horsemad1976

Interested to know if you are on/off shore. If you are on on-shore how long have you been with the nominated employer before you started the process?

You also need to factor in people have multiple EOI's, some expire due to their longevity, individuals points lose/gain over the two years they are in the system so the numbers are fluid. No lottery system these are skilled visas - highest ranked points (but not necessarily highly skilled imo) get plucked from the pool of individuals and invited to apply. Just because someone is highly educated doesn't necessarily make them highly skilled. Likewise you can be highly skilled without being highly academically educated. For skilled visas like this my understanding is the department require both.

If we didn't want to move to Australia I'd be taking two of those houses at the price!! LOL We're in the Southwest 1hr from Bristol and on the M4 corridor where a 4/5 bed detached new build (ish) 1 ensuite, bath, 2 reception rooms, kitchen/family/dining, utility, garage and a larger than average plot is circa £450-£480k the price differences depending on location happens everywhere! It certainly does pay to do your homework!

We 'Jet Lag adjust' a few days before take off, slightly altering our bed times/wake up times accordingly seeking/avoiding light as necessary; etc. We alter our watches to landing time zone once on the flight. We also trick our bodies by eating associated food at mealtimes. e.g. 6am UK time we would be eating 'Lunch style' food as opposed to breakfast and so on as if we were on AUS time and so on... Our children are older than yours now but we've covered lots of long haul flights to/from UK over the years adjusting in this alway helps us.

We've had a 50 min layover at Changi. First flight was late hitting the tarmac. Connecting flight was in a different terminal - great service, they shuttled us all on buggies (certainly better than walking!) and we made the connecting flight no problem. A much better connection than running from one plane to another in JFK on your first trip to the US but thats another story...

Just so you have a ‘worse case scenario’ we’ve just been quoted sole use 40ft container with door to door and full packing service. UK to Perth £6k all in. (Pickfords) it would cost us a lot more to set up Home again - our sofa is worth £1200 on its own!

I also got a negative skills assessment from Vetassess - down to not having enough learning hours in my qualification apparently (but nowhere in their guidelines do they mention this)... The irony is if I hold the right to live/work in Australia my qualification is actually accepted by the governing body - allowing me to work in my field! Vetassess sadly, doesn't take in to account the different avenues of 'guided learning' life experience, volunteering; etc they are only interested in the classroom time attached to a qualification nor do they accept any form of RPL. If you decide to go for a re-assessment/appeal I wish you luck.

Thought the min points for a 489 to be successful was 80 points?

Thanks very much for clarifying Sue [emoji1303]

A positive skills assessment from the ACS could be used as appropriate evidence I assume?

Ah this is most useful - so we don't need to fork out some $320 per month for healthcare once we are onshore - we'll be covered for usual things that Medicare provides even as temporary residents?

You can apply for schools on the Wiltshire council website now. I believe the deadline is end of Oct for a Sept 2019 start. Results issued in March. Good Luck!

We declare food (mainly chocolate & some breakfast cereal) as a result skip the massive 'Nothing to declare' green queue down the 'Declare' red line where there was no queue - we were questioned what we were bringing in & just let through - no problems. Do declare everything though!

Where abouts in Wiltshire are you looking? We are in Wiltshire currently although our eldest daughter goes to school in Bath. She is in Year 10 (started back last week), for her she started studying English Literature last year in Yr9 and will be sitting her GCSE in the summer term of Yr10 (if we are still in the country), for Science the subject is vast so it is taught over 3 years (starting in Yr9 also) but not sitting exams until the summer of Y11 (for her will be 2020) having said that one of her subjects (Business Studies) is 75% coursework. Teacher reckons she'll have most of it completed by the end of Yr10 so she'll have a whole year to study for the exam that is only 25% of the final mark!

Yeah for us it'll be actually getting a visa that enables us work rather than the issue of getting a job when in the country!