Marisawright

The OP is living in Point Cook. That's so far out of Melbourne city, I wouldn't classify it as "city life". It does raise the question of why the OP is thinking of this as just a choice between Melbourne and Perth. What kind of work do you do, @davidtiffen? If Point Cook suits you, then I'm guessing you're not a big-city person and therefore I'd have thought (depending on what work you do) that you wojuld love a smaller regional centre, where you could have the Point Cook lifestyle. Have you considered Newcastle (NSW), fabulous beaches, wineries?

It sounds like you need to engage an agent, it's the only sure way to get the right advice. My gut feeling, as a non-expert, is that a training visa has more to do with the employer failing to meet the requirements, not you, so it shouldn't count against you. However, if you immediately apply for a tourist visa, you may get interrogated, because Immigration is bound to suspect you're trying to find back-door ways to stay in Australia and possibly continue working. That doesn't mean to say you won't get the visa, just that they'll scrutinise it more. As for appealing - the first step is to look at why it was rejected. You're not going to succeed with an appeal if the application wasn't strong enough or there were errors or omissions. Get an agent's opinion on whether the department's decision was fair and reasonable before investing money in an appeal. If your case was debatable, the only advantage of an appeal is that, presumably, you'll get a bridging visa which will allow you to stay in Australia while the appeal is considered. I have no idea what the conditions of that visa would be - another question to ask the agent.

Definitely worth investigating, but if the OP is in the UK, I'd say it could be hard to prove dependency, if the parents have access to the aged pension, benefits, council housing etc.

You're right, my mistake. But as you say, that just means 2 years wait instead of 4 before he can apply. To give an idea of how long they'll have to wait after that: Currently, people who applied in early 2015 have reached the head of the queue and are now being processed. There are still over 40,000 applications waiting in the queue. They only grant around 6,000 parent visas each year, so it will take seven years just for those applicants to be processed. Meanwhile, thousands of new applications are being added to the queue every year. By the time the OP's parents apply, who knows what the waiting time might be? That's assuming parent visas are still available by that time. That's why I said, he shouldn't make the decision to migrate assuming he'll be able to bring the parents eventually. It might turn out to be impossible, as it is in some other countries.

If you have an agent, why did you ask the question here?

I would say that if she's including you as a dependent on the 801 visa then you must still be able to show you are dependent. If you work then you are not dependent any more.

We used the Blue Mexican recently and they were amazingly good,but I don't know if they would do a Sydney/Newcastle move.

It’s impossible to say because you will not be able to apply until you have citizenship and that is at least 4 years in the future. The fees increase every year

If you aren't prepared to migrate without your parents, do not migrate, because the chances of them joining you are slim. It is already very difficult for parents to migrate. If your parents want to migrate without paying high fees, they will have a waiting time of about 30 years. If they (or you) can afford to pay tens of thousands of dollars, they can apply for a faster visa, where the waiting time is only about 8 years. But of course, they can't apply until you are a citizen, which will take you at least four years. So, if you migrate in a year's time, your parents won't be able to join you for at least 12 years. And that assumes the rules stay the same all that time, which is very very unlikely. The government has been making it steadily harder for parents and adult children to migrate in recent years, and most people expect that to get worse.

This is why I'm suggesting to ring up and ask. We didn't use a Movecube in the end, but I do remember that when we got a quote, we had a CHOICE of whether to include packaging or not. If you ask to include packaging, they deliver the boxes about a week in advance, but you can ask to have them dropped off as early as you like.

It's going to cause huge issues unfortunately, because the employer has broken the law in paying him below the legal limit and not giving him paid annual leave, which all permanent employees are entitled to. Unfortunately in this case, that impacts the employee as well as the employer because if the employer breached his obligations for the first visa, you'd question whether Immigration would approve a second one.

You'd be well advised to get a tax agent to do it for you. I've always done my tax myself but once I had an investment property, I used an agent. It's complicated and when you eventually sell, there's other calculations to do. You can claim the agent's fee as a tax deduction so it's not as painful as it sounds. Tax returns completed by agents are less likely to be questioned by the Tax Office, too.

Ii thought it depended whether you get off the boat or not.

There is no "supposed" about it. Whether you have life insurance is entirely up to you. Contact your current life insurance provider and ask them whether your British policy will be valid if you are living overseas (some are not). If they say it is valid, ask them to confirm that in writing (it would be horrible to need to claim on it and find out that some idiot in the call centre gave you wrong information). Obviously if it's not valid while residing overseas, then you'll definitely need to cancel it. Note that you will usually get life insurance as part of your superannuation while working in Australia, so maybe wait until you start work, and check out whether you feel the policy provided by the superannuation provider is sufficient (note: do your research and don't just accept the superannuation company your employer suggests, there are wide variations in performance).

Yes, but this would be someone going back to the UK late in life, with no Australian government pension and no British government pension either, so that money would be all they have to live on for the rest of their lives. It would be a different story if they had a government pension, even a part one, from one govt or the other.

It may not be obvious on the form, but you can always deduct expenses incurred in the earning of income.

You may HOPE to emigrate, but if you are initially going with your husband's employer, that is probably a temporary contract for only 2 to 4 years. At the end of that time, IF the rules don't change (they often do) and IF his employer is willing, you can APPLY for permanent residency, but it's certainly not guaranteed and a lot of people don't manage it. So it's recommended that you don't sell up in the UK (rent your home out instead) and assume you will be going home at the end of the contract. Then if you do manage to get PR, it's a bonus - and if you don't, you haven't burnt your bridges.

Ring them and ask them, or check your paperwork. If there were any boxes included in the price, it should say so

Anyone who has to rely entirely on the government pension, whether in Australia or the UK, probably can't afford to change countries anyway. But a reminder that some people would rather be skint than clinically depressed. And for some people, living in a foreign country makes them clinically depressed (it's called exogenous depression). The only cure is to go home. When replying to people who're contemplating a return, I always try to assess whether they're just having a "grass is greener" moment, or whether they're one of those people who will always feel like a piece of themselves is missing until they're back on home soil (and I'm surprised how common such people are, and how they often don't realise it themselves until they've been overseas a while and the feeling of adventure wears off).

If you are planning to move back to the UK to retire, and you are planning to leave before you're receiving the Australian aged pension, then I'd say that's not enough. The UK pension isn't much and you won't be able to get the Australian one. If you're thinking of retiring to one of the European countries that lets you claim the Australian pension then I'd say you'll be fine.

There are always risks in flying a pet long distance, adn then she'll be isolated in quarantine for a period which will be stressful for her. Best plan is to discuss it with Pet Air, they have vets on staff and are very knowledgeable. However the question is, how long is your contract for? Hundreds of people take their dogs with them when they migrate permanently, but it's another thing to do it and then have to subject them to the same journey a couple of years later. What kind of visa are you coming on?

There are expert pet shipping companies who can do this for you. It's really not worth trying to do it yourself. You usually need a long lead time to get their rabies shots etc. If you're going with a job offer then your visa just a temporary one and will come through quickly, in which case your dog might not be ready in time to travel with you.

It's academic how it transpired really, what they need to do is focus on how to rectify it.

Of course, agencies will claim they can get you more money back. And people who used them might think they got more money back, but how do they know how much they could've got on their own? The only thing an agency can do is spot some tax deductions you might have missed. However, for most people, the number of available deductions is very limited, so that's very unlikely to make much difference.

I'm not an expert, but it seems to me that if you're no longer working for the first employer, then you could be accused of fraud for failing to notify immigration that you'd left that employer. You are now working for your new employer illegally because you do not have a visa that allows you to work for that employer. So in theory, the worst that could happen is that you get deported and banned. It seems incredible that a government department could get it so wrong, so perhaps there is more to the story than appears from what you've said.