Quoll

Find a doctor. If they’ve got room, register with them. Book a long appointment and go and make yourself known. You might find that some of your medications will change because they may not be available (two of my quite common ones weren’t so the doc gave me an alternative). They will generally give you a prescription for 6 months - you can only get them filled a month at a time and you will pay for them all (max about $35 per item per time but you can get generic options which are cheaper). You go back every 6 months for a review. There are medical centres so theoretically you could wander into whichever you want but if you’re on several meds you probably want continuity of care. Doctor visits will cost you about $30-50 a pop (U.K. migrants seem to be fixated on getting a bulk billed doctor but most Aussies I know actually pay the co-pay which is what the system was designed for and you’ve got a better chance of continuity of care. Bulk billed means Medicare pays for the appointment in full but all depending on where you are, bulk billing docs can be harder to find). Remember, it’s not the NHS and is not designed to be used like the NHS.

Yes indeed. And dont forget M&S do a nice range of thermal underwear!!!!

Theyre letting him in apparently. Emotional blackmail obviously works!

Definitely odd. Probably got a tourist visa then all tourist travel was stopped I should imagine though he's not doing himself any favours by promoting the medical reasons for him moving, they could equally play against him in the visa medical. His family could go back and look after him though, no such bans in reverse

She will need to have a skill which is on the list of occupations that are required by the country. She isnt going to get much mileage just being the independent daughter of a citizen when she didnt emigrate with that citizen. She's basically on her own to get a visa in her own right.

I agree with you there. I wouldn’t be moving a kid after year 8 at the very latest. We were faced with the possibility of that at one point but our kids were at a school which did boarding so we were prepared to board them if we moved.

My advice - differs from yours. Moving a kid at the start of secondary is a good move, there's so much movement around that time that long established friendships are going to start splintering at that point anyway. People moving in the opposite direction never have the slightest compunction about moving a kid from UK at any age!

Not unusual, unfortunately and one of you will always be missing out on what you want out of your life - mixed marriages were ever thus. One thing to consider is whether, in fact, your Australian husband will be able to move with you to UK should you decide to leave. If he doesnt have a UK passport then he will need a visa and if he doesnt have UK ancestry, you could be dependent on a spouse visa which has a financial constraint (you have to be earning £18.5k or have 62k+ in savings - and that can be hard to prove. Mixed marriage here and after 32 years I was desperate to return but my Aussie husband said NO WAY, until he saw my elderly parents and said "we cant leave them here alone" and so in 2011 we didnt return to Aus from our UK holiday - not until March this year, that is. Best thing I ever did, I must say and the DH enjoyed it too! My only regret was that we didnt do it 20 years ago when we would have been able to build our careers there and probably wouldn't have had a family, split across the world (one son UK, one in Aus)

Can you afford first class? There may be seats and they’re less likely to boot you off.

In general, social workers dont work in schools though there are always places in child protection roles because of the high burn out rates. Non registered counsellors/therapists are very much the poor relation because they dont attract medicare funding if they offer private services and they are only likely to be offered counselling roles in not for profit organisations (low wages). I am not sure if social workers providing mental health support get medicare funding - I've been away for a while but I thought it was only psychologists who did (apart from doctors of course). I hear you about the stats but psychologist are ten a penny in Australia and, really, if you are competing in the same job arena as registered psychologists you are going to struggle. If you dont mind Child Protection then social work would be the way to go. However, in all the professions providing therapy you'd better brush up on your paperwork skills because they are integral to the role - accountability and all that - and in supervision it's one of the areas they are quite hot on monitoring. It's not about sitting around asking everyone how they're feeling and then going off and having a latte. As for studying in Australia, what visa have you got or will you be applying for? If you are not PR then you will have to pay eye waveringly high international student fees and then, as you say, in any of the registrable areas you are likely to have to go through long periods of intense supervision if you can find an employer who is able to provide you with that level of supervisory support.

Generally if you want to work in schools as a counsellor you will need to be registered as a psychologist. Counselling in schools involves a lot of psycho-educational assessment so you'd be wise to train as an educational psychologist in UK and a masters in Ed Psych would certainly help with AHPRA registration as a school Psych. The states all have different requirements for their school counselling services but generally an Ed Psych masters is going to be much more marketable and AFAIK in demand in most states too. It might help to know which state you are planning to go to and then you could research requirements for that state. If you want to do social work, then you'd need to be registered with AASW but social workers are not so common in schools (because they can't do the psycho educational assessments and schools always need someone who can whip off a quick WISC) I can recommend it as a career though!

So sorry to hear that it has come to this for you but I agree, the pace means it's more like ripping off the bandaid and that's good in the long run! I can't be of much help with the moving either other than you might like to get a quote from Seven Seas. We used them for a move cube from UK to Australia and they were excellent from our point of view. If you can late down your belongings a bit (like ditch the big furniture) then a move cube could be the way to go. Good luck! I'm sure you'll love being back where you belong with the folk you belong with!

The reciprocal agreement doesn't cover you for everything so that's be a risk you'd take if you relied on it - it's only for necessary medical intervention and you may find that elective procedures aren't covered although some folk do report that occasionally elective procedures have been covered. If you're a temporary resident then, yes, there are policies tailored to your needs and I guess they may cover repatriation which isn't an issue for permanent residents. Health insurance is expensive but you decide on your relative risk. People do rely on the reciprocal agreement, some win, some lose. We've just resumed private health insurance on our return as we wanted to keep our lower premiums despite our age. It is expensive but, having used it in the past, to my extreme benefit we decided to continue it, For us, choice of doctor, avoidance of waiting lists etc was very appealing.

I think you could be right - our last was $234 for the quarter and we have solar hot water and a wood fired heater. My son, on his own in the granny flat was $350 - he’s more of a “wear a jumper” kind of chap than he is a “put the heater on” - he has his daughters half of the week though and they enjoy looooong showers.

We havent quite got to the paint yet and the minor stuff will become major stuff in the next few weeks - as a guide a friend had about the same number of windows replaced in UK for £6k - I am expecting the bill for ours to be well in excess of that. Otherwise IKEA is much the same LOL

I’m finding groceries a bit higher, broadband lower, mobiles higher, health costs significantly higher, car Reg higher but insurances lower, car running costs - not sure yet. Clothing about the same, power lower (but we didn’t have solar or wood heating in U.K. - expect it will be higher with air con in summer) water higher, rates about the same. I pay everything on credit card and pay it off each month - average probably around the $6k mark (no mortgage/rent) but with some home improvements- bit more than it was in U.K. but not overwhelmingly so. It’s the groceries that made me gulp a bit. We don’t stint, never have, and generally get organic etc and we tend to only shop once a week now whereas we did more top ups in U.K. (keeping away from shops). Importantly LOL yarn a little bit more expensive but it’s getting better but I’m buying less because there’s fewer options locally

I do know how you feel - utterly useless! Hope you can get there and get home again! These COVID times have certainly made things much more difficult all round. I always used to say that there’s nothing that a passport and a credit card won’t solve but there are so many unknown parameters at the moment that makes everything ten times harder. I really do hope things go well for you all and that it’s a productive time - future planning when you get to my age (probably about your parents’ age) is tricky to address but needs to be done. Have you applied for your exemption yet?

Another thing to think about will be the route you take to UK - if you go via Singapore or HK then I don't think you have to quarantine for 2 weeks at the other end. I don't know if the Perth-London flight is going but that's ideal for avoiding quarantine.

I usually do the coin toss - if the first response when the coin lands one way is to say "best of 3" then I think you know the answer. Like @bunbury61 said I, too, think my only regret was the responsibility that hit me when I didn't go back from my holiday. That was tough at times but it's definitely not something I would change because the + outweighed the - for me.

So sorry to hear this is happening to you right now. On another board, someone was given an exemption quite quickly for a terminally ill parent. Last heard she was going to try and get a flight out but, like you, has no idea what the future will hold. My situation was different. My dad died inJune and we decided it would be silly to go just for a funeral. He’d been In a care home, mum died 3 years ago so I delegated my son who lives in uk to farewell him. I’m cool with that and I know dad wouldn’t have cared. I’m sad but realistically there was nothing I could have done to make things better. I guess my question is - do you have to go? Do you have siblings who could shoulder the load, can you afford (worst case) 6 months away and can you bear the cost of first or business class travel? What could you do when you’re there? Is it something that someone else could do? I really do understand that you want to go but you will have to be pragmatic about it both temporally and financially. Good luck!!!!

Dont think your residency is by any means automatic unfortunately and you never know what dirty tricks your ex is likely to play. Just having a child with an Australian citizen is no guarantee that you will be able to stay otherwise that would open a big pandora's box and everyone would be doing it. Lots of people in this situation have had to leave in the past so there is no telling, it will be up to the Minister to decide.

Probably not wise to make decisions like that in the wake of a nasty break up (or death or any other significant life changes, they reckon). I'd give that a bit of time to settle down and maybe (fingers crossed) for the world to get back to a bit more normality before you make your rational decision. That said, I found that once homesickness strikes it tends not to go away and it gnaws at your soul until you do something about it. For me, it just got worse and worse (32 yrs +) and was only alleviated by moving back and the nearly 9 years I just had in UK just reinforced, for me, that that was the place I wanted to be and where I belonged. I am now back in Aus (because that was the deal I made) and the homesickness is still there but my rational self knows that we are of an age where UK is not financially viable and my DH made a significant sacrifice in giving me the time there that he did. I can live with that I suppose but I have to actively work on the extraneous depression. If you are young enough to slot right back in and you have your Aus citizenship then what have you got to lose except money? If it works you win and if it doesnt then you move on. Time enough to settle when you're dead I reckon.

Good to hear that you finally got back but it definitely sucks about the house sale. Same thing happened to us but we were selling dad's house. Took another 3 months for us but we renegotiated with the same buyer and took a huge hit. Just as well we did because dad died the week after we completed otherwise we would have been in all sorts of trouble with selling as executors and paying for things whilst it was empty etc etc. Hope it all goes through.

Yes, very underrated!

So talking to an agent about the best way to go about that is going to be important!