WayneM

I don't have any help to give, but this exact problem happened on my father-in-law's tourist visa application. The Dr in our family had a very similar reaction to what DrDougster's was. From a visa perspective, once he had further testings to submit straight away, there is now a 3 month wait before he can submit again. Interested to hear how it works out for you, and hope all is good with your wife's health.

I forgot about this post. Many thanks for your answers. When I called Home Affairs to enquire, they suggested that their primary concern would be ensuring that their primary concern was about the applicant's ability to meet any incurred costs, both from their welfare point of view, in addition to any state expenses that may occur, i.e. medical bills. Particularly relevant I guess for countries without a reciprocal healthcare agreement. We went down the sponsored route, so it leaves it at their judgement whether to request a 15k bond or not. I'll post the results for the record, in case it helps anybody in a similar situation.

Now that we are settled here and the covid situation is calming down, we have family members that are starting to think about visiting. (We have family from the UK from my side, and Indian citizens on my wife's side). Just looking at visitor visa 600 there seems to be streams for general tourism and one for family sponsored. These appear to be identical, the difference being that one requires a family member to sponsor the applicant and potentially provide funds to be held to one side until the visitors leave. I am unsure why anybody would apply for the sponsored route given the complication - though I do wonder if we have elderly parents wanting to visit for a few months or so whether the sponsored route would be looked upon more favourably in terms of the visa length granted. Is anybody in the know about the difference and why these two routes exist instead of just the one? When we lived in the UK, I sponsored in-laws when they visited and provided a letter stating I would provide accommodation etc.

Best of luck!

Hi Ash, So we moved to Brisbane 2.5 years ago. Our daughter moved straight into the middle of Grade 2, and our son was started school at the normal age after we had settled. The boy settled really easily, as he started with everyone else. For the girl, she had a tough time adjusting to the different school system and making friends. Primarily for that reason we don't plan to move suburbs until education is done. Obviously with that possibility in mind we invested a bit of time choosing a suburb based on school, house prices and commute (train line). Being coastal wasn't a huge factor for us, but we happen to be somewhere cooler due to being near the sea, though the way the roads are laid out it is a 15 minute drive to the nearest beach. In the UK she went to an Ofsted Excellent school, NAPLAN is different as I think it is just the kid's academic scores but the closest we could find. https://www.goodschools.com.au/ was handy. In choosing which city we immediately ruled out Sydney and Melbourne as the equity we had in the house in a small Northern England town just wasn't going to work, or at least, it felt like a big risk not knowing what our salaries would be exactly. We considered climate, and I went on https://www.seek.com.au/ and I searched for how many jobs were available for my skills and divided it by the population of each city to get an idea of demand per head. Not the most scientific or informed way I am sure, but we needed some mechanism! I also work in IT, and have found that almost all of the work is in the CBD - in England I never had a job in a city centre. Though I sense the new normal is going to be office based only 1 or 2 days a week. When we arrived we rented an AirB&B for a few weeks, with buying a car a priority in addition to spending most of our days checking out houses to rent in different suburbs we thought may have potential. Our residential situation was:- A) 3 Weeks AirB&B in a place that wasn't a target suburb. Whilst there we got bank accounts, bought a car, sorted out government registrations for healthcare etc. A place that wasn't temporary to have as some sort of address for car/bank registration etc. would have been better. B) 6 months renting 1st house (and during January realising that we really really needed a house with ducted ac) C) 18 months renting in the same suburb whilst saving aggressively, and watching house prices rise almost as aggressively (luckily, we have a good income) D) Bought in same suburb Talking to mortage brokers it seems like they want you to have been in a job for minimum 6 months, and have 10% deposit set aside in addition to tax (stamp duty) which was significant. A multiple of 4 to 5 x family income seemed to be their borrowing limit. If you have family in/near Sydney and can afford to take time out of work it certainly sounds like a good idea to stay with them for a couple of weeks at least to get your bearings and basic logistics sorted out. Personally I'd decide when in the UK what your target residential city is, and if it's Sydney stay there, if not, fly or drive to wherever you are going to be. Obviously that assumes your visa isn't state/region specific. Happy to help if any of that prompts further thoughts or considerations you want to bounce around.

Moved over 2 years ago and lived in a suburb neighbouring North Lakes. Recently bought so happy to offer advice on any questions. One thing to bear in mind, people on this post and in general complain about new areas like this being on small blocks too close to the neighbours. This is true. However, as a recent immigrant, I really don't notice it that much, because everywhere I lived in England was the same if not worse. That said, you might notice it a bit more here as the houses aren't built with thick walls and insulation and you might even use the garden for more than 6 weeks of the year, as may the neighbours. Depending on your eventual earning potential, other areas do grant potential that is extremely rare in the UK in terms of size of land. And houses seem bigger, in that a double garage and laundry room (similar to UK 'utility room') seem to come pretty much as standard whereas in the UK they are sought after features.

True story, a guy I used to work with is having the house he lives in sold by the landlord (that's happened to 3 people we know in the last few months). He asked if I can provide a professional reference for the real estate agent on the next rental. After they called to take the reference, I told him its done. He then told me that the reference was BEFORE they would spend the time letting him look at the place, that's how much demand there is for houses to rent. Similar stories with house purchases. We have been looking recently, and so many we put offers in on were sold within hours of the first inspection. A lot of people are making offers based on the online advert prior to the inspection. That's Mango Hill, suburb next door to North Lakes. Maybe it will calm down in the next few months Just crazy right now...

We have been in Queensland about 2 years, and 2 weeks... and got mortgage approval today. For the vast majority of the time our problem was not employment, but the deposit. So you got that nailed already. I'm an IT contractor which was also a problem as I work 6 month contracts. I had to be in a contract with the same company for 6 months, and then get an extension. My wife is literally in her first month of a new permanent job with a 6 month probation period. That was our situation with a minimal deposit. I'd suggest talking with a mortgage broker if you can find somebody to take you serious enough to have a conversation before you move if you want to move rapidly. If you will be renting at first, say a month in a hotel then 6 months in a rental, that might just be enough to get your ducks in a row if everything works out well - depends so much on landing the stable job from what I can tell.

We just got our MoveCube delivered last week, and I'll be updating a post showing us packing it with the unpacking when I get chance. As per Marisa's point above, we shoved some flat packed furniture (IKEA and similar) into the cube as we had the spare space. Some of it was ok, but some got damaged so don't look so pretty any more. We will either get used to them looking like that or eventually use them as garage furniture! I suspect that what would have protected them better is if we grouped the bits of wood together and secured the corners and any dowels brackets etc. with cardboard and/or bubble wrap. No guarantees, but I reckon had I done that they'd be as we packed them; flip side is they then take up a bit more space... The guy who delivered pointed out that removing dowels etc. would have helped, but if they're glued in then less easy to take off... depends on your personal cash vs time vs ability ratios if you reckon it's worth trying to drill them out and replacing with new dowels over here I guess. (On marginally related point what I should have packed also was those many many clothes hangers that we had in our UK wardrobes! We have a built in wardrobe in each bedroom right now, with no hangers )

Yes that's what we plan on doing for sure, the only thing that can be done remotely is get a general ideas of areas, schools, journey times. I reflected recently that actually, in my life I've never actually proactively chosen a place to live before, life events have almost always pointed me in at least a general direction as life events unfold. I suspect that many people are in a similar situation. I don't think I've ever moved without it being about following a job; I guess I have no soul haha Am I overthinking by asking if there's a reason I've seen a lot of people here pointing out a 4 week initial holiday rental, rather than longer or shorter? I've booked us into a place via airbnb for 3 weeks, and figured we'd play it by ear from there. I was looking at the time it takes to process a medicard yesterday (people like to see that for ID??) at up to 4 weeks and wondered if I'd missed something!

Good luck with the move; your timeline is pretty similar to ours, and I can empathise with your situation of trying to pick suburbs remotely. Even more of an issue for us as we'd rather minimise disruption for the kids by sticking to the same schools etc rather than ping-ponging them about the city (they've already lived in two countries so far this year!). Maybe it is an impossible goal!

Probably not the angle that you are looking at it from, but I've been on Meetup in the UK for professional purposes for a few years, so I am a member of the groups related to my profession that have monthly get-togethers and guest speakers etc. Certainly worthwhile from that angle. I have already transferred my associations over to the equivalents down under, and would like to think it will at least be a start networking from that perspective.

Really sorry to see that, I hope there at least was some insurance in place.

I've spent about half an hour of my life looking into slide-on campers, I never knew they existed until recently.

I remember you saying that some of the best camping spots are accessed by boat... I figured you were paying somebody to take you out there, but looks like you bought a boat... just for the camping expeditions?

For us it is just about leaving the city and complications of modern life behind...being at one with nature and all of that getting back to basics stuff. It's a difficult balance, because the access to modern tech also makes life easier.

Is that a solar powered TV?

If it was me, I'd probably be making little cardboard models scaled down on an accurate ratio representing the cube, and each significant piece of furniture to see how they would fit. Now that may be a sensible idea, or may be my excessively logical oddball computer programmer side coming out... [emoji848]. Our cube was crammed with smaller stuff so I didn't with ours, but I have done it with furniture to go into prospective home purchases before... When I analysed our stuff, it was the small things that cost £10, 20, 30, 40 each that really added up in value. Each box we put in was worth hundreds based on what we paid for the contents. The kids wanted to be transported in boxes too, which may have been cheaper than visas with medicals, flight etc., but we hadn't planned ahead and had already included them both in our original application and bought the flights already [emoji87] We booked our cube 2 months in advance. They said we only needed to book a few weeks ahead, but once they did the site inspection (with non-refundable deposit paid) we had that blue plastic floor cutout and some free boxes to start to visualise with.

So off it went on Friday, hardly slept the final night making sure everything was ready, and even then forgot a few minor things. Will see in September how well protected we wrapped our stuff!

Does this depend on the type of bed? A divan style is much less portable than a 'flat packable' frame, which probably takes up less volume than the mattress itself.

There you go, I have got this off to a very good start. Now I have left this in Nandini's very capable hands to finish off whilst I work away from home. (Don't worry, she had a good 6 year old assistant) Assuming she hasn't filed for divorce before I get back, we should be good to go [emoji41]

Yes, there are a few bit of furniture we still have listed for sale, but the way it is going I think we will be taking them instead, seems like we will have the room. Almost definitely will have more space left than anticipated; if anybody wants anything shipping from Lancashire to Brisbane let me know [emoji38]

That's a large size movecube, which is about two thirds the size of our box room upstairs which was where we started setting things aside a few months ago. The bed frame on the right is uk super king size, would have left it there as a marker if it wasn't for the possibility of it falling on a child [emoji86]

Slowly building upwards and inwards

I think somebody here called it MoveCube Tetris? We started last night.