psymann

In answer to myself, we went in on the psychologists nec code 272399, with about 75 points, and got picked of the EOI list first time and granted a Visa within a month. We've now been in Perth for six months. She got offered a job before we moved out but had a bit of a trial finding somewhere that didn't bill through Medicare and therefore could do the placement requirements. She worked therefore not as a clinical psychologist to start with, but doing psychology work with a job title of Case Manager, but has now completed the placement, passed the exam (which she thought particularly hard due to them trying to convert what should have been complex answers into simple multiple choice answers), and got her accreditation accepted by AHPRA. The main hurdle seems to have been finding an employer able to offer the transitional placement; once that was done, and the awkward exam done, the forms were a pain but just a case of working through them, and the contract at AHPRA was fairly good at responding to questions on e-mail. Certainly keep ask your records of your past training and work, course handbooks etc, since AHPRA require a surprising amount of historical info and although she didn't supply all of it (the CVs of her uni supervisors wasn't supplied) the fact she had most of it to hand was helpful. So six months after arriving and 18 months after starting the ball rolling, she's now completed all the requirements, and her skills are very much in demand with the NHS training proving to be probably superior to Australia's equivalent despite all the hurdles! Hope that helps, and good luck! psy

It's hard to know what the system is. If the system is "don't let people bring tons of stuff into Australia and the sell it on for a profit" or "don't let people buy an entire household of stuff in the UK just before they leave and then bring it all in to Australia", then you'd think the odd book or CD bought in the last year shouldn't matter and it wouldn't be cheating the system to ignore them. Then again, there ought to be no problem in declaring them, and customs officials ought to be able to agree they don't matter - it ought to be up to them, not up to us, to decide what does/doesn't matter. But if the system is that the Australian govt have decided they want to tax all new items brought in, then it sounds to me to be completely cheating the system not to declare them. It may not be a rule that I like, but if the rule is that all new goods must be declared and paid for, then it sounds like tax avoidance if you don't declare them, and 'get away' with not paying for them. Every bit as bad as politicians who don't properly declare their expenses and overclaim for them. I have spent hours - probably days by now - trying to understand what to put on this blasted B534 form. And STILL I don't know what is or isn't correct. Still I can't get a balance between the govt's "declare everything" rules for which there's not enough room on the form and which seem impossible to follow (I really don't know how many odd wooden counters there are in my board games, or how many wooden pencils I have), and the suggestions from shippers and many on this forum who say "declare nothing and it'll be ok" - which sounds more like whether you'll 'get away' with doing something, not whether you're doing the right thing in the first place. I've even had it suggested that over-declaring stuff can cause customs to take a keener interest in what you have, look through far more stuff and charge you more for bringing things in which, if true, would worry me also as that seems backwards. I am rapidly putting B534 form at the top of my list of Really Annoying Things needed for migration. I think it's even above Washing Football Boots with a Toothbrush, and Trying to Understand Capital Gains Tax Law at the moment.

I asked the customs via e-mail: "Am I right in thinking that there's an allowance of $900 per person, so that if we're bringing in less than this amount, we'd not be subject to any customs tax on them?" And was told: "Concessions: As a passenger you do have concession but they do not apply when shipping goods into Australia: Please declare all new items separately and Customs will assess for Duty and GST." As far as I can tell, that was the related answer to the question - it wasn't very clear! - and I believe therefore that the $900 only applies if you take them in yourself, and therefore not for stuff you ship in separately.

Well, not really, they could perfectly well take my passport number when they provide the offer, and then make sure that that passport number has not made use of the offer before. Or they could take my name and date of birth and give me a one-time-only-use promotion code to use when booking on their website, and make sure that that name/dob combination is never granted another code. Or probably other similar options. Still, it's not as if anyone else offers this at all, so it's not a complaint at Singapore airlines - it just seems it'd be just as easy for them to make the same offer a little more useful, and it's a shame they don't do that. But it's nice of them to do anything at all.

I checked this with both Singapore and Emirates this week. Both have a standard 30kg in Economy. Singapore said that they offer an additional 10kg as a "migrant baggage allowance" but only if (a) you have a permanent residency visa and (b) if you have not already travelled on it before. For us, this was useless, as we went out to Australia for two weeks to activate our visa, and are now doing the one-way trip permanently - but because we already went out for the two weeks, we're now not eligible for the extra allowance. Seems a bit of an odd way to offer it, but that's how they work it. Emirates only offer an additional allowance - of 20kg, I think he said on the phone, taking it up to 50kg total - if you open an account with ANZ. I believe you have to do this before you book the flight, and then use a special link provided by ANZ to book the flight with. I confess I didn't listen too hard to the details as I already have an account with someone else in Australia and don't want to open an ANZ account just for this purpose, so this also was of no use to us. So it looks as if we're stuck with the 30kg limit each. Which is a pain, but perhaps it's fate's way of making sure I don't do myself a mischief trying to carry too much stuff!

We've come across this too. We live in a village, and your sentence above is exactly what I want to say! I'm in two minds. One to tick "No" because we're not planning on going anywhere you'd think of as a 'farm', and steering clear of the livestock market and farm buildings and so on. One to tick "Yes" because we may want to walk over the moors which technically could be considered 'places where animals are kept' since it's used for animal grazing and there are one or two sheep and even fewer cows around there. I have a tendency to read rules literally and take them too seriously, and can't work out if that's what I'd be doing if I ticked 'Yes' because I walk along a public footpath that might have had a sheep cross it sometime. Or whether the rules are there to be followed precisely, and I should indeed tick 'Yes' (or avoid going anywhere other than the village and city centres for the next month). This thread is from a couple of years ago - have any of you, since posting here, been able to make a decision on whether to put Yes or No, and what were the consequences?

As an update on our 272311/272399 issue: - We went ahead and put in the EOI on 272399 (Psychologists nec) - EOI went in in time for 22 April 2013 sift, with 75 points, and accepted - After a month or so of doing police and medical forms, Visa granted on 17 June 2013 So being "272399 Psychologists nec" doesn't seem to have had any negative influence compared to being "272311 Clinical Psychologist", since EOI went through first time, and Visa only took a couple of months to complete. :-) So now I just leave her to battle her way through AHPRA, which sounds like the far more difficult task than getting the Visa! Glad that's her job, not mine, lucky wife ;-) psymann

Great, thanks for the help! I'll pass on your kind offer to her in case she gets any problems later down the line as she goes through the process psy

Thanks for the info, Zoe :-) We've now put our Expression Of Interest in under 272399 because it seemed wise to get it in before July turns up and the rules change again ;-) We're going for the independent skilled visa so don't need state sponsorship, so we're hoping that it doesn't matter whether we're down as 272399 or 272311 in order to get the visa sorted out... then once we've got that under way, she's hoping to get going with AHPRA as soon as possible to make sure she's got all the neccessary endorsements from them by the time we actually move so that even if we migrate under 272399, she'll still be properly set up to be an official Clinical Psychologist when it comes to getting jobs. We're told (hopefully it's true) that employers won't really look at the migration code, but more be looking for AHPRA's endorsement and a good CV etc. Did you actually get assessed as 272311 up front at the start, before submitting your EOI? Or did you managed to change it later down the line?

Our migration agent tells us that they tend to pick you out of the EOI pool based on groups - the first four digits of your code - and that therefore 2723-99 and 2723-11 are equally likely to be selected to apply for a visa, so we've just gone with 272399... will see how that goes. Still have no idea what other clinical psychologists are doing - would be interesting to know.

We're finding the same thing - my wife is a Clinical Psychologist in the UK, and she's just been assessed by the APS under 272399 ("Psychologists nec"), and not 272311 ("Clinical Psychologist"). So far the APS have suggested they can't put her down as 272311 without her being registered with the Psychology Board of Australia ... which in turn requires her to have the APS provide evidence that she's suitable for migration. Having to get the APS to grant her 272399 first in order to use to pay and sign up as a PsyBA member while still working in the UK, and then to be reassessed by the APS later not only sounds very convoluted, but I'm not even sure it works like that or makes any sense. At the moment our choice seems to be: 1) Go ahead with 272399 (Psychologists nec) and apply with that - we have 70 points on the points system to go with it, I think. 2) Wait, possibly months, and pay extra, to attempt to be reclassified as 272311 (Clinical Psychologist) which may not even be possible. ztjt2003 and zcmarlene, did you manage to resolve this issue at all? Does/did it harm your chances of migration to be listed as 272399 Psychologists Nec instead of 272311 Clinical Psychologist? At the moment we're struggling to see how anyone can be classified as 272311, but you'd think it must be possible, else why have it on the list? I suppose if all clinical psychologists are having the same problem, and all going down as Psychologists Nec, then this levels the playing field... the worry of course is that everyone else has worked out how to be a 272311 Clinical Psychologist, and we're the only ones who can't figure it out!