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Marisawright

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Everything posted by Marisawright

  1. Marisawright
    You are definitely not guaranteed a 12 month RRV, it's entirely up to the discretion of the immigration official, so don't bank on it. You had 5 years to move to Australia, and Immigration takes the view that that was plenty of time. To get an RRV, you have to convince them you deserve an extension of time. That means showing you had compelling reasons that prevented you making the move. The most common reason might be something like having to stay in the UK to look after a sick family member. Staying in the UK so your child could complete their schooling, or because of a job, wouldn't be considered a good enough reason, (because there are schools and jobs in Australia too!). If you don't have compelling reasons that prevented you moving, then you need to demonstrate strong ties with Australia, e.g. most of your family already lives there, or you own a home in Australia.
  2. Marisawright
    Are you on a working holiday visa? I do hope you've managed to see a bit more of Australia in your 10 months!
  3. Marisawright
    If your son needs a TAFE, maybe the first step is to check where courses would be available: http://www.fulltimecourses.tafe.wa.edu.au/courses http://www.dtwd.wa.gov.au/sites/default/files/uploads/TAFE colleges and campus locations.pdf
  4. Marisawright
    Have you been to Melbourne? Brits expect it to be smaller because the population is smaller. However, because the streets are so wide and so much of the suburbs are houses, that smaller number of people sprawls over a huge area. The density of London is 1,500 people per square km. The density of Melbourne is 450 per square km.
  5. Marisawright
    Thirty minutes commute isn't "around" Melbourne, it's IN Melbourne! At that distance, you'll still be in the inner-city suburbs. That part of Melbourne has lots of wide streets lined with trees, and a few parks, but you'll be in no doubt you're in the middle of a city.
  6. Marisawright
    It depends what you're trying to achieve. If you're contemplating moving to Darwin, then I'd strongly recommend visiting in February or March. That's the worst of the wet season. It's very hot, very humid, torrential rain, everything in the house gets mouldy. If you come during the dry season, you'll be thrilled with the weather and will close your mind to the six months of the year when the weather is s***. Much better to face up to the wet season and make sure you can handle it. You''ll have the rest of your life to enjoy the beautiful winters if you do move there. Remember that January is our long summer break - like July/August in the UK - so not much is happening on the job front in the run-up to Christmas or during January.
  7. Marisawright
    Nope, the winter (dry season) is absolutely glorious, warm sunny days and clear skies.
  8. Marisawright
    Yes, but I do not live in Queensland.
  9. Marisawright
    My husband is an IT professional. Which places in South is good. I will have a look at it. Thank you for the insight. I am extremely scared of snakes eeww. I can't stand it hehe. I don't think you should worry about snakes. I have lived in Australia for over 30 years and I have only seen three snakes. Two were out in the countryside. The only one I saw in a town was in Noosa, in Queensland.
  10. Marisawright
    Yes very true all we want is somewhere nice and sunny. We seen the sun about 2 weeks ago for one day and very briefly haha. I grew up in India but after being here for about 15 years I got acclimatised to cold weather maybe I will turn back to hot weather again. How long does the hot humid days last over there? Is it only during summer? Also if we air-condition our house would that help? Thank you x Yes, it's only during summer. Again, it depends on your own reaction to heat. calNgary says it's only bad for a few days. Personally, I find the heat and humidity in Queensland unpleasant from December to March. Frankly, if you are worried about snakes, creepy crawlies and heat, then you should consider another state. The further south in Australia you go, the less snakes there are, the less creepy crawlies there are, and the less humidity there is. Yet compared to the UK, the summers are warm and sunny. What kind of jobs are you looking for?
  11. Marisawright
    Thank you so much and it did helped me a lot to understand better. Sounds like we need to look for properties near the coastal areas and I will bring my winter clothes too thank you for the advice. Need to do some research on kids school too. Too many things to sort out haha x You'll notice that not everyone agrees with calNgary. Everyone feels differently about the heat. I don't think you should worry so much about the children because children adapt much better than grown-ups. However the grown-ups might be like calNgary, or they might be like TazG. I used to live in Sydney. Like your friends in Sydney, I could never, ever move to Queensland because I can't cope in the summer. It's not the heat, it's the high humidity, which makes a hot day feel unbearable. But that is me - some people enjoy that heat. If you have a choice of where to go in Australia and you just want somewhere that's "nice and sunny"- everywhere in Australia is "nice and sunny" compared to the UK.
  12. Marisawright
    And I hope you don't misunderstand me - I don't begrudge any parent wanting to come to Australia. This debate started because someone made a hopeful post about the Australian government reducing the cost one day - and I was only explaining why I think there's a snowball's chance in hell of that happening. I agree with you, I think having to pay a levy makes people more aware, but I'm not sure what the right level should be. Should it be high enough to actually pay for the service? I wonder if a lower levy would just make people feel even more entitled. For instance, my cousin (in the UK) was furious when the pension age went up and she had to wait another year to qualify for the pension. Her argument was, "I paid my NI contributions all my working life, I paid for that pension!". The thing is, if you work out her 30 years' worth of NI contributions and then work out how much she'll get in pension over the 20 years she may live, it falls far short - even taking into account compound interest. She didn't pay for that pension, she paid for a tiny part of it. The rest has to come out of taxes, and taxes, as you point out, have to pay for the NHS, infrastructure, etc etc.
  13. Marisawright
    You can apply as soon as you are eligible and no one needs an agent to apply for citizenship.
  14. Marisawright
    Well yes, exactly - but as you point out yourself, a born and bred Aussie will have paid taxes and the Medicare levy all their working life, so that's why they require migrant parents to contribute an equivalent sum. I was thinking about the earlier discussion and you have a point, to be fair they should consider the whole family unit and their costs to the country (not having to pay for the son's or daughter's education, for instance), but that would make the whole process even more convoluted, and I wonder if it would be practical. As for paying extra into the NHS - do you mean the NHS or NI?
  15. Marisawright
    I've just been out walking with my University of the Third Age group. Not one of us taking lead unpaid roles within society, we're all too busy taking a well-earned rest in our retirement. Actually, I don't think there is anything wrong with being a drain on society in my third age - I've earned the right through having paid my taxes throughout my life.
  16. Marisawright
    Well, that would include me, too! I don't see why anyone should get offended about something that's a straight statement of fact. We work all our lives and pay taxes to support the welfare system, then when we get old, we draw out of that system - because we've earned the right to do so. That's how it works in both Australia and the UK. That's fine when you're staying in the same system throughout, because that's how it's supposed to work. What we're talking about here is when you leave the system, and move to someone else's system which you've never contributed to. Like you say, that's why you have to pay the contribution. And that's why I was saying, I can't imagine the Australian government reducing it.
  17. Marisawright
    Yes, I think you did. I didn't say they'd be entitled to aged care immediately, did I? And they are entitled to treatment under Medicare as soon as they arrive, and those costs to the taxpayer can be high.
  18. Marisawright
    I don't think I suggested parents were entitled to benefits immediately. I was replying to someone who was saying that the cost of the visa was unfair. They were also suggesting that Australia might address that unfairness and make it easier for UK parents to move to Australia, given the close relationship between the two countries.
  19. Marisawright
    I think that's a big assumption. For instance, it was recently announced that UK citizens living in Europe won't be able to hop back to the UK to receive medical treatment, as they do now. If a UK citizen has been living abroad and is no longer resident in the UK, they already have to serve a waiting period to establish residency, before they can receive benefits in the UK. It's not clear whether they'll have to establish residency to get medical care under this new rule - I'm assuming not, but that might be the next step. Besides, that's not the point. The Australian government can't insist that a UK citizen goes back to the UK if they start to need high-cost medical treatment or other support, can they? An older person moving to Australia can't possibly contribute enough in tax to make up for the likely costs of medical treatment and aged care in their old age. If there were equal numbers of older people flowing in both directions, governments would probably say, fair's fair - but the flow is generally out of the UK into Australia, so the Australian taxpayer is picking up the tab. That's why parent visas are so expensive, to recoup that cost.
  20. Marisawright
    ...which is something I really struggle to understand. I can understand people fancying a new adventure - but it 's not a better country, just different, so I wonder why people with families are willing to invest so many thousands of dollars in getting here!
  21. Marisawright
    Yes, only conjecture - and I'm absolutely sure that it's not supposed to work like that. It certainly wouldn't be official policy, and anyone caught doing it would be ticked off. I'm just saying that you're dealing with human beings, not automatons, and they're going to behave like human beings. After 30 years of supervising office workers, it's the kind of behaviour I've seen time and time again, so I doubt department officials would be any different. However it's not going to be noticeable to the outside world unless the department is snowed under, that's when people start making those kind of choices.
  22. Marisawright
    I think it's inevitable that it does make a difference. Let's face it, if you were in their shoes, wouldn't you do the same? You're ploughing through hundreds of applications, a lot of which will have mistakes and hiccups in them. It's nearly time to go home and you've got a pile of applications on your desk. One of them bears the name of a good agent, one whom you know always does a great job. You could pick up the next application in the queue, but you might get bogged down and miss your train - or you could pick up the one from that agent, which you can process quickly and get home in time for dinner. That's one aspect. The other is that when we know a document is from a source we already trust, we're more likely to take it at face value. That's human nature. So they're less likely to query information on an application from a trusted agent, so they get processed quicker.
  23. Marisawright
    Personally, I feel much safer walking around Melbourne CBD at night than I did in Sydney - but I can't speak for Brisbane. I also feel very comfortable using Melbourne trams at night, because the tram stops are all on main roads so you're not having to walk down side streets to get to stations, or waiting on a platform. Melbourne people seem to be real night owls, too, so there's always people around. I agree, the newspapers love to scare people. They know sensationalist stuff sells papers.
  24. Marisawright
    There's a lot of publicity right now about African gangs in Melbourne. Most of the trouble is in the outer suburbs to the north. I'm sure you're aware that things like burglaries and home invasions can happen in any city, and in fact wealthy suburbs can be a bigger target sometimes (because there's more to nick). On a normal news day, they go unreported because of that - but with all this talk of the African gangs, the newspapers are reporting every single incident, so it looks worse than it is. Personally, I'd say no major city is safe for a woman to wander around the streets late at night! The good thing with Melbourne is that trams and buses run very late, and some all night - and I feel they're pretty safe. I wouldn't be so keen on the train, because the stations are sometimes away from the main road. https://www.bobinoz.com/blog/21582/crime-statistics-in-australia-finding-safe-suburbs/ You also have to remember that suburbs change over time. Melbourne house prices have shot up in recent years and that is pushing people out of the centre, into the next ring of suburbs. Because of that, they're rapidly being gentrified. Someone who lived in Melbourne 10 or 15 years ago would think of Collingwood as being really rough, but they would be surprised what it's like now.
  25. Marisawright
    I'd say two years is not enough. There are a lot of hidden costs in migrating - you've got to give away your current furniture, or sell it for peanuts (or perhaps put it in storage, which is an extra cost), then when you get to Australia you've got the cost of replacing the lot (you won't find a furnished rental flat, you'll have to provide all your own stuff). I was surprised how much it cost just to replace pots and pans, bed linen, and all the other little stuff! Alternatively, you could ship it all over - which costs a few thousand, of course. Then when you come back, you'll have to do it all in reverse. To get your money's worth, I'd be aiming for a bit longer.
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