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Google it, all of the info is on the nsw gov site https://www.kidsguardian.nsw.gov.au/child-safe-organisations/working-with-children-check

Here's the top tips for Melbourne and surrounding areas that we usually send to friends who are visiting... Central Melbourne Get yourself a Myki (Melbourne equivalent of an Oyster card) ASAP when you arrive from a 7Eleven shop. You can top them up in 7Elevens and at stations, they work on all trams, buses and trains. Tram travel is free within the city centre but as soon as you go outside of the centre you need to make sure you're using your myki. Shopping in the city centre is average, mostly chain stores, the biggest malls are the Emporium and Melbourne Central, good on a hot day because of the air con! There's alleys and lanes that zig zag actors the city centre called the Laneways. Lots of graffiti art, cafes, quirky shops and rooftop bars. Worth getting a map from tourist information and exploring them. Queen Vic market is at the northern end of the city centre, a decent market with food halls and usual market tat. But until the end of March they have a night market on Wednesday from about 5pm which is fantastic. LOTS of food stalls, live music stages and market stalls. Really popular when the weathers good. The better market is South Melbourne market, 10mins out of the city centre on the tram. Super cheap food shopping, lots of cool shops and stalls and surrounded by good cafes for brekkie. The viewing deck at the Eureka tower is worth a visit on a clear day. Best view of the city and bay at night is from the cocktail bar at the top of the Rialto tower called Lui Bar. Pretty swanky but surprising well priced for cocktails and the view is incredible. There's lots of rooftop bars in the city centre which are lush on a hot day, Campari house, Goldilocks, Madame Brussels and the bar on top of Cookie Club on Swanston street are all good. Cookie club is a building with about 5 floors of bars and restaurants, really popular on a weekend. The Arbory is a nice new bar next to the river, all outdoor and very popular on warm evenings. Chinatown is great for cheap dinners, lots of dumpling house, we like Shanghai Street restaurant the best. Little Ramen Bar on Little Bourke St, and Mamak on Lonsdale St are also amazing Asian restaurants which are super cheap. Suburbs out of the city centre St Kilda - really popular with backpackers, lots of hostels and share houses. Reasonable beach, lots of bars, busy on weekend. Worth waiting till dusk on the pier to watch the little penguins come home to roost. Avoid Grey St (full of prostitutes and homeless shelters). Brunswick/Fitzroy - hipsterville. Lots of beards, brogues and REALLY good coffee. Nice quirky bars, make sure you go to Naked for Satan, an amazing rooftop bar where you help yourself to $1 tapas on cocktail stick and then count the cocktail sticks and pay at the end of the evening. Always a good night there. South Yarra, Toorak and Prahan - smart suburbs with nice shops and cafes, goood for people watching. Chapel St is great for clothes shopping. Prahan has nice food market for grocery shopping and eating at. Brighton - super posh suburb where lots of footballers live. But a nice beach which has the iconic painted beach huts on it. Outside of Melbourne. Yarra Valley - lots of wineries and a dairy which does a fantastic cheese platter and wine. There's coach trips out to the wineries to save someone driving, but good picks for wineries and breweries are - Chandon (amazing views, free tour, cheap tasting), Yering station (free tasting), Killara (a bit out of the way but beautiful winery), Napoleon (cider) and Coldstream brewery (cider). Really stunning scenery all round there. Great Ocean Road - a must do! Lots of surfy towns along it like Torquay and the famous Bells Beach. Get past Lorne and Apollo Bay and the road dips right down to the ocean and winds long it all the way to the 12 Apostles which are pretty impressive. It's an amazing drive. There's coaches that go from Melbourne all the way to the apostles but a much better option is renting a super cheap car for the day from somewhere like rentabomb.com.au and doing the drive yourself (easy drive, most cars over here are automatic which makes it even easier). Phillip island - about 3 hours south on Melbourne, little island connected to the mainland by a bridge. Lots of wildlife (penguins, seals and koalas), wineries and beautiful beaches. Another good spot for wildlife are The Otways, just inland from the Great Ocean Road. Lots of koalas, kookaburras and kangaroos. Wilsons Prom - most southern point in Australia. National park with camping grounds, walking tracks, white sandy beaches and wildlife. A bit of drive from Melbourne but good for a weekend away. Sorrento - smart town on the Mornington peninsula with nice shops and cafes and a nice ocean beach. Barwon Heads - stunning beaches and a little town with campsites, about an hour and a half from Melb. Little creatures brewery at Geelong - super easy to get to on a v line train, big brewery with a big restaurant with great food to have with the beer.

You can travel and enter Australia separately. My partner arrived 7 weeks ahead of me on our 189 visas to get a head start on job and house hunting.

I shipped all my toiletries and my makeup kit without any issues. It all turned up intact, no issues with lipsticks, cream blushes, perfumes etc. I had a good clear out before we packed and gave a lot of products to family and friends, but I was glad I brought all my higher end make up as it's considerably more expensive here. I just made sure to pack everything carefully, make up in a traincase, all bottles upright in boxes, checked the lids on everything and packed anything I was worried about possibly leaking in ziplock bags.

http://www.rentabomb.com.au/?laststatus=mobile&mrtype=mobile&postback474=1

It's 28 days notice to get married in the UK unless it's a church ceremony in which case there no legal requirement for the notice period. The notice period increased from 15 days to 28 days a couple of years ago because of issues with sham marriages in the uk. And here's the kicker, you have to be resident in the UK for 7 days before you can give notice (they'll want proof of address or a passport stamp) so you effectively need to be in the country for 35 days before the ceremony. We got engaged in March and I desperately wanted to get married back in the UK but after a lot of research we've decided to have a ceremony here. The reduction of the notice period to 15 days is only in very exceptional circumstances, and you have to give notice in person. My partners a teacher so we also have added complication of trips back to the uk being limited to the length of school hols. It's so frustrating!

The primary schools in williamstown are strictly zoned because of demand and you'll need a williamstown address to register if they have spaces available. There are lots of holiday let apartments in williamstown which often offer a discounted rate for longer lets.

We lived right in the centre of Yarraville and had the same problem. Great village feel, shops, cafes and beautiful houses but the trucks on the surrounding roads were scary. The main roads around the suburbs at certain times of day could be like the wacky races. And the pollution was another issue, thick sooty diesel dusty on our inside window ledges and the outside of our little cream coloured weatherboard house was filthy. We moved to williamstown and love the more open and greener feel of the suburb, plus no traffic or trucks passing though. I'd have a look at Newport where there tends to be newer and roomier houses for families and also consider suburbs just a bit further out like Altona (around Westona station), still an easy train ride into the city to then get the tram up to Parkville but much more reasonably priced. The inner west is always a bit overlooked but we absolutely love it and I think it's made our move to Oz in some ways easier and more enjoyable.

You won't need the solicitors letters for your tax return, but you MUST keep the letters in case austrac queries the transfer, which can still be 5-10 years down the track, so file them away somewhere safe.

Google 'Victorian government jobs'. The website lists jobs for all Vic gov agencies. Despite not being able to practice law, your skills are extremely transferable and will still be considered for jobs like legal policy officer, project officer etc roles in the department of justice or the police. These jobs are relatively well paid and secure, are often a flexi time contracts and are based in the CBD.

I would think that the terms and conditions mentioned in the ad will be that residents have to be in full time uni eduction? Same as private university halls in the UK, the only residents will be young uni students.

If the contract from your Aussie employer that you have submitted is for employment which exceeds the 6months employment condition of the visa you've applied for, you might also have some issues.

Also ABC use a lot of syndicated new stories from bbc radio for European news, so it feels more like home!

I miss radio 2 and Jeremy vine so much! I listen to ABC news radio on a morning but miss the random music picks and variety that radio two had. Although I do listen to the previous day's radio two programmes over the internet now and again.

My other half is a teacher in a prep-9 in Melbourne. He arrived in August 2013 and quickly found CRT work and started doing a couple of days a week in his current school which was brand new so recruiting lots of teachers at the time. He was offered a permenant role just before Christmas commencing in January, he originally tuned it down because it wasn't quite what he was looking for, at which point they offered to pay him over Xmas if he accepted, which he couldn't turn down because that wasn't going to happen on CRT. It does happen but I think it's very very rare.

TPG. Great $59.99 bundle, any issues we've had with the connection have been sorted really quickly.

Aangan in West Footscray, fantastic food.

Do not answer yes to this question unless you have studied in Australia!! We misread this question as you are likely to have, answered yes, incorrectly claimed 5 extra points, submitted our application, realised out error, had to withdraw our application and then write a groveling letter to get a refund of the application fee. We were luckily and they accepted it as a genuine unintentional error on the form but it could have been a very costly mistake.

Hi hoddie32, So much of this rings true with me, so whilst I might not have any decent advice I can certainly sympathise. Myself and my partner also arrived in Melbourne in September 2013, from little old Bath, UK, so Melbourne has been quite a big change. Whilst back in the UK I had the occasional low period or got anxious about certain situations or events, I've found that being here has caused real issues with anxiety which I guess is linked to homesickness. My partner certainly doesn't (openly) struggle with homesickness in the same way so it can be quite isolating and can make you question what the issues are that's causing it. I love melbourne, the suburb we're in, my job and are quality of life is genuinely far better than it was in the UK (mostly down to far higher public sector wages here) but there is a huge void left by not having my friends and family here to share our experiences and successes. I haven't been back to the UK for a visit yet, partly because I worry about saying goodbye to friends and family again which was awful last time. I take it day by day, week by week here, working towards 2017 when we'll be able to apply for citizenship and then consider our options longer term. I make sure we have things planned for weekends to get us out and experiencing the things that were the reason we moved to Oz, even if it's just driving out to a state park for a walk. It's good to have things on the horizon to look forward to and to work towards. I also make sure I take time for myself, especially as my partners doesn't feel quite the same about missing home, if I'm feeling low or anxious. I will say though that finding a job that I truly enjoy made a huge difference and has given me more of a purpose here. It also gives me a distraction from other thoughts and feelings and I've met some great people. Hope that helps in some small way. Homesickness is a strange one, and I know that if I went home now I'd desperately miss Melbourne. I just keep reminding myself how lucky I am to have had the opportunity and the means to make this move, even if it's not forever.

We booked our migrant flights from heathrow to melbourne via hong kong with Cathay pacific. We emailed thier customer services to find out if they offered them, after they confirmed they did migrant rates we had to email them the dates and flight numbers we wanted and a copy of our visa grant and they provided us with a quote which we phoned up to book. About £750 each for a one way flight with 40kg of baggage (and they let me board with 47kg because I was such a sobbing mess at check in desk!)

Coles is so expensive. Go to south Melbourne market where fruit and veg, fish and meat is cheaper and you can but as little or as much as you need. Far better quality as well. There's an aldi opposite the market where you can get peanut butter and tinned tuna. I reckon you could get everything on that list for $40-50 max.

Join a Facebook group called Inner West (Melbourne) buy, sell, swap. Lots of people on there looking for people to house sit over Xmas in the inner west.

Find your nearest Trade Secret store, it looks like there's about 7 of them in Sydney. They're a lot like TK Maxx in the uk and sell lots of usually more expensive kids brands including Oshkosh.

Cathay pacific gave me 40kgs at no extra cost, we had to ring the airline to book the one way flights and fax out visa confirmation to them. I arrived at heathrow with 52kgs, they let me check in 47kgs without extra baggage charges and 5kgs had to go home with my parents!

There are dozens of websites that's stream uk tv, or you can set yourself up with a proxy VPN so that the bbc iplayer and itv player think you're in the uk and so will work. Or get yourself a basic foxtel package which includes UKTV channel and they show the soaps every night and some are only a week behind.