MrsWuh

Does the EU protect us from raining cows then? Wow - if only Cameron had told us that last year!

It is important. What makes you think these companies won't be able to keep exporting into the EU?

Except it's not free, is it? It costs us around £10billion pounds a year net just to belong to the club, never mind all the other costs associated with membership. You do realise we will still be able to trade with Europe and buy raw materials from them, right?! We don't need a free trade deal to be able to do business within the EU. Tariffs work both ways. And, what's more, we will be free to make up our own rules to attract investment to the UK and away from Europe...

You are confusing two different things. The UK forming, scrapping or amending its own regulations as we see fit. And the EU forming, scrapping or amending their regulations as they see fit. Why would we need to influence EU regulations? We won't be bound by them any more - that's the point. Do we influence US regulations? Or Australian regulations? No, we just accept what they do, adjust accordingly and get on with it - and it will be exactly the same with the EU.

And we can vote May out. No-one is obliged to vote for the Tories just because the opposition is weak. But the Tories are not 'extreme-right' and never have been. If they are moving further to the right now and gaining support for it, it's because they are taking advantage of a shift back in that direction by the electorate. That is also democracy. The MEPs don't make policy. The EU Commission proposes and drafts new laws, and implements and enforces EU laws that have been passed. All the MEPs do is agree to the proposals or reject them. The Commissioners are nominated by member states but not elected by the people of Europe. We can't vote them out, any more than we can vote out over 90% of the MEPs. Now this is fine if you concur with the idea of a European superstate, along the lines of the US. If you see yourself as European first and foremost, and Britain as a bit-part cog in a huge machine, then it is quite possible that you are happy to sacrifice British needs for the greater good, whatever the EU decides the 'greater good' should be. That's your prerogative. But the fact is that most British people do not think like that - and that includes a huge chunk of people who voted Remain. All the parties know that, which is precisely why they had to keep negotiating opt-outs and rebates and 'picking and choosing' rules. It's all very well saying that the UK should abide by all the rules of the club - Euro, Schengen and all - but the inevitable consequence would still be Brexit, just by an even greater margin!

So there you go. We don't need to be in the EU to have the same standards. But if we decide they are superfluous or having unintended consequences, we will be able to scrap them or amend them if we so wish. So tell me again... why do we need to be in the EU?

Campaign for PR then. I live in a safe Tory seat as well and I don't vote Tory. You'll just have to grin and bear it until enough of the population agrees with you and wants to change things - that's democracy. Now you know how the Eurosceptics felt for 40 years! How would you propose changing EU law if the British people didn't agree with it, but a majority of the other countries did? 73 MEPs out of 751 aren't going to change anything, and that's the maximum number of votes the UK can have. That's the EU restraint I feel most strongly about - and that's where the lack of control comes in. Far-right groups are on the rise across Europe. People tend to take EU elections more lightly than national ones and use them as a protest - witness UKIP's victory in 2014. How would you feel if these right-wing groups gained a majority in the EU Parliament and started passing extremist laws you didnt agree with? How would you feel, knowing that these laws would be imposed on the UK even if 100% of the British people flatly disagreed with them - and knowing there was absolutely nothing we could do about it? My instinct is that you would be screaming for Brexit at the top of your voice. But either you agree with the concept of the EU superstate or you don't. You can't just keep voting your country in or out depending on whether you happen to agree with the current mindset of the EU Parliament. I don't want my country ruled by 27 others in their own interests rather than our own. Simple as that.

Only 8% of British businesses trade with the EU. Why should the other 92% have to worry about EU regulations? Most of them are small businesses. They don't have to worry about US regulations if they don't trade with the US, or Australian regulations if they don't trade with Australia. But the EU is able to impose all kinds of restrictions on them. Nothing is stopping businesses from trading with the EU and sticking to their regulations if they have to - why drag everyone else into the net too?

Well if the British people don't like it, they can always vote the Tories out. And there's the beauty of Brexit in a nutshell.

British political parties will propose the optimum temperature of the bath in their manifestos, and the British people will pick accordingly. They will not need to wait while 27 other countries sit about debating what they think the British bath temperature should be. Ummm... not sure what the second point was all about. ??? Only businesses trading with the EU would need to comply with EU regulations. The other 92% of British businesses will no longer have to be restrained by red tape invented by some bored, over-paid, unelected pen-pusher in Brussels.

Wow - which bank was that? Was it a long time ago? And do you think that was quite usual, or are you a banker's extra-special, super-loaded dream client that they were desperate to nab?!

Thank you all for your replies they're really helpful. We know we're gambling on the value of the pound going up but it's being hammered now by the uncertainty over Brexit. Once that's sorted and the dust has settled, we're pretty confident the pound will improve. We know about the interest rates being higher in Australia as well - we were doing calcuations based on a 5% interest rate? But our annual income will be up by the equivalent of £12,000 a year and I'm hoping to go back to work as well, so we should be OK there. BrokerByTheBeach, we do have permanent residents' visas. My husband has been a teacher for 21 years, so the continuation of industry is there. If we sell our UK house, a 20% deposit will be no problem. I must admit I haven't scanned the small print of my husband's job offer, but he hasn't mentioned having a probationary period. Are there any lenders you would recommend that might be willing to take us on? NicF, how did you get a mortgage after six weeks? That's fantastic! I love the idea of building our own house, but the reality would scare me witless! Skani, thank you for reassuring me over Kingston Beach and Blackman's Bay. At the moment we live outside London near Stansted Airport, and the congestion is a nightmare. It takes my husband an hour or more to travel 18 miles into work. We regularly get stuck in traffic jams going to the supermarket 2 miles away. Getting away from it is the major reason why we picked living in Tasmania over anywhere else - surely the congestion in Hobart cannot compare to where we are now?! (I'm going to need to get used to thinking in kilometres instead of miles, aren't I? Oh heck...!)

Wherever we rent to start is where we are likely to end up because, having pulled three children out of school in the UK, we really wouldn't want to get them settled in Australia and then be forced to pull them out again. We will just have to make sure we've done our research before we get over there. (At the moment we are keen on Blackman's Bay and Kingston Beach, so if anyone knows any deep dark secrets about those areas please pass them on!) Oh well - thank you for answering my question. Looks like renting is unavoidable... or maybe we should just invest in a camper van for three months?!

We are moving to Tassie at the beginning of September. If we manage to sell our house in the UK, we'll have around £400,000 in equity. We don't really want to transfer all that over to Aussie dollars while the exchange rate is so bad. On the other hand, we don't much fancy renting either. So we were wondering whether it would be preferable to get a mortgage in Tasmania, using just some of the equity as a deposit, and then paying it off once the exchange rate has picked up and we can transfer the rest of the money over. My husband is a teacher and he has a permanent job lined up in a Hobart school as a Head of Department. So we will have a regular income pretty much straight away. His UK contract doesn't end until 31st August, so his employment record will scarcely have any gap at all between jobs. I know our credit score won't count over there, but we thought we'd get copies anyway to reassure any lenders. We are going to open an Australian bank account and start saving into it every month before we go. And, of course, we'll have a huge wodge of cash sitting around in a foreign bank account. Will it be possible to get a mortgage agreed in Australia before we go out there or soon after, or will it take months before the banks will trust us with their money? (Please don't tell me that it's best to rent to begin with - I know, I know!) Many thanks!

Hi Elaine, I think it really depends on how much support your son needs. Australia seems to offer a very extensive (and expensive) early intervention service for children under 7 with ASD - I think it's something like up to $6,000 a year to spend on various types of therapy. So you might stand a better chance if you wait until your son is too old to qualify for that financial assistance, as it's obviously going to represent a huge chunk of the permitted costs over 5 years. Even if you don't intend to use it, they will still take it into account if your son is eligible for it. My son wasn't diagnosed until he was almost 7 and he has improved a lot since then. I don't know whether he would have got through the process at that point, because he was in a pretty bad way psychologically after being bullied at school - chewing everything in sight, literally tearing out his hair in clumps, nightmares, meltdowns. A few years of TLC and more understanding from his schools after diagnosis have made so much difference to him that we barely recognise him from the report made at the time of diagnosis. He still has occasional bouts of peculiar behaviour, but nothing like he used to. Because he's so much older than your son, it's easier for professionals to assess how likely he is to live an independent life as an adult and make a judgement on that basis. Plus he doesn't receive any additional support at school which really helps. And he's only got a few years left at school now anyway, of course. Obviously I don't know how affected your son is by the ASD. Again, if he improves as much as my son did in a few years, you may find it easier to get him through the medical a little later when it's clearer how his condition will affect his ability to cope at mainstream school. If it helps, the agent we used was Go Matilda. When we first contacted them we didn't even think to mention my son's autism - most of his problems occur at school in social situations, but he's fine at home. His funny ways are just a part of who he is and, to us if not everyone else, that's his 'normal' setting. So we were going for the visa all guns blazing, when I started to see these little threads on the forums and realised rather belatedly that the autism might be a problem. My husband phoned Go Matilda and they were very reassuring and relaxed and just said it would be fine and not to worry. Of course we DID worry - incessantly for months! - but they turned out to be right in the end. Good luck with whatever decision you make - hope it goes well for you all! L. x

We're in the same position - three kids, just got our 189 visa, but a comfortable lifestyle, nice house and good income in the UK. The reality of what we're doing is starting to kick in... But if we chicken out now, we will always look back and wonder 'what if'? If we don't try, we will never know. And when it's too late to even try, what then? Regrets and recriminations for evermore? So we will go for it, make the best of it and aim to at least stick it out for long enough to get citizenship. Then if it goes wrong, at least we will all always have the opportunity to go back and try again if we feel so inclined. Or even try New Zealand...! Or we may just find that Dorothy was right all along and there really is no place like home - in which case we will appreciate it all the more when we get back! Go on - take your little kids on an adventure before you lose them to the school system.

Just to update everyone - we got our visa grants today! A mere week after submitting the paediatrician's letter. Still in shock - and wondering how to break it to the kids!

Well we took him to the paediatrician yesterday... the one recommended by the panel doctor. She didn't know why we were there, hadn't seen any of the previous reports we'd sent to her, glanced through them briefly when we gave them to her, noted his high IQ score and asked us what we wanted her to say on the letter! She didn't really talk to our son at all, let alone examine him. She said she'd had ASD applications rejected before, but they were severe cases. She said the authorities might think it was odd if the diagnosis was lifted altogether and ask for more tests, so we agreed not to go that far. But then she said something about there being no way of determining severity and they would ignore the 'mild' part of the diagnosis anyway so there was no point putting that on?! That's not the impression I got from our migration agent or DSM-V, but she waved away my questions regardless. It was like she was going through the motions and taking her fee, without really knowing what the immigration authorities are looking for or being particularly bothered about confirming whether the school and Ed. Psych reports were accurate. She said she'd send us the letter first so we can make any amendments and then send it back to her. It's like we're having to do the work ourselves! The referral letter actually asked for a paediatrician's report, not a letter. Does that matter? She can't have anything to add to the Ed. Psych. and school reports because she didn't do any further investigatons. Thank goodness we got the up-to-date Ed. Psych report... Anyway, I thought I'd keep this post updated for anyone else who might find it useful in future. Not quite so hopeful as I was...!

Don't worry, he won't. He's quite sane really, apart from his sudden burning mid-life-crisis urge to up sticks and move his entire family to a country on the other side of the world that he's never set foot on. We just have to humour him, poor soul...!

Thank you for your replies - sorry about the delay in replying back. It was good advice to speak to the migration agent - I don't know why it didn't occur to us to do that! Anyway, the agent said to get as much evidence as possible, so yesterday we went to see the educational psychologist who helped diagnose our son in the first place. She repeated all the tests she did when he was six, and he has improved so much that he is now on the borderline of not meeting the diagnostic criteria for ASD any more. Next we are taking him to the paediatrician at the hospital where we did our medicals, and it might be that he ends up losing his official diagnosis completely - hopefully that will be the end of the issue and we will get the visa! We've also got a very positive report from our son's school and we asked them to complete an adaptive behaviour checklist which made him look great - thanks, Quoll! Now the only danger is that my other half is going to get carried away with all the excitement and hand in his notice at work before we get the visa - he is just itching to do it, I know! L. x

It seems that we all got through the medicals unscathed (phew!) apart from my 12-year-old son who was diagnosed with mild ASD at the age of 6. His application has been referred and they have asked for him to go and see a paediatrician who can report back to them. My son is very verbal, won a scholarship to a private mainstream school, was placed in the top 1% for his age group in national tests last year, averaged 75% across 12 subjects in his summer exams, has never had a Statement of SEN and doesn't receive extra help in classes. He hasn't had to see any medical professionals about his condition since he was diagnosed - once the school realised there was an issue and were more understanding of him, most of his behavioural anxieties disappeared. There are no concerns about independent living or getting a job when he's an adult. He still struggles to relate to his peers or work in a team, uses an iPad in class because of his atrocious handwriting (hypermobile joints), tends to avoid eye contact and sometimes has trouble focusing in class. Does anybody have any advice or ideas on how we can prove that he will not be a burden on the Australian taxpayer and get him through this last hurdle? Would it be a good idea to get any other up-to-date reports from medical professionals to take along to show the paediatrician? Will a letter from his Headmaster, his school results, IEP and a respectable interview with the paediatrician be enough? Are there any buzzwords we can get the school to include in the letter that will make them look at him more favourably?! We are a bit worried that the decision will depend on whether the person making it is in a good mood on the day, or whether they are the sort of person who will just see the word 'autism' and reject him out of hand. We are applying for a 189 PR visa, so the bar is pretty high and we have no means of appeal if they say no. So any advice would be very much appreciated!

Well that all sounds very hopeful - thank you! Although when we signed up with Go Matilda, my husband mentioned my health problems and didn't even think to mention the autism (I told you it was mild - we don't even think about it most of the time). So when he went back and told them, we'd already signed up with them. But I guess if their reputation is that good, they would have been honest about the implications anyway. Fingers crossed!

Yes, we're using GoMatilda. They dismissed our concerns and seem to think we should be fine, but there's that nagging feeling of "well they would say that, wouldn't they?!" - they want our money! My son's autism is not typical - it's very mild, he is very tactile, very talkative and comes across as pretty normal most of the time. As long as he doesn't insult the doctor with some brutally honest and deeply personal observation, I'm hopeful he will come through any interview unscathed...

My other half got his IELTS results this morning and passed with flying colours. Now it's my turn to get nervous! The children and I have a few minor health problems between us. When the medical checks are assessed, will they add up all the potential additional expenses for all 5 of us together, or do we each have our own limit? I presume they will add up potential expenses for all of my ailments together to see if I breach the limit. Just to clarify, I have epilepsy which is completely controlled with medication. And my hearing is not good, but I'm fine and can operate perfectly normally when I'm wear hearing aids in both ears. (I am due to have an operation which will hopefully help matters and may even make the hearing aid unnecessary - but that's a long shot!) My eldest son (11) was diagnosed with high functioning autism, but he really IS high-functioning - he has been assessed as being in the top 1% of his age group and won a scholarship to a private school. He doesn't have any extra help in class and he hasn't seen a doctor for 5 years so, even though I know autism can be a bit of a red flag to the Australian authorities, I'm hopeful that there won't be any issues for him. My youngest son (7) has minor problems with his speech. His sounds are very 'slushy' and he cannot say 'j' or 'g' or 'ch' so his speech isn't very clear, although he can be easily understood. He's not having official speech therapy at the moment, but he is taken out of class a couple of times a week for a session with the school's SENCO. He's also very small for his age (2nd centile). So individually all fairly minor, but collectively are we likely to make an immigration officer shudder and reach for the rejection stamp?!

Thank you to everyone who replied - that's a big relief. I don't think we will ever need to worry about getting a tourist visa for him!