal element, but in my opinion they do get targeted more than other groups. In general, my experience has been that they keep themselves to themselves. I used to live in one of the apartment blocks on Southbank which had some bikie leaders living there because of the extra security. I wasn't intimidated by them and they didn't bother any of the "normal" residents.

We ended up watching episode 3 of "Australia with Simon Reeve" last night (recorded from a few weeks back). The programme covered the Gold Coast to Melbourne. What a completely stupid and negative programme! To watch it one would think we lived in one of the most crime ridden, dangerous and intolerant countries on earth! What a load of tosh. In the space of 60 minutes he highlighted the drugs, crime and biker gangs of Surfers Paradise (been there loads of times and find it extremely tame compared to the UK), the racism in Sydney, the plundering of arable land on the Liverpool Plains, the huge amounts of CO2 pollution, the wild fires in Victoria and ended up in Melbourne with a piece to camera saying "Australia has done alright". Yeah, thanks Simon. Very insightful!

Downsize your house expectation and move further up the coast towards the centre - better overall quality of life for a family. There are loads of great Bayside suburbs that $850K would just about get you a 2-3 bed house (small one though). Sandringham, Black Rock, Mentone, Beaumaris, Mordialloc - all nice places. The thing with Melbourne (and others will disagree) is once you get outside the older more established suburbs, it just becomes very boring and soulless. Edithvale, Aspendale etc all have extremely beautiful beaches, maybe the best in Melbourne, but there's not much else to them in all honesty. That said, if you break completely free from Melbourne there are some amazing places a bit further down the coast and on to the peninsular.

Bit of a "how long is a piece of string" question in all honesty. Yep, Melbourne is bloody expensive for a lot of things. The most expensive thing by far is housing. If your budget is $2000 pcm it works out as $460 a week (everything is rented out in weeks here) you may struggle to get something you want. A good three bed house anywhere in Bayside will be double that, but the further out you live (and the further west) the more you'll get for your money. Have a look here - www.domain.com.au However, other costs are probably not as expensive as you might think. The supermarket prices have come down quite a lot in the last few years and are roughly the same as the UK for a lot of things (maybe a bit more expensive). But, shop around and your money will go a lot further. A few tips: 1. South Melbourne/Queen Vic Markets are miles cheaper for fresh produce 2. Places like the Tasman Meat Market also save you a packet compared to Coles and Woolworths 3. Public transport costs peanuts 4. Petrol is dirt cheap 5. Loads of free things to do in and around Melbourne - no need to spend a fortune to have a day out So, swings and roundabouts... You'll certainly manage though.

My personal opinion would be to move east if you are looking for things to do. Sanctuary Lakes is nice to look at, but none of our friends who lived there actually liked it. There are better areas for kids in Melbourne to be honest.

Hi I own a property in the UK and have a question around capital gains tax. I've owned the house since 2003 and been in Australia since 2011, on a 457 until Nov 2013 then a 186 PR visa. I understand the house is exempt from CGT for six year. Is this six years from first entry or six years from the PR grant? Also, when calculating the CGT, would we use the historical exchange rate in 2003 for the purchase price, or the current rate. There's a huge difference... Either way, we plan to avoid this rip off tax and sell up before payment is due. Would the deadline therefore be 2017 or 2019? Thanks

Loads of ways you can do this... Easiest one is find a friend/relative with Sky in the UK and use their login details for SkyGo on an iPad or PC. We have UK Netflix set up too, which is also dead easy - you just need a UK account and use a VPN tunnel. Even easier - pay $10 a month for Stan in Australia. Loads of stuff to watch on there. Personally, we hardly ever watch any of the Australian TV channels. They are utter crap, with US cloned formats, millions of adverts and low rent. One or two gems in and amongst, but loads of dross like The Block, MKR, Masterchef, The Voice, The X Factor etc. On a positive note, because it's so rubbish we watch less TV than ever. Loads more family time, so can't be a bad thing.

Yep. I just put down I had full NCD when I bought a car over here and they never asked where it was from.

Went last year and it scared the bejesus out of us. Too many people and poorly organised crowd management. I understand it was a lot better this year though, so it looks like they've learned a lesson. Basically last year was a tragedy waiting to happen. The volume of people around Fed Sq and Flinders Street was unbelievable. We were a party of 4 adults in our 40s and three kids and none of us enjoyed it because of the pushing and shoving.

IT jobs in Melbourne roughly comparable to London salaries. Hard to compare though as the cost of living structure is different here. Public transport and petrol cost peanuts in Melbourne, but housing and groceries are ridiculous. As an example, I pay $7 a day on the train to get to and from work. My sister in law in the UK has a similar commute in to London and pays something like $10K for a season ticket. We used to pay $500 a month in petrol in the UK to commute, but here we spend $150 a month as the public transport options are better. Swings and roundabouts.

Have a look at Brighton and Hampton too. Nicer than Mentone. As a general tip, if you've a budget of $950 a week to spend on rent look at properties upto about $1100 and be prepared to do a bit of haggling to get them down to within your budget. Once you get to over $1000 a week rent in the suburbs the demand is normally a bit lower, so don't get too hung up on what the estate agent thinks it's worth. Better to have someone in paying $950 a week than an empty house. The further out you go the more you can haggle. In Mentone the market for $1000+ a week houses will be pretty low. Also, make sure you see plenty of houses to get a feel for what something is actually worth. Loads of dreamers in Melbourne trying to rent properties that are worth nowhere near the advertised price. Best of luck.

I don't follow your comment. I am asking because I have thought about it and didn't know. In the US you would need to do this, in the UK you wouldn't. Never flown indirect in to Melbourne, hence the reason I am asking.

Hi Quick one if anyone knows.... If you fly in from Abu Dhabi to Melbourne via Perth, do you need to clear customs in Perth (i.e. collect luggage, declare what you are bringing in, then recheck bags back in)? We've always flown direct, but we have visitors over Xmas who are taking this route as they paid about 800 quid each on Etihad...

Simple answer is yes and no.... If you can afford it, or someone else is paying it's a different world from cattle class. If you are paying, and aren't loaded, then grit your teeth and suck it up in economy. Through my job, I've flown round the globe in business class and it's wonderful. Makes flying fun again. I'd never pay for it myself though, and I'm 6'1 and a former prop forward, with an ever expanding wasteline. Economy is so uncomfortable for me, but not as uncomfortable as spending an extra $5K per ticket! If you do go business don't bother with any airline with an angled lie-flat bed (such as the Malaysian flights in and out of Melbourne). You constantly slide down the bed and it's not great for sleeping. For me, Singapore Airlines is the best business class by a country mile. Very wide seat, loads of space, good service, good food, good lounges. Personally, I don't like the seats on Emirates (big seat but half of it taken up with a pointless minibar - no booze on it either). BA is awful, packed in like sardines and you'll have to gaze lovingly in to a stranger's eyes for 14 hours as the seats are arrange forwards and backwards. Never flown Qantas long haul business but it's supposed to be okay. Malaysian - nothing special. Qatar is good, but a bit narrow for me. Can't comment on any of the others like Etihad or Cathay Pacific. Good luck!

Are they better, do you reckon?

Hi - depends on what you call "semi affordable" to be honest. Also what your expectations are in terms of house size. That said, anywhere in Bayside is brilliant for families. If you have the budget look at Brighton (mega expensive), Hampton, Sandringham (bit cheaper) and Black Rock. A bit further down it gets cheaper, but you're further out if you work in the centre. Still nice though. Beaumaris, Mentone, Mordialloc. Getting even further out you have places like Edithvale and Chelsea which have superb beaches. I agree with the person who put Mt Martha. Beautiful place, beautiful beach. 60km out though, that's the only issue. Don't know about places North or West, but have friends who like it. Personally, we like being closer to the sea.

Does Optus make anyone else want to scream?! I have a very specific technical error, caused by their mail server blocking my account as it's interpreting legitimate mail as spam. I won't bore you with the details, but I've wasted more or less a whole day trying to fix the issue as their technical people are clueless. I don't mind people not knowing the answer, but what's wound me up is being referred to a third party (without telling me) who tried to charge me $95 an hour for some basic desktop troubleshooting. Lost my rag a bit at this - why should I be expected to pay for something I've already paid for? I know exactly what the issue is, and how they need to fix it, but it's impossible to get hold of anyone not reading from a script. Wouldn't mind if the service was either cheap or reliable but it's neither. 100Mb broadband connection that rarely gets above 10Mb, intermittent outages for no apparent reason and all for a "bargain bundle" of $110 a month. For that we get a crappy, slow broadband, a home phone we use once a month and a really piss-poor Optus Fetch TV box. Contract ends in Feb - anyone recommend something better, or are they all as useless?!? Time for a cold beer.

Really important this if you are being bullied in the workplace. If you have a record of who said what and when you will have a very strong case for bringing a grievance against your bully. 99 times out of 100 your company will side with whoever is more senior (it's normally the manager who is the bully), so a properly documented history of what has happened undermines any bollocks your company comes up with. My wife was bullied in the UK. Her manager was an absolute pig of a man and she got to the point where she could not bring herself to come in to work any more. The company sided with him and she had to go through all sorts of stupid "impartial interviews" from a third party reconcilliator, who incidentally was being paid by the company for various other pieces of work - any guesses whose side they came back on? Anyway, the company found in favour of the bully and came up with some bullshit improvement plans to pay lip service to the bits they were clearly culpable for. So my wife followed their HR procedure and appealed, but this time involved an employment lawyer. One letter from him and hey presto they offered her a severance package worth over half a year's salary.

The best advice is to go back to your doctor and explain exactly how you feel, how the anxiety is ruining your life and how you feel unable to cope. Your doctor can then do several things: 1. Refer you to a psychologist/counsellor. 2. Deal with any physiological symptoms you have through medication. 3. Sign you off sick from work for a period of time. I was in a similar situation to you roughly this time last year. My employer was making widescale redundancies and I was told my job was going. I was on a 457 and have a child in school here and a wife to support. At the same time, I was also in the middle of legal dispute, my wife had just quit her job after ending up working 80 hours a week for six months as her employer continued to make cuts, and my daughter was stuggling in school. The mistake I made was I left things too late before I acknowledged the symptoms. I spend several months suffering from severe anxiety - constantly feeling tense and nervous, butterflies in the stomach constantly, ready to have an arguement with my wife at about almost anything. After months of beating myself up, took medical help and after some excellent counselling I quickly got my anxiety levels down to normal. My regret is I didn't do this months previously as I could have saved my family and I a lot of pain. No job, or jumped up little bastard at work is worth ruining your life over, so please go and seek some professional help here.

You're going to get a variety of answers here and the one that's correct for you will really be dependent on what you're lifestyle is like. However, to give you a rough guide we pay: Gas - circa $500-$700 a quarter depending on time of year Electricity - $150-$200 a month TV/Phone/Broadband - $110 a month (freeview only) Rent - depends on local market really. Anything further out like Tralagon will be cheaper. Have a look on http://www.domain.com.au Food - cheaper than previously, but still extortionate. For a family of 4 you'll be spending $1000 a month minimum. Aldi has helped give Coles and Woolworths a good kick up the arse and things are definitely becoming more affordable, but this it's still $4 for a kilo of bananas at the moment in Woolies (compared to 50p in the UK). Eating out - a family of 4 can eat out for under $100. That's without the wine though. More realistically I'd reckon on $200-$300 for a nice place including alcohol. Petrol - Between $1.30 amd $1.50 a litre depending on what day of the week it is (never understood how it can jump around as much as it does) Rates - if you're renting zero as it's the landlord that picks this up. Finally (and most importantly), a slab of beer is $40-$50, a reasonable bottle of wine from $10-15, a bottle of average scotch $35-40 and a schooner in a bar anything between $4 and $12 depending on where it is. As an average I'd say about $6. Hope this helps.

Seriously? My concerns are: 1. The property market is now saturated with investors with easy access to borrowing. 2. However, many of these investors can't actually afford these investments without negative gearing the property. Therefore, the tax payer is effectively subsidising people making risky and unaffordable investments. This takes money away from the public coffers, for no other reason than to subsiding someone's leveraged investment. So, less money to spend on schools, roads, nurses and so on. 3. The playing field between family buyers and investors is not level. A "normal" buyer is unable to write off mortgage interest (for example) against tax, so the market is unfairly biased towards investors. 4. Consequently, people either cannot get on to the house ladder, or get trapped where they are as they cannot compete with investors tax subsidies. It stinks. The whole idea of paying taxes to subsidise private investment is wrong. Nothing against owning property as an investment (I have an investment in the UK), but it's the responsibility of the owner to pay for any losses, not the tax payer. Add to that the fact my mortgage in Australia will be hugely inflated solely due to the increase in house prices fueled by negative gearing and it's a double slap in the face. And this is just the start of the problems. There is now a generation of young people coming through who have zero chance of every owning their own property. What do you suppose happens to these people? Squeezed by extortionate rent rises as everyone else is now renting, no chance of owning property, saving or investing themselves. And all the while, more and more older and wealthier investors are coming along and forcing prices of first homes higher through squeezing the tax system. Is it more important for someone who is 25 to own their first home, or some investor to pick up their 4th or 5th investment property, all negatively geared against their tax? Effectively what's happening is redistribution of income. The rich investors pay proportionally less than their share of the tax burden, whilst the poor and the young pay proportionately more of their income (in rent) to keep the whole charade going.

Easy - just register yourself and your car on their website and they will automatically deduct all tolls once a month from your nominated debit/credit card.

Yes, it's a wonderful place. Really love living here.

Yep, hence why any poxy one bed flat anywhere within 20km of Melbourne CBD is north of $500K. I posted a comment on another thread about how we are struggling to afford to buy a very modest house as anything with more than half a tennis court of land in our neighbourhood gets snapped up at 30% over the reserve price by some investor who then builds 3 tiny Hobbit sized houses on it. Pretty soon the only house that'll be left in the inner suburbs will be two room maisonettes (for $900K+ each) and the $5M+ piles the owners of them live in. The property market here is seriously mental.

We're in Victoria (Brighton). Local state primary school.