DavidCellist

Oh I see - I like the picture Grabi - if only we could procure an enormous boat to tug Australia a bit closer to Pisa and Luca - that would be so good! DavidCellist

This is for the Returning Resident Visa - application submitted offshore in September 2014 in Melbourne, Australia. I lodged app on Friday; had visa granted on the following Wednesday We paid priority service so it went to Canberra not the processing hub in Manilla. You need some luck in this life... Back to Blighty to wife and children in four weeks!

Are you certain Australia would work for you? I am an Australian national with an English wife and children and the move did not work out. Heading back to Blighty in four weeks Missed - classical music, National Trust houses, holidays in France...do not discount all of this. England is a great country - do not let yourselves be influenced by people telling you Oz is the greatest country on Earth. It must work for all of you. Peace, Davidcellist

Britain has had and still has a galaxy of talented radical thinkers and visionaries - however I know of no political leader like Whitlam. Enlighten me if I am misled!

Mary-Rose: from 1973 to 1989 tertiary education was free for all Australians. In the UK in this period it was also practically free...I know my wife, who is a British national and my age , never paid a penny for it. Gough did use taxes to pay for it however people such as myself have put a lot of work into making life better for others as a result of our good fortune. I have worked in difficult government schools as well as private schools for over twenty years now. Remember that very few young people attended university in the 1970s and 1980s and the top institutions such as ANU and the Universities of Melbourne and Sydney were very hard to get into in those days. The proportion of young people doing something tertiary has soared in recent years. Figures from the 2011 census show a 25 per cent jump since 2006, to 932,000 people studying at Australian universities. With the federal government pushing for 40 per cent of 25 to 34-year-olds to have a bachelor's degree or better by 2025, student numbers will soon soar to well over a million. In 1985, when the parents of many of today's students were of uni age, fewer than 140,000 people were studying at university. Source: Sydney Morning Herald. This is partly why fees were not charged.

Gough was a great man. Australia was too backward and small to grasp his vision. The current Liberals are pygmies compared to Gough. Sorrow.

Well said. Gough recognised the waste of bright lads such as myself not attending university. He made tertiary education free of course - so I attended the University of Melbourne in the 1980s, hitherto a bastion for the wealthy. A complete visionary. Pyne and the current Liberal Party - you are careerist hacks and nothing more. Whitlam was a giant.

Not so. Early returns take up to 50 days to get into your account. My accountant thinks it will be more like 2-3 weeks.

In the same position as you. Easy answer. 1. Buy ticket - one way - to UK 2. Go to H and R Block or some such firm and file a paper return - you can then claim all tax back after June 2014 until you leave. Easy!

Meaning?

Too true.

Totally agree. In the Northern Territory it is very noticeable. There is too much poverty in Oz. This is made worse by these stupid films and ads which well Oz as a middle class paradise; implication being poor old England suffers with rubbish tucker and warm beer and too many chavs. WRONG! What injustice. Have you seen the Bon Beach Bogans running riot? Or the western suburbs of Melbourne? Desperate, mate. Best city on earth? Yes - the eastern half. Talk about a tale of two cities! Makes me wanna weep. This reality needs to be reported more. I am an Aussie by the way!

Yes mate - too true. I just got my RRV - as rare as rocking horse poo - so now I can finally re-join my beautiful wife and children in England. I love the heat and the smell of the flora in Australia; the culture in Melbourne is excellent; a bike ride down St Kilda road in Spring is a unique source of joy...but home is where the heart is. Make a choice - then stick with it.