Roberta2

Please don't be deluded about the process. It's common for a government to indicate a date by which changes will be put into effect. How could it be otherwise? If they said they were going to make changes effective from two months in advance, there would be an avalanche of applications. The effective date is 20 April. Labor has shown no inclination that I have seen to oppose them. To the contrary, both major parties are terrified of One Nation, which wants to end ALL immigration. (True, this is a loony policy. True but irrelevant.) Therefore the Senate doesn't matter (because it only matters when Labor opposes the government) and there is no doubt this will become law.

Please don't be deluded about the process. It's common for a government to indicate a date by which changes will be put into effect. How could it be otherwise? If they said they were going to make changes effective from two months in advance, there would be an avalanche of applications. The effective date is 20 April. Labor has shown no inclination that I have seen to oppose them. To the contrary, both major parties are terrified of One Nation, which wants to end ALL immigration. (True, this is a loony policy. True but irrelevant.) Therefore the Senate doesn't matter (because it only matters when Labor opposes the government) and there is no doubt this will become law.

Have you noticed the Labor Party opposing these changes?

If Labor agrees with these changes - and it so far has made no fuss - then the Senate will be irrelevant.

Protecting Australia from radical Islamists is Item no 1 on Hanson's agenda. She doesn't bother much going after aborigines and Asians any more. To the contrary, she has even endorsed a couple of Asian candidates (the wheels fell off, as they often do with her.) Indians, Chinese and Poms constitute the major groups migrating to Australia. In calling for the end of ALL migration, I guess she is being non-discriminatory for once.

A politician desperate to keep his/her job! What a surprise. Personally, I doubt Turnbull is going to keep his, but expect more "nativist" stuff in the near future. The Nationals are especially desperate to limit Hanson's inroads. On another topic, Turnbull may have some leverage on "frozen" Pom pensions in trade etc negotiations with the UK. Hard to explain to the Australian taxpayer why we spend billions topping up these pensions. The reason is that we lacked the leverage in the past that the US was able to exert over the UK. (I am of course not blaming individual Poms - all done over their heads.)

I also think that the proposed new "temporary" visa for parents (five years renewable visa, no access to Medicare, no path to PR) is a dead duck. It was a result of successful targeting of politicians in key marginals by the Indian community in the last federal elections. Can you imagine what Hanson would make of that one?

Turnbull is feeling the heat from Hanson. Queensland state elections are not far away, and it is highly likely that she will hold the balance of power. (Currently the Queensland Premier is on a knife edge and the state economy is not doing well.) Hanson wants to stop ALL immigration and ALL foreign investment. She is a sort of reincarnation of the Know Nothings in the US. Don't forget Hanson is far more disruptive to the Liberal/National coalition than she is to Labor - she takes far more votes away from them than she does from Labor. And of course she is greatly emboldened by Brexit and Trump. I haven't noticed the Labor party complaining about these changes. Maybe I've missed something. Anyway, if Labor supports them, the Senate is irrelevant.

Everyone in Australia is entitled to an aged care place if assessed to be in need of one. The aged care sector is about half private and half non for profit (mostly churches). Aged care homes are required to reserve about 14% of their places for pensioners. Certainly, if you have no money you have much less choice, but you do get a place. When older people are discharged from hospital, and are assessed to be in need of care, they are moved to transition places until a bed in an aged care facility comes up. (I call this The Holding Pen. A friend has her 94 year old mother, who has broken her hip, in one right now. It's fine.) If you do have money, the government mandates upper limits on what you can be charged for your care- a Means Tested Care fee $25,000 per year with a lifetime cap of $60,000. (My mother has just reached this, wooopee!!) Now she will pay only what pensioners pay. As to accommodation, there is now an upper limit of $550,000, all of which eventually goes back to the estate. It's all on The My Aged Care website.

The economist Judith Sloan has an op ed in The Australian today. She says that the number of planned permanent immigrants is too high and has been for some time. In relation to the proposed temporary migrant parent visa she says " In theory, those entering under this new visa category will be required to have private health insurance but, as in the case with international students, this requirement is impossible to police. (International students lob up at emergency departments of public hospitals and are not denied treatment even if they can't or won't pay. There is also no integrity in relation to the use of Medicare cards.) And does anyone honestly think the government will insist on 80 year old granny being deported when her five year visa period expires?" In relation to the real cost to the taxpayer of the contributory parent visa, she says "if Morrison were really serious about budget repair, he would be doing something about this scheme".

It does depend on where you live. It also depends on the whim of the doctor. My neighbour (inner Brisbane) always gets bulkbilled by his doctor. My doctor not only does not bulkbill, but won't accept the Seniors Health Card. So why don't I choose another doctor? Because this one is very experienced and very thorough. She picked up things with my father that his previous doctor had missed (too pally, knew each other more than 30 years.) Dentistry is not covered by Medicare. Can be very expensive, which is why a lot of people go off to Thailand. A couple of years ago I paid about $12,000 for one root canal and one implant. (Private health cover paid for some of it.) There are various websites where you can compare private health insurance, and work out what is best for your own circumstances.

Four weeks rent as a bond in Queensland. The bond is held by a government authority, not the landlord.

+The European Union is to show its determination to make no concessions to the UK on Brexit terms by telling Switzerland it will lose access to the single market if it goes ahead with plans to impose controls on the free movement of EU citizens. The Swiss-EU talks, under way for two years but now needing a solution possibly within weeks, throws up the exact same issues that will be raised in the UK’s exit talks – the degree to which the UK must accept free movement of the EU’s citizens as a price for access to the single market. The Swiss are desperate to strike a deal in order to give its politicians time to pass the necessary laws to meet a February 2017 deadline imposed by a legally binding referendum in 2014. The former president of the FDP-Liberal Radicals, Philipp Müller, on Sunday said the Brexit threat should serve as a warning to the Swiss, amid suggestions in Brussels the prospect of UK-EU exit talks meant there was less willingness to give ground on freedom of movement.+ [h=1]EU may refuse informal Brexit talks until UK triggers article 50[/h] Read more

Tried Queensland? I know only what I read in the papers - which is that the Newman government made some pretty savage cuts to nursing numbers which are being restored by the Palaszczuk government.

Thursday’s meeting of the European council will be the prime minister’s first opportunity to address the leaders of all the other member states since the UK voted to leave the European Union in June. +Donald Tusk, the European council president, has insisted Britain’s future relationship with the EU will not be on the formal agenda for the two-day meeting, but he will give May the opportunity to set out the “current state of affairs in the country” over coffee at the end of the meal. A No 10 source said she would tell her fellow EU leaders: “The British people have made a decision and it’s right and proper that that decision is honoured. There will be no second referendum. The priority now has got to be looking to the future, and the relationship between the UK, once we leave”.+

+Theresa May will also be speaking at the European summit tomorrow and Friday where she will be grilled on her EU exit strategy which could cause major volatility for the pound.+

The costs of buying the wrong house in the wrong place can also be high - including stamp duty. As to the market in particular places, see realestate.com

Best to rent for six months. The rental market here is pretty soft.

There are a couple of things that you can safely assume. (1) A lot more jobs will be lost by automation. The 'safer' jobs are those that need human brains to make judgements, and hands (connected to human brains) that can't be replaced by robots. Occupational health and safety are big employers here. A lot of people think this is evidence of a nanny state, but personally I am happy when I travel that Australian standards are higher than anywhere else I have been. (2) The babyboomers are retiring in droves. There will be a lot more jobs in hospitals and aged care facilities, for starters. But as others have said, nursing is a tough job. However, there are all sorts of ancillary jobs that experienced nurses go into.

Depends where you are going to be working. Traffic in and out of Brisbane in rush hour is pretty horrendous.

My daughter in law is a trainee midwife, just starting at a university in Birmingham. They intend to relocate here (Brisbane) in three years or so, when she has finished her training. (My son has been in the UK for five years and I think another three English winters will be more than enough for him!) I would be interested in further comparisons between the pay and conditions for midwives in the UK and here. When my daughter had a baby in Royal Brisbane five years ago, she was seen by midwives for the entire pregnancy, and most of them were English.

Won't your dog still be in quarantine? In general, landlords don't like pets. However, the rental market in Brisbane is pretty soft at the moment. I recently agreed to tenants having a small dog - on the proviso that it would have to wear a barking collar if neighbours complained. (This was in a house with a stay at home Mum with small kids.) Apartments (called units here) can be more tricky and may involve needing the permission of the Body Corporate Committee. A lot of people work from home now and a barking dog can cause problems. I don't know about short term accommodation - you would have to ask.

This thread has gone way off topic.

Thanks for clarification. It obviously means that the proposed new temporary parent visa could be quite expensive.

+This rebate is available to Australian citizens or permanent residents with a full Medicare card, who earn under $280,001 as a household or $140,001 as a single. The rebate amount depends on your age and it can be claimed up front when purchasing health insurance to reduce the cost of premiums, or as a rebate when lodging your tax return+